Looking ahead with Jed Hoyer to the 2022 Chicago Cubs
Frank Schwindel
A waiver claim selected out of the Oakland system in mid-July, Schwindel inherited the first base position when Anthony Rizzo was traded and immediately blossomed. He’s batting in the .330s with 11 home runs – he hit his 11th Friday afternoon – and has an OPS above 1.000.
He’s also begun to establish a cult following on the North Side. Chicago Cubs fans quickly work themselves into a lather pf anticipation over ‘Frank the Tank,’ and rhapsodize about turning Chicago into the ‘Schwindy City.’
None of that necessarily counts when it comes to impressing the front office. But the consistency of Schwindel’s performance might. He’s hit safely in 10 of the Cubs’ last 12 games, driving in 15 runs over that span.
His strikeout rate – below 20 percent—is unusually low for a relatively inexperienced slugger.
Of course, Schwindel’s inexperience is partly an illusion; he’s 29 and has been a minor league fixture since 2012. In fact, his Major League numbers are significantly better than his minor league numbers.
The fact that Schwindel has built his reputation and his following on fewer than 150 plate appearances is a legit reason for concern. At the same time, his performance over the final two months has been steady enough that he appears worthy of taking a gamble on.
Here’s the bottom line: The Chicago Cubs should build their plans for 2022 around the idea that Schwindel is a keeper and a future regular at first base.
Ian Happ
Happ’s status will be Hoyer’s trickiest winter question. Either way Hoyer goes, he’ll be subject to second-guessing.
Happ is a second-year arbitration-eligible. If the Chicago Cubs keep him, they can expect to pay him about double the $4.1 million he earned in 2021. Hoyer could also choose to release Happ and move forward from him, much as they did with Kyle Schwarber just last season.
The decision on Happ is compounded by the inconsistent nature of his performance. He’s spent most of the summer with a batting average under .200 and producing pitiful OPSs in the range of .600.
Yet since the trade of most of his fellow regulars, Happ’s performance has transformed. He’s batting .331 since August 1, having hit more than half his season total of 21 home runs just the past five weeks.
That up-and-down pattern fits Happ’s pattern. In 2020, he was batting .315 in early September before going 13-for-72 over the final games. One season earlier he was under .210 in early September, but finished 17-for-43 to raise his final average to a respectable .264.
Regarding 2021, one possibility is that his recent performance improvement is driven by the departure of so many of his former teammates, elevating his role as a team leader. It may have forced him to mature.
If you buy that speculation, then Happ could be a good bet as a full-time left fielder next year. But if not – if all one can really expect of Happ is a continuation of the inconsistency he’s always shown – then Hoyer’s best option may be to cut him loose.
Patrick Wisdom
If Hoyer wants to alienate the base of Cub fandom this winter, he’ll release Wisdom or keep him only as a minimally paid filler player.
Yet those may be his best, most logical options.
Through the team’s dark days of mid-June through July, Wisdom was the unlikely star of the disappointing lineup. From June 14 through July 31, the Chicago Cubs went 13-28, bad enough to send Hoyer into full teardown mode. Wisdom, salvaged as a free agent the previous winter, was the offensive exception, producing a credible .247/.320/.478 slash line during that period.
Since Aug. 1, however, Wisdom’s performance line has come back to earth. In nearly 140 plate appearances since then, he’s batted under .200 with a 43 percent strikeout rate.
All that suggests Wisdom’s impressive first half may have been one of those fleeting moments in a journeyman’s career rather than an indicator of his true potential.
In September, he’s homerless in 38 plate appearances with just three base hits, amounting to an .088 average.
Wisdom isn’t arbitration-eligible until 2024, so he’s a cheap keep for Hoyer this winter. At the same time, it should not come as a surprise if Hoyer devotes at least part of that extensive unallocated team budget to finding a new third baseman, consigning Wisdom to competing for backup duty…much as he’s always done.
Rafael Ortega
Like Schwindel and Wisdom, Ortega is a 30-something career minor leaguer who unexpectedly found himself with a major league opportunity when Hoyer decimated the team’s previous roster.
Promoted in mid-May and gradually eased into outfield duty as injuries and trades did in the team’s regular cast, Ortega is batting .292 with an intriguing .341 on base percentage as the team’s leadoff hitter since Aug. 1. Despite a reputation as light on power, he’s also produced six home runs and a decent .496 slugging average.
That level of performance virtually guarantees that the Chicago Cubs, envisioning Ortega as a viable center field option for at least the near term, will try to negotiate a deal for him or, if that fails, take their chances at arbitration.
Either way, it’s a good bet that Ortega will be the team’s starting center fielder and leadoff man next spring.
The longer term is less clear. Ortega’s security is most threatened by the potential of Pete Crow-Armstrong, a young outfielder the Cubs got from the Mets in the Javier Baez deal. Crow-Armstrong is rated as the No. 5 prospect in the team’s system.
His development, however, has been slowed by a May shoulder injury that has shelved him for all of 2021. That injury virtually ensures that Crow-Armstrong won’t see a major league uniform in 2022 – clearing Ortega’s path for the next year — although beyond that all bets are off.
David Bote
Last year, the Chicago Cubs committed to Bote through 2026, buying out all his arbitration-eligible seasons plus his first two seasons of potential free agency.
At the time it was envisioned as a security-blanket kind of move in the event Kris Bryant was either traded away or departed via free agency. Bote, like Bryant, is basically a third baseman.
In the interim, though, Bote has failed to produce reliable offense while playing either third or second. In July the Cubs acquired Nick Madrigal from the crosstown White Sox to play second base in 2022, limiting the options with Bote.
As long as he’s testing the limits of the Mendoza line, those options are already limited. Bote’s batting .197 this season, that following on the heels of a .200 2020. His career .390 slugging average isn’t especially impressive for a purported power guy.
You can try to make the argument that Bote has been hitting in bad luck. His 21 percent strikeout rate is acceptable for a power hitter and on the good side of the major league average. His average exit velocity, in the 96th percentile, lends further credence to the idea that Bote is a guy whose luck will turn any moment now.
For the next few years, anyway, the Chicago Cubs don’t have a lot of options with Bote. They can keep him, cut him or trade him – not that .200 hitting sluggers are tradable — but whatever they do they owe him $2.5 million next year, climbing steadily to $7.6 million by 2026.
If anything, the likelihood of Bote losing his second base job to Madrigal next year—which forces him to third base – only increases the likelihood that the Cubs sever their tie to Wisdom.
Sergio Alcantara and Michael Hermosillo
Alcantara and Hermosillo are a couple of unheralded off-season pickups who got a chance as an offshoot of the trade deadline deals. Alcantara, a waiver wire pickup from the Tigers, has filled in for Javier Baez at shortstop while Hermosillo, a free agent signee, has seen time in the outfield.
At this stage, neither has done enough to solidify their status as anything more than spring camp invitees at most. Alcantara is batting just .213 with no power since Aug. 1. Under extreme circumstances, those numbers could be acceptable at shortstop. But the Chicago Cubs are expected to turn to Nico Hoerner at short next spring…unless, of course, they decide to take a plunge into the very deep free agent market at that position.
Neither approach is favorable to Alcantara.
Hermosillo simply hasn’t shown anything worth getting worked up about. Since emerging Aug. 17, he’s batting .194 with a low on base average. He has shown some power; three home runs and a .500 slugging average in that limited duty.
So the Cubs might be tempted to give Hermosillo an opportunity in spring camp. But given that they are contractually tied to Heyward in right and that Ortega looks set for the short term in center, Hermosillo’s best hope is that the team dumps Happ in November. If Happ stays, that’s a bad sign for Hermosillo’s playing prospects.
Adbert Alzolay
The Chicago Cubs’ rotation entering 2022 begins and ends with Kyle Hendricks. To the extent there’s a No. 2, it’s Alzolay, a 26-year-old in his first full season after tryouts in 2019 and 2020.
It’s been an up-and-down year for Alzolay. In 112 innings he’s allowed just 98 hits…but 24 of those 98 have left the yard. That’s about two blasts for every nine innings of work. That explains his 4.82 ERA, his 5-13 record, and the fact that he’s pitched into the sixth inning only six times.
Opponents are hitting .301 against his sinker, a pitch that has constituted more than a quarter of Alzolay’s entire arsenal in 2021.
But there are positive signs. His hit, walk and strikeout rates – 7.9, 2.6, and 9.2 per nine innings respectively – are somewhere between acceptable and good. His 1.161 WHIP is best among the numerous veterans and rookies who have made at least one start for the Cubs this season.
Beyond that, the average exit velocity of an Alzolay pitch ranks only in the 38th percentile.
If Alzolay can learn to get that sinker down and keep the ball in the park, he’s likely to mature into a reliable arm in 2022. That is not, however, negotiable; it has to happen for Alzolay to achieve the potential he – and the Chicago Cubs – believe he has.
Justin Steele, Adrian Sampson, Keegan Thompson
Steele and Thompson are career Cubs minor leaguers; Sampson is a journeyman auditioned by the Mariners and Rangers before signing with the Chicago Cubs this May. All three have been offered starting opportunities in the wake of the departures of Jon Lester, Jake Arrieta, and Trevor Williams.
None has to date shown evidence of being part of the solution in 2022.
Steele has made five starts, Thompson four, and Sampson two. The average Game Score of the three through those collective 11 starts is about 45, a few points below the major league average of 50. Sampson’s 1.10 WHIP is good, but Steele and Thompson are both creating baserunners at an unsustainable rate of 1.3 to 1.5 per inning of work.
The three are likely to get three or four opportunities each over the next three weeks to change the narrative.
But given that unimpressive collective performance to date, if Hoyer lays out winter plans that project any of the three for full-time starting duty, it will be a surprise. The more likely approach is that the projected rotation is fleshed out with trade pickups, free agents, or a rookie – think Brailyn Marquez – leaving Thompson, Steele, and Sampson either competing for leftovers or out in the cold altogether.
Alec Mills
The Chicago Cubs gave Mills a chance in 2021 to establish himself as a central part of their pitching plans going forward. He hasn’t done it.
Mills has made 16 starts, worked 101 innings, and given up 114 base hits, a dozen of them home runs. His 1.382 WHIP is nothing special, and his 97 ERA+ is below the 100 league average, although hardly a disgrace for a second-year pitcher.
The same could be said of his 6-6 record and 4.35 ERA.
Mills’ problem is that with his lack of velocity – his fastball sits at the 8th percentile among big league arms — he must be precise. A few pitchers can spot the ball well enough to survive with so-so stuff; Mills hasn’t shown himself to be that guy yet.
Opponents are hitting between .280 and .300 against his sinker, his four-seamer, and his changeup this season. Since those three pitchers comprise three-quarters of his repertoire, that’s a problem.
Since Mills isn’t yet arbitration-eligible, he’ll be around next spring. Whether he figures into the rotation or is competing for playing time depends on how aggressive Hoyer wants to be in the starter market this winter.
dark. Next. Wisdom's run for NL Rookie of the Year
The more aggressive Hoyer is, the more seriously he’ll be honoring his commitment to returning the Chicago Cubs to contender status in 2022…and the more problematic Mills’ status with the team will be.