Chicago Cubs: Will Anthony Iapoce bring in big-time star power?

Chicago Cubs: Bryant’s best friend? Makes sense to me.

Bryce Harper is also a really good hitter. His lifetime slash sits at .279/.388/.512.  He walks a ton (and is also getting better at it). He hits a bunch of doubles and home runs, too.  His lifetime ISO is .233 (a notch above the Cubs’ best power guy, Kris Bryant, who rests at .230 lifetime).

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And, while most critics and fans would say Harper had a down year, he did lead the league with 130 walks and still posted a .889 OPS.  If that’s his down year out of every three, it’s more than palatable. It seems as though Harper would be a good candidate to work with Iapoce and slot into the Cubs lineup as well.

So, which one would be better? Looking at the one number that Iapoce, the Cubs, and really, all of analytic baseball, seem to value most, OPS, it certainly seems one has a massive edge in the past and going forward.  Comparing Machado’s OPS and Harper’s OPS over the course of their careers so far gives you the picture that one is a really good hitter and one is an elite hitter.

Machado sits at .822 and Harper sits at .900; in other words, the .078 difference is about the same difference between Machado and Jason Heyward (lifetime .753). Yikes. We all love Heyward’s defense and his strides at the plate were somewhat promising in 2018, but man. Jason Heyward is not an elite hitter by any stretch of the imagination and that’s essentially the difference you’re talking about when you look at Harper vs. Machado offensively.