The Dansby Swanson Contract Looks Like Both a Mistake and an Error

[Matthew Trueblood]

Mistakes are slip-ups. When you make a mistake, you understood what you were trying to do, and the context in which you were trying to do it. You just flubbed it. Errors, on the other hand, are (by definition) about misunderstanding or being ignorant of something. They're distinct things. But sometimes, alas, something is both things at once.

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports

The Chicago Cubs signed Dansby Swanson for seven years and $177 million prior to the 2023 season. By that time, they had already watched Xander Bogaerts, Carlos Correa, and Trea Turner sign elsewhere, all for at least $100 million more than that. They targeted and courted Swanson, both because of his superb, fundamentally sound defense, and because they believed there was more in the tank for him at bat. While everyone understood that he wouldn't be as dynamic a player as the other elite shortstops in that free-agent class, the hope was that he was equal to them as a leader, a defender, and a brace for an overall contender.

It looks like they were wrong about Swanson, but more importantly, it looks like they were in the wrong mindset altogether when they chose to focus on him. Swanson turned 30 in February, and his defense--the linchpin of the argument for his value being commensurate with his salary, even in a vacuum--has taken a marked step back since roughly Aug. 1 of last year. He committed multiple key errors down the stretch last season, and that trend has continued this year, but just as telling are the tough plays he's only almost made over that span.

We can also use Aug. 1 as a dividing line when it comes to Swanson's bat. Since that date, in 399 plate appearances, Swanson is hitting .212/.288/.369. Even if he were playing elite defense at short, that would be underwhelming, but since he isn't, it's downright damaging. This team is reliant on Swanson, and he's not giving them anywhere near what they need. To get hurt by Swanson, right now, you have to make a glaring and easily avoidable mistake: throw him something on the inner half, above the thigh.

Swanson had 405 plate appearances through the end of last July, so if we take his 2023 season to that point and compare it to his performance in August, September, and the first two months of this year, we have his Cubs tenure cut almost perfectly in half. He's gotten just slightly worse in terms of strikeout and walk rates in the second timeframe, and his overall average exit velocity and launch angles look similar. However, through the end of last July, his exit velocity on batted balls between 10 and 35 degrees off the bat was 96.7 miles per hour. Since then, it's 93.4. He's lost the ability to drive the ball in the launch-angle band where hits happen, and as a result, both his power and his BABIP have cratered.

To be sure, what Swanson is giving the Cubs is preferable to what Javier Báez is giving the Tigers right now. He's been bad at the plate, but not nearly as bad as Báez, or as the Cubs' own catching corps. It's more underachievement than outright disaster, taken at face value.

When you widen the lens, though, you see the greater problem. The Cubs signed Swanson instead of one of the shortstops whom everyone knew would provide greater offensive punch. The only premise that made that a viable strategy was that they would surround him with better hitters than other teams would surround their more dangerous two-way shortstops with. Then, the team simply failed to do that. We know they had various levels of interest in high-end hitters over this past winter, but they didn't act boldly enough to land any of them.

Instead, they came into this season leaning on the hope of a repeat performance from Cody Bellinger; linear, positive development from Nico Hoerner, Christopher Morel, and Ian Happ; and nailing the instruction and matriculation of one or more rookie bats. Either that, or they needed Swanson to be a whole lot better at the plate than he was during the most important months of their 2023 season. Even if he were consistently hitting like the player he was early last year, the team wouldn't be a good offense. They'd just be less bad.

He hasn't been, and it was never fair to expect him to be. It's more fair to wonder why his defense is suddenly more average than awesome, and again, it looks like the franchise might have been overconfident in their assessment of his potential to age well at the most demanding defensive position outside of catcher, but that problem pales in comparison to the fact that they need Swanson to hit like a good team's fifth or sixth hitter, when he's only rarely demonstrated the ability to do that at any point in his career. The Cubs organization believes, persistently, that it can turn straw into gold when it comes to hitters. There is absolutely no empirical support for that self-belief.

Paying Swanson what they did only made sense as part of a broader plan to spend a whole lot of money in 2024, and throughout the second half of this decade. It now looks like they never had such a plan. Given that seeming reality, signing Swanson was a mistake, but also a grievous error. They set themselves and their $177-million man up for failure, and unless they're about to hire the Dodgers' hitting infrastructure away or pay very handsomely for the likes of Juan Soto and/or Pete Alonso this winter, failure is going to continue to come their way.

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[chopsx9]

I think the difference between Baez and Swanson is a little closer than you think or at least near enough to not really matter.  The comparison occurred to me last night watching Swanson flail away.  Baez has at least shown some signs of life recently, 12 for 36 over the last week and a half or so.  Of course that comes without a single walk in over a month. LOL.  But not the comparison you want to be meaningful in any case.

[squally1313]

18 minutes ago, chopsx9 said:

I think the difference between Baez and Swanson is a little closer than you think or at least near enough to not really matter.  The comparison occurred to me last night watching Swanson flail away.  Baez has at least shown some signs of life recently, 12 for 36 over the last week and a half or so.  Of course that comes without a single walk in over a month. LOL.  But not the comparison you want to be meaningful in any case.

Since Swanson signed his contract he has been 13x more valuable than Baez, so, no. 

[Transmogrified Tiger]

My learning from the Swanson contract so far would be:

1. Elite defense that isn't built on elite tools/physicality is going to be more prone to slumps with age.  I suspect that's what we're seeing with Swanson now and he'll look very similar to last summer before long.  Especially given the injury this year.  That injury and the issues with last September tie into the other learning..

2. Don't place extra value on iron men in making big acquisitions.  One of the things that added value for Swanson in my view was his ability to play every day, especially at a position where the backup is likely very deficient on one side of the ball.  I think the modern game is basically choking that out of players, and it's definitely doing that for guys whose ages begin with 3.

Neither of those concerns/learnings rises to regretting the contract though.  If the defense truly doesn't turn and/or he doesn't have a hot streak to buoy his season line we can revisit by season's end, but I'm not gonna let a couple weeks at the end of 2023 and 40 games in 2024 when he's battled injury be the assumed norm going forward.

[chopsx9]

No what?  The article is talking about aging of the contract - could care less about what happened last year - especially when there are 6 more to go.

8 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Since Swanson signed his contract he has been 13x more valuable than Baez, so, no. 

[painhertz]

Not even June and you're jumping off the cliff.

[squally1313]

7 minutes ago, chopsx9 said:

No what?  The article is talking about aging of the contract - could care less about what happened last year - especially when there are 6 more to go.

Well this year Swanson has been worth 0.4 fWAR and Baez has been worth -0.5 fWAR. Unfortunately that makes it pretty tough to run a 'Dansby Swanson is X times better than Javy' calc. 55 points in OBP, 55 points in slugging, actual defensive productivity. xwOBA is 57 points higher. 

But if you'd like to use all of 36 ABs as the best measuring point for the remaining 6 years of the contract, I guess...good point?

So anyways, like I said, no, there is no comparison. 

[chopsx9]

24 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

Well this year Swanson has been worth 0.4 fWAR and Baez has been worth -0.5 fWAR. Unfortunately that makes it pretty tough to run a 'Dansby Swanson is X times better than Javy' calc. 55 points in OBP, 55 points in slugging, actual defensive productivity. xwOBA is 57 points higher. 

But if you'd like to use all of 36 ABs as the best measuring point for the remaining 6 years of the contract, I guess...good point?

So anyways, like I said, no, there is no comparison. 

Have you mixed up the daily and weekly meds again??  There is always a comparison and I wasn't the first one to make it.  But sure Dansby is a closer comparison to Betts than he is to Baez.  He's definitely trending in right direction and they've already started working on his plaque in Cooperstown. LOL  Going back into last season Dansby has been horsefeathers for awhile and if your point is that Dansby is runny, yellow and sour to Baez's lumpy, green and pungent - who cares they both flush the same.

[sneakypower]

in the last calendar year his OPS starts with a 6 and is 3rd-worst among qualified SS

we're right back to the "he drives in runs with his glove" copium of the Hendry era

[squally1313]

6 minutes ago, chopsx9 said:

Going back into last season Dansby has been horsefeathers for awhile

Ignoring whatever else you were trying to say there in that wonderful response, going back to the beginning of last year Dansby has been the 8th best shortstop in baseball and Javy has been the 52nd.

I understand that for 90% of the people here, the most fun sample size to use is 'beginning with when they started to struggle and ignoring any success before then' (and then like, you just move on when that stops working, people have been real quiet about Happ and his 115 wRC this month lately!), but it's ok to occasionally acknowledge stretches of success. 

[squally1313]

33 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

in the last calendar year his OPS starts with a 6 and is 3rd-worst among qualified SS

we're right back to the "he drives in runs with his glove" copium of the Hendry era

In the last two months across all of baseball, league wide OPS starts with a 6. I think in the other thread you mentioned how some people were too easily satisfied. I think your expectations are not in line with what modern baseball looks like.

You went out of your way to cut out the first 2 months of 2023 where he had the 9th most offensive fWAR in all of baseball just to showcase a sample size where he was the 63rd best offensive player (Correa: 76th). If this is ultimately just a 'I hate how WAR is calculated' thing, then, sure, whatever, take it up with Fangraphs/BR and then, I don't know, put Matt Shaw at short, Busch at second, and Caissie at first and see how that plays out.

[UMFan83]

2 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

My learning from the Swanson contract so far would be:

1. Elite defense that isn't built on elite tools/physicality is going to be more prone to slumps with age.  I suspect that's what we're seeing with Swanson now and he'll look very similar to last summer before long.  Especially given the injury this year.  That injury and the issues with last September tie into the other learning..

2. Don't place extra value on iron men in making big acquisitions.  One of the things that added value for Swanson in my view was his ability to play every day, especially at a position where the backup is likely very deficient on one side of the ball.  I think the modern game is basically choking that out of players, and it's definitely doing that for guys whose ages begin with 3.

Neither of those concerns/learnings rises to regretting the contract though.  If the defense truly doesn't turn and/or he doesn't have a hot streak to buoy his season line we can revisit by season's end, but I'm not gonna let a couple weeks at the end of 2023 and 40 games in 2024 when he's battled injury be the assumed norm going forward.

This is just typing without putting a lot of thought into it, but Swanson seems like similar to the Heyward signing.  A guy with elite defense and a capable but not great bat, hitting free agency at under 30, who accumulates WAR without having a big bat.

Couple of differences of course (Swanson at a premium defensive position, Heyward stronger with the bat and was more consistent in piling up WAR).  Sometimes I wish we could just throw big money at a true elite bat.  I understand why they went after Heyward, believing that the core of Bryant, Rizzo, Russell, Baez, Schwarber would provide enough elite hitting.  But while I was ok with the Swanson signing, I did have a bit of a hesitation about his bat being worth paying that much for.

Edited May 28, 2024 by UMFan83

[sneakypower]

Quote

In the last two months across all of baseball, league wide OPS starts with a 6. I think in the other thread you mentioned how some people were too easily satisfied. I think your expectations are not in line with what modern baseball looks like.

You went out of your way to cut out the first 2 months of 2023 where he had the 9th most offensive fWAR in all of baseball just to showcase a sample size where he was the 63rd best offensive player (Correa: 76th). If this is ultimately just a 'I hate how WAR is calculated' thing, then, sure, whatever, take it up with Fangraphs/BR and then, I don't know, put Matt Shaw at short, Busch at second, and Caissie at first and see how that plays out.

no it's just to me the most relevant and easily digestible default snapshot of a player's performance is looking at the last year's worth of production

choosing to go back 14 months to find some inspiring moments feels more like textbook cherry-picking tbh; this roster provided the lowest SLG in all baseball for May, i don't know what compels you to talk it up so much

Edited May 28, 2024 by sneakypower

[squally1313]

6 minutes ago, sneakypower said:

no it's just to me the most relevant and easily digestible default snapshot of a player's performance is looking at the last year's worth of production

choosing to go back 14 months to find some inspiring moments feels more like textbook cherry-picking tbh; this roster provided the lowest SLG in all baseball for May, i don't know what compels you to talk it up so much

Because it's a thread essentially calling the entire contract a mistake when he's produced 5 fWAR in one and a third seasons. It's ignoring 4 months of being really productive, half his time here, and only looking at 4 months of mediocrity. Agree that more recent performance should be weighted heavier but it's also a pretty consistent entire career of performance and arguing that he permanently fell off a cliff in the middle of last year seems a little unfair.

What the rest of the team has done this month is pretty irrelevant to this particular conversation.

[Bertz]

I think the issues with Swanson are relatively modest, yellow flags more than red ones.  The arbitrary endpoints game is stupid and something I thought we were smart enough to collectively move on from over the last 5 years or so.

His xwOBA this season is .324, above league average in the 54th percentile.  He's underperforming his xwOBA by 51 points, for his career coming into this year he'd underperformed his xwOBA by 10 points.  So you would say he's luck-neutral been a roughly league average hitter, which is not all that far from where we expected him.  I don't love the elevated groundball rate, though he did that early on last year so I wonder if it's a thing meant to combat the April conditions at Wrigley.  

The defense is down. but I'd pump the brakes on getting worked up over that.  Largely because 1/4 a season of defensive metrics is little more than an RNG.  But also I'd be curious to see what it rates at since he came off the IL.  He had a rough few weeks there in April, but I feel like he's been largely back to normal since?  I'd also love to get splits on his running speed, that's down YoY and also something I wonder if we blame on the knee injury.  

Like I get the hand-wringing because Swanson's line is ugly, but looking under the hood there’s just not much to be alarmed about.  Certainly not enough that I'd be doing take backsies on his nearly 5 WAR last year.