How Alex Bregman's Arrival Brought Dansby Swanson Back to the Shortstop Upper Crust—For Now

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What Alex Bregman can do on the field—the statistical contribution he can make when it's his turn to bat and when the ball is hit his way—is plenty valuable. By the end of the 2026 season, that was obvious. Bregman was one of the best hitters in baseball from mid-July onward, and he won the Fielding Bible Award at third base for his supernal defense. Multiple teams were willing to give him a fat five-year deal last offseason, and most of that money is for the way he hits and fields.

However, Bregman also has enormous value as a facilitator, a leader, and an organization changer. That's what made the Cubs willing to outbid the Red Sox and others for his services; it was the extra cushion they needed to feel safe spashing so much money on a player who would turn 32 just days after playing his first regular-season game for them. In those areas, he was arguably an even greater success in 2026 than on the stat sheet. The partnership of Bregman and Pete Crow-Armstrong, offensively, was about more than the fact that they hit back-to-back at the top of the lineup 24 times. They made improvements that followed the same patterns. They communicated about what they were seeing from each opposing pitcher. Bregman thrived down the stretch, but his input also helped Crow-Armstrong break the game, even while the veteran was still mired in a long early funk.

Defensively, his partnership would be with shortstop Dansby Swanson. Bregman replaced Swanson as the highest-paid player on the team and as the team's resident emblem of intention to win and dedication to whatever that takes. Swanson was the first overall pick in 2015; Bregman was the second. Swanson won the 2021 World Series with the team from near Atlanta. Bregman won the World Baseball Classic and the Series in 2017, then another Series in 2022. Swanson's championship came at Bregman's expense, too, as his club beat Houston in that Fall Classic. The two players' history was interwoven, and they would need to prove they could achieve as much together as they had (seemingly) working at odds, to top one another.

It couldn't have worked out more beautifully, or in a fashion more quintessentially Bregman. Here's the gist: In 2025, Swanson's defensive numbers dipped. That wasn't surprising. He was 31 years old, which is already getting a bit old for a shortstop in the majors today. He doesn't have an elite arm (or even, in truth, an average one), and though he learned long ago to get rid of the ball exceptionally quickly when needed, that can't make up for everything. He suffered, in particular, on exactly the balls you would expect an aging non-premium athlete to suffer on: ones hit to his right, where he had to range into the hole and make the toughest plays asked of shortstops. According to Baseball Savant, Swanson dropped from 16 and 12 runs saved in 2023 and 2024, respectively, to just 2 in 2025. The biggest difference came on balls that forced him to move toward third base:

2023: 8 Outs Above Average
2024: 2
2025: -1

The Cubs didn't do what many teams might have done in such a situation, though. First of all, they didn't even briefly consider moving Swanson to second base and trading Nico Hoerner. That would have been a viable option; Hoerner was an impending free agent until he signed a six-year extension last spring. The Cubs believed Swanson could still be a great defensive shortstop, though, and that Hoerner's defensive work as his double-play partner was too valuable to lose.

Even with the same personnel in place, though, they could have more aggressively shaded their infield alignments, putting Swanson a step or two closer to the hole when there was a chance he would be called upon to make a play there. Instead, they used fairly traditional setups. The 2025 Cubs were 17th in shading their infield, doing so 53% of the time against left-handed batters and 6% of the time against righties. That led to a lot of plays that looked like this.

Seeing the ball zip past Swanson like that makes him seem slow, but that's unfair. Alec Bohm hit that grounder at 104 miles per hour. To make the play, Swanson needed to be a step farther in the direction he had to go. Failing that, not even a younger, more explosive player would get there. But the even more telling plays, perhaps, were those that looked more like this.

This ball isn't hit so hard, and Swanson has the quick feet to run it down. However, because he started at a neutral position, he had to run an extra step or two before snaring the bounce. That meant throwing off-balance, on the run, which robbed him of the ability to be accurate and powerful. This is where being 31 and a bit less strong-armed than most shortstops caught up to him, but much of the reason was his starting position.

Early in 2026, the same thing was happening too often. Swanson would flag down a ball that seemed ticketed for left field, but because he did so at the very edge of his range, he still couldn't record an out.

Over time, though, a (literal) shift took place. Bregman, who played with one of the game's most aggressive shifting teams in Houston before the league outlawed the true shift, advocated for a bit more proactive shading with his new club. They didn't become an extreme team, but they did become one of the league leaders in that area. In 2026, the Cubs shaded their infield 67% of the time against lefties and 14% of the time against righties, moving them into the top seven in shading, overall. Swanson started making plays that he couldn't make the previous year.

There were balls, like the one above, that would have been clean singles to left field in 2025 but became great plays in 2026. There were also plenty that might have become infield hits in 2025, but which ended up looking routine this year.

Swanson's numbers rebounded, especially on those balls that took him toward third base: he got back to 8 OAA on them. The way OAA tabulates value, that actually took a bite out of Bregman. He rated worse (-6 OAA) on balls to his left than he ever has before. But Bregman didn't care. By playing closer to the line against right-handed batters, he was better able to set himself for long throws when he made a play along the foul line, and he got better coming in on slowly hit balls. He was the best he's ever been at third, precisely because he ceded a bit of range to his superb partner on the left side of the infield.

Communication between those two players is more important than many who watch the game from home might realize. They don't call each other off in quite the same way outfielders do, but there has to be an understanding between the shortstop and the third baseman: when to take a ball and when to let it go; whether your partner will break to cover a base, and how to back them up if they go for the ball instead; where your teammate should throw the ball, if fielding it took him in a direction that makes it hard for him to see the whole diamond. Bregman and Swanson worked gloriously together in their first year as a tandem, which helped the Cubs reach the postseason and provided hope for the short-term aging profile of each.

That doesn't mean it won't get harder. As each moves into his mid-30s, they'll have to continue communicating, adapting and adjusting. Working together is important, but it can't entirely make up for the fact that each individual is getting a bit older, a bit slower and a bit less able to react in the blink of an eye. Next year, the Cubs' infield defense will probably be worse. That's the nature of investing so much in players who would ordinarily move off their positions, and slotting them into a roster that doesn't permit them to do so. What we saw in the first year of Bregman and Swanson, though, is that they're likely to weather those degradations better than most, because of their savvy and their shared commitment to doing whatever it takes to win.