There’s still a lot of uncertainty surrounding when Willson Contreras might return to the Cubs from the hamstring injury he suffered Saturday, but here’s the initial report:
Four weeks.
That’s a lot of time. Not as much as it could’ve been, but still quite a bit. It implies Contreras will be out until Labor Day, missing 25 games in total. 15 of those 25 figure to be against playoff contenders (I’m counting the Mets, Phillies, and Giants as two combined contenders), with the toughest opponents the A’s and the Nationals (though playing the Phillies, Reds, or Mets on the road might actually be more challenging for this particular Cubs team, given its struggles away from Wrigley).
In other words, the schedule could line up worse. The Cubs could have had to play the Dodgers in the next month, or the Astros. Still, it obviously hurts to not have Contreras for those 25 games.
But how much?
Contreras’ impact has some intrinsic features that are hard to quantify. He’s been referred to (I’m paraphrasing here) as the sparkplug for the Cubs’ energy-wise, and his presence deep in the lineup certainly affects game-planning when it comes to facing the heart of the Cubs’ order. As a catcher, he’s likely involved to an extent in the Cubs’ own game-planning. But over 25 games, the cumulative effect of these things should be marginal. Much more notable is what the Cubs will miss offensively and defensively.
Defensively, the Cubs are actually mildly upgrading, at least according to statisticians’ current best estimates of catchers’ defensive value. Contreras rates out, according to FanGraphs, as 1.6 runs below average defensively this season, whereas Victor Caratini has contributed about 2.3 runs more than an average catcher, with Caratini catching a third as many innings as Contreras thus far. With current backup Taylor Davis a relatively unmeasured backstop (0.3 runs below average over a so-small-it’s-meaningless sample size of 43 innings), it’s hard to put a specific projection on what the Cubs will get defensively. There are also the dueling factors of throwing out runners and receiving pitches—Contreras excels at the former and is working to improve at the latter. But the best guess, assuming Davis is league-average defensively, is that the Cubs figure to gain about half a run defensively, a nearly negligible total.
Offensively, the Cubs will miss a lot. Contreras is having a career-best season at the plate, with a 129 wRC+ through yesterday. Caratini is also having a career-best year, but his is more out of line with his career averages and comes via a smaller sample size, making its sustainability more doubtful. Assuming Contreras would have been a 129 wRC+ hitter over this upcoming stretch, and assuming Caratini will post a 97 wRC+ (halfway between his season-to-date total and his career figure), and further assuming Davis will match the 65 wRC+ that’s his career average, the Cubs’ lineup effectively loses a 121 wRC+ hitter and replaces it with an 89: roughly equivalent to dropping from Javy Báez’s offensive production this year to that of Robel Garcia or Addison Russell. Over 25 games, that translates to about three fewer runs being scored, on average, in a vacuum.
Assuming the intrinsic loss wipes out that small projected defensive improvement, 25 games without Contreras should cost the Cubs nearly half a win. It isn’t an incredibly large total, but over 25 games it’s significant. Effectively, it means that rather than the roughly 90-win team FanGraphs suggests the Cubs are in a vacuum, they’ll be an 87-win-in-a-vacuum team over these next four weeks. The Cubs will be handicapped, as many teams are, and a lot of pressure will specifically be on Caratini and Davis to not only produce, but also stay healthy.
The Cubs might be fine. They already won their first Contreras-less game of the stretch. But in a tight playoff race, the impact of which the Cubs seem particularly susceptible to feeling should they make October (given how exhausted they made clear they were following a grueling division race last year), three projected runs aren’t nothing.
