I just don’t think he’s anything special and his stats now are likely his peak. He doesn’t walk, he doesn’t hit for power or the ball overly hard, he doesn’t hit RHP, he has to run a crazy high BABIP to carry even a decent average and he’s slow as horsefeathers so I don’t buy the infield/GB hits continuing, he’s an awful base runner and he is a good but not great fielder who already is slow and as he gets slower I fear he can’t handle CF. He has a nice contact/hit tool though and handles lefties well, which obviously is nice to have on the current team construction. But to me he seems like a 2-3 WAR OF as his ceiling who is incredibly contact/BABIP dependent for value, not exactly hard to replace and if someone wants to buy in to his unsustainable batting average and diving/running/jumping catches meaning he’s an elite defender I’d be all for selling out now.
Isn't it his left shoulder? Yeah it’s his left shoulder and I don’t think they’ve said or know how exactly it happened. The theory out there I’ve seen is it was on a slide to 2B and he jammed it or just from doing too much cage work/BP. It’s a problem that he claims has flared up in the past in college and the minors, KB claims and rest takes care of it. Hopefully so.
He’ll probably have surgery after the season, the way it sounds. I would assume if this was a surgery situation he’d be shut down. The Cubs aren’t the Mets.