Cubs Claim Phillip Ervin

[Cubswin11]

Still only 27/28 and handles lefties well, career .277/.352/.459 113 wRC+ vs them. Not a bad caddy to pair with Heyward. 40-man is at 37 now. I like this move quite a bit building out the OF depth and working on the LHP hitting issues.

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Cubswin11

[Post Count Padder]

I had hoped they would pick him up earlier this year. Not a bad bench bat/4th OFer. (And he'll probably be waived before March)

[Cubswin11]

I had hoped they would pick him up earlier this year. Not a bad bench bat/4th OFer. (And he'll probably be waived before March)

Unless he gets hurt I like he has a great chance of making the opening day roster, given our LHP hitting issues and especially because Heyward/Happ need to have some RHH options to play over them. You go with a pretty strict Heyward/Irvin platoon and you’re probably looking at 115-120 wRC+ out of RF.

Edited December 22, 2020 by Cubswin11

[Bertz]

In addition to hitting lefties well, defensive stats seem to paint him as a roughly average CF. I'm very happy to get him free over waivers, I wouldn't have hated trading a little bit for him. Hopefully he's the fifth outfielder rather than the fourth, but really can't complain about him on his own.

[Cubswin11]

Pairing Ervin in LF (if he’s not the Heyward caddy) with Rosario or Reddick makes some sense to me. Reddick should be cheaper and you can cobble together a productive unit out there. Grossman, Reddick or Rosario, Pillar for a CF/RF platoon role/bench contact bat and a 2B option like Profar (who also can move around and gives the roster flexibility) would be a pretty solid offseason for the offense and shouldn’t cost THAT much. Reddick and Pillar probably only require a 1 year deal (2 if they want to smooth out the AAV), idk what Grossman takes (don’t think a lot but maybe 3 years), Profar and Rosario probably take $6-10 mil AAV over a few years but won’t be that costly.