Chicago Cubs News: Baez loves to swing, 5 bounceback candidates

The Chicago Cubs’ Javier Baez can carry the offense when things are going well. But when place discipline goes to hell, he becomes a burden on the offense. And we’ve got 5 players that need a bounce-back campaign in 2018.

The Chicago Cubs‘ Javier Baez is a unique player. His flair rubs some people the wrong way, especially when he’s swinging at everything that’s thrown up to the plate. In the 2016 NLCS, he shared MVP honors with Jon Lester. But in the Fall Classic, he struck out almost 42 percent of the time. Baez loves to swing, as he’s never met a pitch he didn’t like. But you have to take the good with the bad, dealing with his swings and misses while still enjoying his defense. He’s still young, and there are still holes in his game.

Last season, there were several Cubs that didn’t meet the expectations set for them. In some cases, those were set after just one good year in the league. Now, most of this was created by the fans and this belief that the Cubs were going to do it all again. But it doesn’t work that way. At least, it didn’t work for many of them. Almost every Cubs’ player had a down year compared to 2016, and we’d like to see them all improve. But we’ve got five that might need it more than others.

The Hot Stove season hasn’t heated up yet, but it’s going to. From Shohei Otani to Giancarlo Stanton, things should get a lot more exciting in the coming weeks. For the Cubs, the level isn’t going to reach that of a boil, unless Theo Epstein has something up his sleeve. Otherwise, the Cubs might simply have a “ho-hum” offseason and look to have some of these players see an improvement over last season.

These and other stories you might have missed:

‘Baez and his free-swinging tendencies bring value’ – Cubbies Crib

‘5 players that need a bounceback year in 2018’ – Cubbies Crib

‘8 Hot Stove storylines to look for’ – MLB.com

‘Fister agrees to deal with the Rangers’ – ESPN

#Cubs on Twitter

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