The Cubs Must Trade One of Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki Next Month

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Chicago Cubs have a great deal--multiple seasons' worth of eight-figure salaries, and a pair of full no-trade clauses--invested in the players who patrol their corner outfield positions. Each is a fine player. One or the other needs to go.

There's just too much redundancy between the profiles of Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki. Their contracts speak to the degree of similarity between them. Each is playing for $20 million in 2024, and the Cubs owe $36 million to Suzuki through 2026, while they're due to pay Happ $38 million over the same term. Each player has been a very good hitter when healthy and thriving, though each has also gone through fallow, frustrating stretches over the last two seasons.

Recently, it's become gallingly clear that the two can't coexist for a Cubs team that hopes to accomplish anything serious. There was a risk of this going back a year or more, but the team tried to work around it, hoping for defensive improvements from Suzuki or more consistent power production from both as hitters. Neither thing has happened.

Suzuki is not a big-league right fielder. He just can't track the ball well enough, can't consistently make plays at 80 percent of his maximal range, can't adequately handle difficult elements like unlucky light placement, bright sunshine, rain, wind, and outfield walls. That was on display again Monday night, on a play that helped cost the Cubs the game (albeit in a very subtle way). 

Suzuki's error in Atlanta late last September will live in Cubs infamy, but it doesn't come close to standing alone. He shows flashes of great defensive skill, but he's wildly inconsistent, and misses too many catchable balls in big moments. This conversation is over. If the Cubs are serious about winning, Suzuki can't finish the season as their right fielder, let alone head into 2025 as one.

That means moving him either to designated hitter, or to left field. As the Cubs also try to develop young players Pete Crow-Armstrong and Michael Busch, sliding him into the DH spot is close to untenable, too, because it puts the squeeze to one of Crow-Armstrong, Busch, or Cody Bellinger on any given day. More importantly, though, Christopher Morel also isn't a big-league third baseman, so he'll soon need to start being the DH even more often.

In short, the Cubs need to decide between Suzuki and Happ, make the one in whom they believe more strongly their left fielder, and trade the other. This is the best chance they'll get to extract significant value from a trade partner for either player, and it's the right moment to get greater clarity about their future in the outfield. There are even more aggressive, creative solutions on the table--moving Morel himself to right field, for instance--but they come with even bigger drawbacks than exploring a trade of either Happ or Suzuki.

Yes, either player has the right to reject a trade, and yes, that hurts the Cubs a little bit. They'd need to find a trade fit that either player would be willing to accept, which would compromise their leverage in some negotiations. They could and should find such a fit, though. At this point, the no-trade clauses are just part of the sunk cost attached to each player, and should be treated as a hurdle to be cleared, rather than a brick wall to be stared at and bemoaned.

The 2024 Cubs are not a serious contender, and shouldn't try to force their way back to that status. It won't work, and it will hurt the team in the long run to make the attempt. The team needs to reset and look forward, and part of that pivot should be an acknowledgment that their core is flawed and insufficient. Trading either Suzuki or Happ is an important step toward building a core that can actually accomplish something. Neither can play right field, and neither can hit like a star-caliber left fielder or DH. They need to discard one, create some space for young players, and gain either more young talent or new financial flexibility for building their roster from 2025 to the end of the decade. Delaying or eschewing that move only means persisting in the self-delusion that has mired them in this swamp of semi-competent non-contenderhood.

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[Transmogrified Tiger]

I understand the logic, but I think there's a real risk of making perfect the enemy of good.  I agree that Suzuki is not a starting RF defensively, and if I'm thinking about his primary position going forward I think DH is the spot since LF isn't going to mask his deficiencies at all.  Where I'd differ is that

1) Suzuki is not *unplayable* in RF and so can be plenty useful defensively to a big league outfield in smaller doses, preserving flexibility that prevents significant logjams

2) if I feel the need to trade from a relative surplus of 'positionless' bats, I'm going to trade Morel over Suzuki.  Morel will have more trade value, I'd rather have Suzuki's bat in a lineup over Morel's, and Seiya is not overpaid for his value so the freed up money doesn't go as far as a better return(or simply better fit) on Morel would be.

[Matt W]

Matt…. We need to be thinking about trading Justin Steele! Let’s be ahead of the curve, FOR ONCE.

[Brock Beauchamp]

As the season goes along, I'm increasingly convinced the Cubs need to trade away some of their mediocrity. Neither Happ nor Suzuki are *bad* players but when you're trying to contend, it's hard not to have at least one of your corner guys be a monster with the bat.

[Bertz]

13 hours ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

I understand the logic, but I think there's a real risk of making perfect the enemy of good.  I agree that Suzuki is not a starting RF defensively, and if I'm thinking about his primary position going forward I think DH is the spot since LF isn't going to mask his deficiencies at all.  Where I'd differ is that

1) Suzuki is not *unplayable* in RF and so can be plenty useful defensively to a big league outfield in smaller doses, preserving flexibility that prevents significant logjams

2) if I feel the need to trade from a relative surplus of 'positionless' bats, I'm going to trade Morel over Suzuki.  Morel will have more trade value, I'd rather have Suzuki's bat in a lineup over Morel's, and Seiya is not overpaid for his value so the freed up money doesn't go as far as a better return(or simply better fit) on Morel would be.

Yeah I don't see any reason moving to LF would help Suzuki at all.  Do they not have lights or walls or rain in left field?

I agree I think the guy who goes is Morel, or possibly Busch.  I think the plan moving forward should be to pick one of those two guys as the going forward 1B. and use the other one as capital on the market.  Busch would clearly he the guy who stays if the decision was made today.  That frees up DH for either an external bopper like Vladito or to shift Suzuki to primary DH work and open up outfield PAs for some of the kids

Suzuki or Happ aren't bringing back anything of substance. They play above the level of their salary but not by a ton , couple that with the NTC and I'd be shocked if the juice was worth the squeeze on moving either.  Not even getting into any outside the lines considerations.

[17 Seconds]

12 hours ago, Matt W said:

Matt…. We need to be thinking about trading Justin Steele! Let’s be ahead of the curve, FOR ONCE.

getting rid of great players with lots of control is not being ahead of the curve

[Rex Buckingham]

Moving one of Happ or Suzuki, even for a light return, may be beneficial in terms of freeing up positions and dollars, even if it makes the team a little worse this year... it doesn't seem like this is a playoff team, so being worse isn't so bad if it means a higher draft pick next year, as much as we know draft picks in baseball are almost always 2-3 years away for even the best prospects.

There just isn't impact talent on this team right now... just a lot of guys who when they aren't slumping are pretty good... and that can result in a season around 85 wins if everything goes right, but this year shows how bad it looks when even just a couple things (health, bullpen) go wrong and the bats somehow all slump at once

[Billy62]

Back in April through mid-May this was a pretty good ballclub. Right now it is not. The offense is sputtering and there seems to almost be a willingness to not advance the runners in lieu of swinging for the fences. The result. A staggering amount of strikeouts and an occasional moonshot. Not enough to put you back in contention, but at least think of it. Add to that, a bullpen that cannot hold a lead. Last count was in the past five games, 17 runs surrendered by the pen after the 7th inning. So if you don't score runs and can't hold leads, how many ballgames do you actually expect to win? Through seven innings this team is in most of its ballgames, only to be gut punched in the 8th or 9th inning. So trades. I think task #1 is to get a reliable closer in the pen. We don't have one. Alzolay, Neris, Leiter Jr. and Miller are all failing in that role. Just look at the amount of blown saves to validate that assertion. At the plate, there are a lot of similar hitters. Some power, and a ton of swing and miss. With the exception of Hoerner not much of an offense that considers taking a two-strike approach and driving the ball the other way, or maybe PCA could be an exception with the bunt. So if we were to trade for another big stick, is this also going to add to our strikeout woes? Should we maybe be looking at a high contact high average hitter? Maybe giving Bote a serious look at #2 in the lineup behind Hoerner is the way to go. I know its not the "Dernier-Sandberg" 1-2 punch of 1984, but its something we have on our roster now. I thought that the signing of Bellinger was vital to this teams success. I even spoke out about it. But, the numbers are showing that perhaps we should have kept the money in our pocket or looked elsewhere. He still could turn things around, and I hope he does, but it is not what I envisioned. So who do you deal? Busch or Morel will get you some consideration for a live arm. But trading away your leading homerun hitters from an already struggling offense might not be a smart play. Packaging up Madrigal, Mervis, and Wisdom might actually bring in somebody. The truth of the matter is though that standing pat just is not working.

Edited June 26, 2024 by Billy62
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