The Chicago Cubs acted like a large market team…and the Braves did not. SS Dansby Swanson heads to the North Side for $177M over 7 years, with a full no-trade clause. He was the last of the big free agents available this winter, and seemingly the only one not locked in past the age of 40. Cubs fans can now relax, feeling their team has made an effort to actually get better for 2023. Whether they actually are or not remains to be seen, and they still have to replace Wilson Contreras’ production at catcher…but hope over the offseason is all a fan can ask. The Cubs are providing their fans some hope whereas there are other teams that are not. (Just review my postmortem posts to see teams that are guilty of that.)
This past season he put up 5.7 WAR. It was his first all star season, and he was the NL Gold Glove winner at shortstop, but his performances in 2020 and 2021 give reason to think that this won’t prove to be a one-off outlier season. He needs to cut down on the strikeouts/accept a few more walks to reach his potential at the plate/be a more consistent offensive contributor. If he does, he will be a relative bargain compared to the other three high profile shortstop free agents (Turner, Bogaerts, Correa) this year.
Fan Interference 
And somewhere, Prof is weeping.
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