Cubs: The last word on the lack of Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Anthony Rizzo deals

The Chicago Cubs‘ offseason and spring training was filled with talk of extensions.  While one seemed obvious, it’s anyone’s guess what happens now.

Kris Bryant and 2020 Gold Glove winners Anthony Rizzo and Javier Baez all hit free agency at the end of this season.  The debate over how big – both in dollars and years –  has been dominated conversations for some time now. Let’s look at the numbers.

Anthony Rizzo was right. The Cubs are off by about $40 million and it’s laughable the front office didn’t see that.

Rizzo recently said he and the Cubs were about $40 million apart on the five-year, $70 million ($14 million AAV) offer the Cubs reportedly last made.  He’s right and we’ll look at three comparable third basemen, Freddy Freeman, Joey Votto and Paul Goldschmidt, to prove it.

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Age-wise, Rizzo and Freeman are both headed into their age-32 seasons and Goldschmidt into his age-34 season. Meanwhile, Votto is the elder statesman of the four, turning 38 later this year.

From 2013-2020: Rizzo has earned a 33.5 WAR, Freeman: 34.4, Votto: 33.2, Goldschmidt: 40.8.  Digging a little deeper, in OPS+ 2013-2020: Rizzo: 132, Freeman: 146, Votto: 144, Goldschmidt: 144. So while WAR is closely grouped, there’s a pretty big gap in OPS+ between Rizzo and the group.

In Win Probability Added (WPA). Since 2011 Rizzo has been worth 28.9 wins, Freeman since 2010: 31.4, Votto since 2007: 49.6, and Goldschmidt since 2011: 35.6.  That’s pretty even considering Rizzo’s two partial seasons in 2011-2012.

Defensively it’s a whole other story.  DRS, Defensive Runs Saved, is not the gospel on defense but it is still pretty solid.  All of these are as first basemen.  Rizzo: has been worth 77 runs saved, Freeman: 9, Votto: 57, Goldschmidt: 45.

And now for the crème de la crème of fielding stats: UZR-150. Rizzo 4.2, Freeman 0.9, Votto 2.0, Goldschmidt 1.6.

So, yeah, overall Rizzo is a better player than Freeman, much better defensively than Votto and Goldschmidt, and about equal in hitting with Votto but not quite and Goldschmidt takes the hitting crown of the four.

And that’s why Rizzo isn’t worth Votto’s or Goldschmidt’s $25- $26 million AAV but is worth significantly more than Freeman’s $17 million AAV.  Five years at a $21 million AAV comes to $105 million, right at the $40 million that Rizzo said the Cubs were short.  Oh, and Baez doesn’t win that Gold Glove without Rizzo vacuuming up all those throws at first.

Cubs: Javier Baez has a tremendous ceiling, but can be inconsistent

That defense, the tags, the range, the arm, it all came together in these past two seasons.  The career 3.1 UZR-150 and 48 DRS include his absolutely putrid 2014 and 2015 seasons.  Francisco Lindor rates a wicked career 11.1 UZR-150 but only 38 DRS.  Fernando Tatis, Jr, is still young and learning the craft so his -4.5 UZR-150 and -3 DRS will improve.  In fact, with that $340 million contract the Padres are banking on it.

Then there’s the baserunning. I’ve seen Rickey Henderson, Billy Hamilton, Tim Raines, and even the Cubs’ own Tony Campana wreak havoc on the bases. But no one does what Javy does. He lives in the heads of every pitcher, catcher, and defensive player on the field, and he does that all at the same time.  There is no metric for this kind of thing, but as we saw this past Saturday, it’s real.

It would be more real if he got on base more often.  The reason Baez isn’t getting Lindor or Tatis, Jr. money is the career .304 OBP and that murderous strikeout/walk ratio.  Baez has nearly as many Ks in three full seasons from 2017 to 2019 as Lindor has in his whole career.

One could argue that El Mago is better all around than $20 million AAV Xander Bogaerts.  But you could also argue that Baez is not as good as say, $13.750 million AAV Trevor Story, and he’s a free agent.  All three are 28 years old.  Would the Cubs give up some El Mago performance for the more steady output of a Trevor Story-type player?

With all three it’ll depend as much on the individual strengths and weaknesses as what direction the Cubs decide to go in after 2021.  The upper farm system is thin in all three spots and free agency isn’t attractive either.  Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer has some tough decisions ahead.