What if the Cubs had kept star players from the 2020 season?

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With the Chicago Cubs comfortably ensconced in the National League’s relegation zone, it may be time to reflect on absent friends: specifically, the star players Jed Hoyer in recent years scattered to the wind. If those players were still with the Cubs today, how much better would the 2022 team be?

Wins Above Replacement helps answer questions like this. We can compare the performances of the departed stars and their current counterparts to get at least a rough sense of what might have been. In this post, all stats are from Fangraphs unless otherwise noted.

Marcus Stroman v. Yu Darvish

Stroman: 5.32 ERA, 4.20 FIP, 0.5 WAR
Darvish: 3.35 ERA, 3.39 FIP, 1.4 WAR
Difference: -0.9 WAR

The biggest signing of the offseason for the Cubs, Marcus Stroman’s heavy groundball approach and magnetic presence gave hope to fans looking for a light in the winter darkness. It hasn’t quite worked out that way. He struggled in April but then reeled off five good outings (three of which were quality starts) in May before the wheels came off on June 3 in a nine-run debacle against the Redbirds.

Stroman struggled early in the season with his location, but he’s also been the victim of some bad luck, as the yawning gap between his ERA and FIP indicates. Before he hit the IL with shoulder inflammation, his fastball velocity was down about a half MPH, but his slider velo was up. There may have been a yellow flag or two, but no red ones.

Stroman, Miley, Smyly … all guys with histories of shoulder or elbow trouble signed to fairly team-friendly contracts. It isn’t working out so far: that’s why they call it “gambling.”

Cubs, Yankees getting very different levels of offense at first base

Frank Schwindel vs. Anthony Rizzo

Schwindy: .239/.284.389, 86 wRC+, -0.1 WAR
Rizz: .218/.318/.471, 124 wRC+, 0.7 WAR
Difference: -0.8

I didn’t think Frank Schwindel would stick in The Show, and his early season performance seemed to be confirming that view, but he’s steadily improved since that awful April. He has a solid if uninspiring 103 wRC+ in June. He’s an easy guy to root for; I’m glad he’s on his way to proving me wrong.

It may surprise you to learn that none of that WAR difference is attributable to defense. Schwindel has one of the more maligned gloves east of the Mississippi, but Rizzo’s defense has deteriorated substantially with age. While Statacast doesn’t think much of either player defensively, Schwindel’s Outs Above Average is zero while Rizzo’s is -5.

Nico Hoerner vs. Javier Baez

Hoerner: .278/.304/.401, 94 wRC+, 1.3 WAR
Baez: .188/.232/.288, 47wRC+, -0.3 WAR
Difference: 1.6 WAR

Oh, Javy! Javier Baez is having, by most measures, not just the worst season of his major league career, but his worst as a professional ballplayer. His brief resurgence with the Mets is now a distant memory. And it isn’t because of strikeouts. His strikeout rate is 26.1 percent, the third-best of his career. It’s the power that’s gone MIA. His ISO of .103 is the fifth-worst among qualifying shortstops, not a position known for high throw-weight: banjo-hitting Elvis Andrus is just ahead of Baez with an ISO of .124.

Meanwhile Hoerner has quickly become a promising contributor, especially in his role as a magician in the field. Memo to Ed Howard: Consider the advantages of the keystone.

Patrick Wisdom vs. Kris Bryant

Wisdom: .225/.309/.459, 112 wRC+, 0.8 WAR
Bryant: .270/.342/.333, 81 WRC+, -0.3 WAR
Difference: 1.1 WAR

The Rockies made an unexpected decision when they signed Kris Bryant to gobs of filthy lucre, but then again the phrase “unexpected Rockies decision” must now be considered redundant. Bryant didn’t hesitate to disappoint, putting up the feeble slash line you see above before punching his ticket to the IL. And it could have been even worse: Bryant did all that non-damage with a .340 BABIP.

Wisdom, by contrast, continues to play the hits on his “I Got Yer On-Base Right Here” world tour. His defense has regressed, Fangraphs and Statcast agree, though some of that may be related to David Ross’ decision to deploy Wisdom all over the field. It’s quicker to list the positions at which Wizzy hasn’t started: catcher, second, short, and DH.

(Photo by Ethan Mito/Clarkson Creative/Getty Images) /

Cubs: They don’t miss the stars as much as you might think

Add it all up and the Cubs are actually 2.0 WAR ahead of where they would have been had Hoyer kept the band together. Projected over the season and you’re looking at something like five additional wins. This must inevitably come with an El car full of caveats. No one knows how the ex-Cubs would have performed if they had stayed at Addison and Clark, and the opportunity cost of foregoing the replacements could have been different as well.

It’s unlikely the Cubs’ front office forecast the offensive disappearances of Baez and Bryant, though Hoyer & Co. certainly have information about these players that we lack. It didn’t take a genius to see that Baez’ whiffly approach might bring his numbers crashing to Earth, but as noted above, that isn’t what happened: he’s failing for other reasons.

Maybe the biggest caveat applies to Yu Darvish, who is averaging better than six innings per start with an ERA a half run better than the MLB average. The presence of that kind of starting consistency would have alleviated pressure on the bullpen, probably leading to better run suppression overall.

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The Cubs and their fans certainly miss the players that Darvish, Rizzo, Baez, and Bryant were. But the team’s roster problems are sufficiently grave that the current version of these players would not have appreciably altered the team’s trajectory. For a team that’s currently 17 games under .500. those five or so wins just aren’t worth much.

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Cubs, Yankees getting very different levels of offense at first base

Cubs: They don’t miss the stars as much as you might think

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