Where Should Ian Happ Bat for the 2025 Chicago Cubs?

[RandallPnkFloyd]

Does batting order matter? Put it this way: try running your team out there without writing one.

Image courtesy of © David Richard-USA TODAY Sports

I’ve been on something of a personal quest this season--one not entirely unlike the archetypal hero & their journey to self-actualization. No, I haven’t encountered personal loss, physical danger, or newfound levels of maturation wrought by the people, places, and things with which I interact. But my journey has featured a call, an abyss, and, I think, a conclusion.

That conclusion is this: I’m in on Ian Happ. 

If you remember, I spent the early portion of the season pondering Happ’s purpose. I wasn’t sold on whether the Chicago Cubs left fielder was even good, let alone an integral part of the roster. Several months after the fact, however, I have arrived at the conclusion that the Cubs do, indeed, need Happ.

That isn’t my purpose here, though. I could surely throw out some numbers to support the idea of Happ being a key piece of the Next Great Whatever. He is, after all, on pace for one of his best seasons yet, courtesy of an elite walk rate and the potential to set a new career mark in home runs. Instead, with the Cubs largely out of the National League Wild Card race, my questions are starting to shift toward 2025. In this particular case, I’m wondering where Happ is best suited within the Cubs’ lineup for next season.

Technically, Happ has hit out of eight different spots in the order this season. If we eliminate the singular plate appearance as a pinch-hitter in the No. 9 hole, we’re looking at seven. He has an additional 49 PAs between second, sixth, and seventh. He has 54 in the No. 3 spot and 61 as No. 4. The two slots in which we’ve seen Happ the most are leadoff (143 PA) and the fifth spot (186 PA).

The distribution of time in each is quite interesting, as well. Craig Counsell rode Happ as his top guy through almost all of March and April. Beginning Apr. 19, we saw a stretch in which Happ bounced around quite a bit. He went sixth, second, and then third for a long stretch, before the second half of May saw him bouncing around again. In early June, he was slotted in at no. 5 through Jul. 11, before a few weeks in the cleanup spot. On Jul. 30, he was back in the leadoff spot, where he's resided since.

There are myriad reasons for the inconsistency in Happ’s spot in the batting order. One is the inconsistency of the lineup at large. Happ’s own absence of power early in the year made him a viable leadoff candidate, as he was still walking at an exceptional rate. As his bat got hotter, many of his teammates didn’t follow suit, or were injured. Thus, it was a matter of plugging in his patience-power skill set wherever it might’ve been deemed most valuable. Even with the power now showing up, though, Counsell reinserted Happ into that top spot at the end of last month.

Given the higher volume of plate appearances out of the No. 1 and No. 5 spots, one assumes that we’ll see Happ ply his trade at the dish in one of those two positions, long-term. In a direct comparison, Happ has been stronger out of the latter. As a leadoff hitter, Happ has slashed .213/.329/.426, with a wRC+ of 115. He’s walking at a 14.7% clip. When dropped to fifth, the slash goes .253/.360/.544 and the wRC+ is 150. His walk rate sits at 12.9%, and there's much more power there. 

Objectively, it seems fairly obvious that the better performance from Happ has come from the No. 5 spot: more on-base skills, more power, better overall production. It’s important to consider, however, that Happ’s increase in production coincided with his move to that spot. Had we gotten the from-May-on version of Happ back in March and April, those numbers might not look so disparate now.

The Happ question, though, isn’t so much about Ian Happ. It’s a broader, philosophical inquiry. Do you want more of a traditional leadoff hitter – someone who can take a walk, but more likely hits their way on and adds a few steals along the way? Or are you okay with an on-base force who supplies regular power, even if there’s no one ahead of him to make similarly effective use of that power?

In today’s game, the latter seems like the easier answer to justify. The old prototype of the leadoff hitter is one we seldom see. Nico Hoerner is likely as close as the Cubs are getting, but he hasn’t been effective in that spot over his 2024 body of work (97 wRC+). Of course, any answer to such a question requires us to know what the Cubs have planned for their position group ahead of 2025--which…we do not. But given the conservative nature of the front office, in conjunction with the team’s various contracts, one imagines that major changes won’t happen. The lineup will more than likely look quite similar next year.

Which brings us back to the original query: where is Ian Happ best suited to hit in this Cubs lineup? The easy answer is simply ‘yes.’ He’s proven adept as a leadoff man. He’s seen more pitches than all but six qualifying position players (aside: the Cubs have four of the top 10 hitters in pitches per plate appearance, including Happ) and reaches base at a rate that reflects that. He’s almost precisely average on the bases and can add the occasional steal. Of course, you like to see that OBP and power smack-dab in the middle of your lineup, too. 

This is all to say that I don’t have an answer to my question, because I don’t think there is an answer. If anything, it speaks more to the importance of overall roster construction than the specific skill set of Happ. If the team wants to pursue a more permanent leadoff hitter, then they’d be fine rolling Happ out in the fifth spot. If they want to pursue a more impactful power bat, then they could elect the keep him atop the starting nine. I don’t think there’s a wrong answer here. If forced to choose, I’m probably rolling with him out of the top spot and hoping that more consistent power develops out of the likes of Michael Busch or Seiya Suzuki, while simultaneously hoping that Cody Bellinger returns. 

But that we’re discussing either route as something viable does speak to my own growth within the larger Ian Happ narrative--and by extension, more importantly, to Happ's impressive maturation at the plate throughout this season.

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