Carlos Correa or Bust for the Cubs
It’s Saturday, November 12, 2022. Free agency has opened for MLB, and the early rumors suggest that the Chicago Cubs have an almost equal level of interest in Carlos Correa, Trea Turner, Xander Bogaerts, and Dansby Swanson. There’s a sense that these four comprise a top tier of available star shortstops, and that Jed Hoyer might let market factors determine which of them he acquires. I’m writing this to say that, in my opinion, that would be a calamitous way to conduct this offseason, and that the Cubs need to have one target when it comes to headlining their offseason. It has to be Correa.
Why It Has to be a Shortstop
I think we should start by articulating the reasons why the Cubs’ big offseason addition needs to be one of these shortstops. It’s pretty simple, so we won’t take a long time on it: there are no other good options. Aaron Judge will turn 31 next spring, weighs about 280 pounds, has a huge strike zone to cover, has only stayed healthy for roughly half his career even through his 20s, and is going to command a contract worth $40 million per year. Forget it. I love watching Judge hit, but I wouldn’t have him doing it for my team at the salary he’ll now earn. Let all the risks creeping up on him be someone else’s problems.
Beyond Judge, there’s just no other superstar who can add five wins to this team while costing just one roster spot. The best available pitchers this winter are Jacob deGrom (the pitching version of Judge, only I don’t even like watching deGrom), Carlos Rodon (who’s going to earn his big deal this year, but will cost a draft pick and international slot money for whoever signs him, and who still seems to pose a major injury risk), and Justin Verlander (who’s going to turn 40 just after he reports to spring training somewhere). I think they’ll all earn more than I would want to pay them, although I’d at least want to check in frequently with Verlander. The Cubs will and should take a serious interest in guys like Kodai Senga, Ross Stripling, Taijuan Walker, and Tyler Anderson, but those are smaller potential improvements. The Cubs need pitching, but they need positional upgrades much more, and the place where they can achieve that is at shortstop.
The Basics on These Four Guys
Let’s talk, then, about Correa, Turner, Bogaerts, and Swanson, specifically. (Notice that I’m not using alphabetical order here. Instead, I’m listing them from best to worst, in my opinion, and I’m only open to possibly flipping Bogaerts and Swanson. You’ll see why as we go.) They were all born about eight or nine months apart: Bogaerts on Oct. 1, 1992; Turner on June 30, 1993; Swanson on Feb. 11, 1994; and Correa on Sept. 22 of that year. I wouldn’t draw a significant distinction based on age alone between any two players born less than a full year apart, but obviously, that does mean Correa has a slight edge over Bogaerts and Turner on that basis, and Swanson has one on Bogaerts.
Correa has one other edge, over all of the other three, that doesn’t stem from anything about their specific games. Unlike each of the others, Correa hit free agency last year, too, and received a qualifying offer then, so he’s not encumbered by one this time around. The others are, so signing them would come with the penalties mentioned above.
Offense
This quartet all have such cachet as they hit the market primarily because they’re capable of both playing the most difficult defensive position outside the battery, and delivering above-average offense. However, it’s spurious to suggest that they’re even roughly equal in the degree of offensive success one can expect from them. Even in broad terms, they have each had different career arcs, and they each have different strengths and weaknesses.
I choose Baseball Prospectus’s DRC+ to evaluate hitters. It’s the most thorough and robust holistic offensive metric out there. Last year, Correa led all shortstops with a 125 DRC+. Bogaerts was right on his heels, at 123. Turner had a 114. Swanson was at 108. A mark of 100 denotes league-average contributions, so they were all above-average, but the standard deviations BP reports for that number tell us clearly that Correa and Bogaerts are in one tier, while Turner is a tier down, and Swanson a small but clear step behind Turner.
For Correa, that number captures his true talent quite neatly. He posted an identical 125 in 2021. When he’s been healthy and played full seasons, he’s consistently been in that range throughout his career. Bogaerts is well-represented by his number, too. He’s actually been even better than that over the last half-decade, but taking his most recent season as the surest guide to his future makes even more sense in his case than in others, because he’s now 30 years old.
Turner’s story is more complicated, and we’ll dig in more deeply in a moment. For now, suffice it to say that he was at or above the level Correa has now established in 2020 and 2021, but took a real step backward this season. Swanson, on the other hand, had never topped 99 before 2022, so while he’d shown improvement even as far back as 2019, you have to focus tightly on his most recent performance to view him as an above-average bat. Even then, he isn’t as good as any of the other three.
Let’s be more granular, and break down batting into its four most important parts: hitting the ball hard, generating hits on balls in play, making contact, and controlling the strike zone. That set of four skills isn’t the only way to summarize offense, of course, but it’s a good start.
All four of these guys have above-average power, though none are elite in that aspect. Correa’s .176 isolated power (ISO, which is SLG minus AVG) this year was the best in the group, but Turner and Swanson were close behind him and virtually tied with each other. Bogaerts posted a .149 mark that is much more like the league’s typical one. Hard-hit rate, using Baseball Savant’s Statcast data, gives Swanson a slight edge, though I used a two-season sample when querying that one, to take some of the noise out of batted-ball data, and that muddies the comparison a bit. All of these guys are at least capable of hitting 25 home runs. Correa is the one you can count on to reach that range, and he and Swanson are the ones who can hit 30 or more in a really good year.
Batting average on balls in play is partially a product of hitting the ball hard, but also of using the whole field, hitting line drives, and running well. All four guys are well above average in that regard, with Correa, Turner, and Swanson all around .340 and Bogaerts over .360 last year. (Fenway Park is probably exaggerating the differences between Bogaerts and the other three. He has more power than the park allowed him to show, but he’ll lose some BABIP if he leaves for a more conventional new home.)
Real separation begins to show itself when you turn to the plate discipline skills. Correa only whiffed on 22.1 percent of his swings last year. Bogaerts missed on 24.8 percent of his own swings, and Turner was at 26.3 percent. Swanson, whose ostensible breakout was all about trading some contact for power, swung and missed much more often: 30.6 percent. On the other hand, he chased a tiny bit less on pitches outside the zone than did Bogaerts, and Turner was easily the most aggressive on such offerings. Correa, though, was very close to exactly as disciplined as Swanson, even without whiffing more.
Correa’s offensive genius is in the synthesis, something the other three can’t match. He put those plate discipline numbers together to strike out just 20.5 percent of the time and walk 10.3 percent of the time last year. Swanson, similarly good at not expanding the zone, only walked 7 percent of the time, and his whiff rate led to strikeouts in over a quarter of his plate appearances. Turner and Bogaerts put it in play more often than Correa, but doing so with their more aggressive approaches costs them some power and makes their on-base percentages more volatile.
Defense
I think Correa further distinguishes himself from the others with his glovework. I don’t care for Statcast’s Outs Above Average metric, for several reasons. I’m a Defensive Runs Saved guy. Since the start of 2021, Correa has 23 DRS in a little over 2,400 innings at short. Bogaerts, in almost an identical amount of work, has been exactly average. Turner has played there a bit less, since he spent the last part of 2021 playing second base for the Dodgers, but has also been just average (0 DRS). Swanson has played the most innings at short of the set over the last two years, north of 2,800, but has only 2 DRS.
Not to hide the ball from you, I will confess that Correa’s defense fell from elite to merely average-plus this year, while Swanson and Bogaerts each showed much-improved numbers. I’m wary of big defensive leaps made in walk years, though. I also think the shift ban will enforce a new and more difficult style of play even for shortstops, and Correa is the best equipped to handle that. According to Statcast, his arm strength (88 miles per hour, on competitive throws, sixth out of 50 qualifying shortstops) is far better than that of the other three. Turner throws 83.7 MPH, 26th out of 50. Bogaerts is at 82.1, good for 34th. Swanson has one of the weakest arms in baseball, at 79.2 MPH, 48th of the 50 qualifiers.
Other Factors
Turner has elite speed and quickness, and Bogaerts and Swanson are around average. Correa is a step slower than those two and two or three steps slower than Turner. That does matter, and Correa’s conservative and uninspired baserunning is the most frustrating and persistent hole in his game. It might be the only one. Still, I was thinking recently about how much I should dock Turner as a projectable star due to his reliance on that speed. I decided that I don’t think he’ll slow down all that much, and I definitely settled on not dinging his projected production based on whatever speed loss happens. That coin has two sides, though. One side is the shiny stuff I just said: good body type, should retain his speed, what he loses won’t alter him as a player as much as people would think.
The other side is the stark and unfortunate fact that losing his speed just wouldn’t alter him as a player as much as people would think! His speed and grace make him great fun to watch, but they just don’t change the game that much. He steals bases very efficiently, but not in great volume. His power is as important to his profile as his speed, and his power just isn’t that great. He’s what would happen if Lou Brock were born 55 years later and got dumped into a game that no longer values or utilizes speed the way it once did. Will the rule changes taking effect next year nudge the game in a direction beneficial to Turner, the superb athlete? Maybe! But even if so, the magnitude of the change is unlikely to be huge.
There’s one nice thing here: all four of these guys stand out for their leadership and their makeup. They’ll continue working hard and showing up with the tools to help build a winning clubhouse, even after they sign nine-figure deals. Each already has a World Series ring (Correa in 2017; Bogaerts in 2018; Turner in 2019; Swanson in 2021), even if Correa and Bogaerts won theirs on teams some fans would choose to label illegitimate champions.
That said, I view Correa as a higher level of thinker and a better teammate than the others, so I would give him bonus points even in this miscellaneous section. Your mileage may vary.
Wrapping Up Correa, and Putting a Price Tag on Him
By my reckoning, then, Correa is the best hitter in this group, or at least the one whose offense can be most confidently projected and who has the most balanced set of skills, likely to age well. He’s the best defender, with the strongest arm and the least reliance on straightline speed that might not be as helpful when forced to play a step shallower. He’s the guy I most want to mix into my clubhouse, if I’m looking to become a champion. He’s the youngest. He’s the only one who won’t cost you anything beyond money—who only drains easily renewable organizational resources.
I don’t view the others, even at prices 10 or 20 percent lower, as comparable to Correa. I don’t think there should be any serious discussion by any would-be contender, but especially by the Cubs, about prioritizing any of the other three over Correa. The only question left is what to pay the man, and I have two potential answers:
$333 million over nine seasons. Gerrit Cole got $324 million over nine years three years ago, so this would match him for length and get Correa to $37 million in annual average value. This is the megadeal, an equivalent to Bryce Harper’s deal that accounts for Correa being older and fractionally less accomplished than Harper was, but that also acknowledges his desire to max out AAV and provides a premium because he doesn’t cost any amateur talent. Like the Harper deal, though, it doesn’t include opt-outs. It’s a full-fledged two-way commitment to making the Cubs, at long last, the Midwest’s Yankees or Dodgers.
A more creative construction, the base of which is a four-year deal worth $175 million. That would push Correa past Max Scherzer’s record AAV of $43.3 million, and it would come with a bifurcated option structure after 2026. The Cubs would have the option of triggering an option after 2025, which would keep Correa with the club for five additional years (2027-31) and $125 million in total. If they declined it, though, Correa would have the choice to opt out of the final year of his deal, or to stay and trigger his own player option for three years (2027-29) and $60 million. In that way, it could end up being a three-year deal worth $134 million or so; a seven-year one worth $235 million; or a nine-year pact worth $300 million. The worst of those options for Correa would be the one still worth $235 million, and he would only be 35 when it was over.
Those numbers sound gaudy. Tough. Get used to it. That’s the reality of the sport right now, and Correa is going to get that kind of payday somewhere. The Cubs are well-positioned to be the place where it happens, and they shouldn’t miss the opportunity.