This Cubs player is falling well short of expectations one month into the season

With the start to the season that the Chicago Cubs have had, it feels a bit odd to complain about any player not named Gage Workman, Justin Turner or Matt Shaw. However, there is definitely one other member of the club whose start to the 2025 campaign has been quite a bit less than what we hoped.

What’s more, the start to the campaign that Dansby Swanson has had is more than just frustrating. Considering how not great he was in 2024, it’s downright concerning.

Fresh off a 0-for-4 in Sunday's loss to the Philadelphia Philies, the Chicago Cubs' starting shortstop entered the off day on Monday boasting a minuscule 61 wRC+ coming off a 2024 where he posted a 99 wRC+ for the entire season. For those not aware of how to understand wRC+, 100 is average, and anything above is considered good.

In other words, Swanson was just below average last year and is even worse so far in 2025.

It’s not even that he’s struggling to get hits, because there have been plenty of times in his career when he’s started slow and then heated up once the weather gets going. It’s more how he’s struggling.

Swanson did open the year as one of the slugging Cubs who even if he didn’t get a ton of hits, when he did make contact, the ball tended to leave the park. However, that power has dried up. As of Monday morning, he’s boasting a near-career worst slugging of .345 that, should it last the season, will only be better than his .324 all the way back in 2017, his second year in the Bigs.

The real problem is that Swanson isn’t making contact of any kind lately. He’s currently 3rd in the NL in strikeouts with 38 while also not getting on base at all, thanks to 8 total walks, which comes out to an easily-career-worst .232 OBP.

All of this adds up to what Baseball Savant is currently reading as a -6 batting run value. 

The start is extra frustrating considering that a great deal of his struggles in 2024 were blamed on nagging injuries he didn’t have fixed until the offseason. It was expected he would bounce back and put together a better 2025.

That can, of course, still happen. But for now, Dansby Swanson is having the single most disappointing start to the season of any Chicago Cubs player.