There was a while there where we allowed ourselves to imagine Bryce Harper becoming a Cub. Some did it more actively than others. Some didn’t want it, because, I don’t know, he wore his eye black weird? Dammit. I forgot about that line of humanity. We are all so strange.
Anyway, there was a chance of Bryce Harper becoming a Cub. It could have happened. Let’s talk through the what-if.
What Would Have Made It a Possibility
Harper was a free agent after the 2018 season, the season that ended with the Brewers flying past the Cubs and a frustrating-beyond-belief Wild Card Game in which the Cubs bats went deader than dead. The Cubs had won 95 games. The Cubs were a good team. There was a sense something was broken, but…the Cubs had won 95 games.
There are a few alternate histories that could have led, in this situation, to Tom Ricketts doing anything but what he did, which seems, in hindsight and at the time, to have been to green light the front office to spend twenty million dollars on Cole Hamels and to do precious little else. One is a history in which Ricketts said, “I want to win,” and looking at how strong the Dodgers were across the league, told the front office to do what it took to push the franchise that much further. The other two or three are less vague in scope.
Of the six highest-paid Cubs in 2019 (one of whom was Hamels), one was an outfielder who’d been worth just 4.1 total fWAR over the first three years of his contract. One was a starting pitcher who’d made only eight starts in his debut season in Chicago that year prior and amassed just 0.2 fWAR. One was a guy the Cubs had hoped to “unlock” but had suffered to a negative 0.4-fWAR mark in his first year on the North Side, after always being at least adequate in Colorado when healthy over parts of four prior seasons. The fifth—Jon Lester—had done his job. The sixth—Kris Bryant—was doing his job. The fourth—Hamels—had been acquired in a trade. But the context was poor: Even with Jason Heyward having a relatively good 2018, three of the four big Cubs free agency acquisitions currently on the roster had been worth a combined 1.9 wins the year before relative to a replacement-level player, and those three were set to be paid a combined $55 million, more than one quarter of the Cubs’ near-top-of-the-league payroll.
Had Heyward performed, Harper may not have been necessary. Had Yu Darvish or Tyler Chatwood performed, Ricketts may have been less hesitant to approve spending. But, concrete as these alternate histories might be numerically, they’re more complicated (the Cubs would have won the division in 2018 with a better Heyward, Darvish, or Chatwood), so let’s go with the scenario in which Ricketts, instead of saying, “Hey, Theo Epstein, you’re having a hard time getting value out of free agents,” had said, “Damn, the Dodgers are really good. Let’s go get a weapon. Let’s maximize this Bryant/Rizzo/Báez window we have here.”
How It Would Have Worked
It’s hard to say exactly who would have had to leave to make room for Harper. It could have been Heyward. It could have been Kyle Schwarber. It could have been Albert Almora Jr., or Ben Zobrist (who it ended up being anyway, through a sad twist). Given Heyward was rather evidently overpaid but still moderately productive, the Cubs may have had to pay to give him away. Given Schwarber was still coveted in certain corners and was still in the arbitration process, and therefore extremely affordable, the Cubs may have been able to get something young and of value for him. The same could have been true for Almora, who was yet to enter his steep downturn. Ian Happ could have been an option himself, though he ended up starting that year in AAA in that attempted reset (that actually might have worked rather well—Happ posted something like a 130 wRC+ over 2019 and 2020). It would have been complicated, but the Cubs would have made space somehow. After all, in this hypothetical world, they were willing to spend enough money to perpetually be under penalty from the luxury tax. They’d have found a space for Bryce Harper.
For our purposes, let’s say the Cubs gave Harper the 682 plate appearances the Phillies gave him by taking them away from a hypothetical Schwarber/Heyward/Almora/Zobrist/Happ hybrid, who, averaged by fWAR/PA extrapolated over 682 PA’s, would have been worth about 2.4 WAR.
What Would Have Happened
If you place Harper’s 2019 results in there instead of the 2.4-WAR player, the Cubs would have gotten 2.2 more fWAR. Harper notched a 4.6 in that mark that year. This might not have been enough to stave off the eventual collapse. The Cubs lost the division by seven games that year. They were also just two games back with eleven games to go. It’s hard to know how this would have gone. Maybe it would have worked. Maybe the Cubs would have saved Joe Maddon’s job. Maybe that wacky 2019 playoff field, in which the Nationals, with seemingly just five or six competent pitchers, took out the Dodgers and eventually the Astros as well, would have been open enough for the Cubs to make it happen. But also…maybe the Cubs wouldn’t have traded for Nick Castellanos. Maybe the Cubs would have still just not quite been good enough. Or maybe, as we saw with so many other Cubs in that era, Harper’s offensive production would have fallen flat. You can say for sure that Harper would not have taken Derek Holland deep to end that infamous game in Philadelphia they keep showing in commercials because they hate my soul. There’s not a lot more you can say than that.
In 2020, Harper could have been an asset too, of course. Maybe with Harper, the Cubs get past the Marlins. Maybe with Harper, the Cubs then get past Atlanta as well. Maybe with Harper, the Cubs are able to put the Dodgers down 3-1 (as Atlanta did), and then actually finish the job (as Atlanta didn’t). Harper would have likely made the Cubs better, but the question of how much better is a big one, and there’s also the possibility the Cubs would have made Harper worse.
There’s also the question of whether Harper’s contract would have induced even stronger payroll panic from Ricketts when the coronavirus came around. Ricketts was rather clearly terrified of lost revenue this past offseason. With Harper’s contract on the books and not letting up, would the post-2020 selloff have been even larger? Especially if no ring had been won in those first two years with him on the roster?
Yes, having the eventual 2021 Bryce Harper on this year’s Cubs team would have been nice. Maybe the Cubs could have been buyers. Maybe the mindset that led the Cubs to sign Harper in this hypothetical world would have led to extensions for Bryant, Rizzo, and Báez. At the very least, Harper would be a great piece around which to build, and the Cubs might have a farm system readier to make a major league impact. But looking at the numbers, it’s hard to think Harper would have made enough of a difference to significantly change the end of the Bryzzo years, and that’s without accounting for the Cubs’ struggles to get hitters Harper’s age (how is this man only 28) to reach their potential.
So, really, the thought experiment hammers home one thing. And that’s how little value the Cubs got these last three years from a big, big payroll,
***
Whom:
Cubs vs. Philadelphia
When:
6:05 PM Chicago Time
Where:
Citizens Bank Park (shouldn’t it be Citizens’ Bank?)
Weather:
Temperatures in the 80’s, wind blowing out at five to ten miles per hour.
Starting Pitchers:
Adrian Sampson vs. Kyle Gibson
The Opponent:
Gibson’s got a 3.79 FIP and a 3.80 xERA, and has been comparable in the FIP department since arriving in Philly from Texas. Good pitcher, not a great one right now.
The Phillies are a bit all over the place, surging and receding seemingly at random over recent weeks. They’re four and a half back in the NL East entering this set, but just two and a half back in that tight wild card race. Rhys Hoskins is on the 60-day IL, as is Zach Eflin. No one else out of too much note.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are +165 underdogs, with the Phillies at -200 for an implied Cubs win probability of about 35%. The over/under’s at 9½.
Cubs News:
I haven’t seen anything major.
Cubs Thoughts:
Hopefully it can be a good week for guys who could theoretically contribute next year. That’s always the best way things can go these days.
