Bleacher Bums Forum

As we look into 2019, one glaring item is how our front office has prioritized "older" pitchers and young every-day players (except Grandpa Zobrist) and that formula has worked pretty well.  So far.   

Is that prioritization of older pitchers more out of necessity or does our brain trust place greater value than other teams on pitchers who are in their 30s and have "learned how to pitch" at the top level?

If we sign Hamels for next season, our starters will be:
* 35 - Hamels and Lester
* 32/33 - Darvish (turns 33 in August)
* 30 - Quintana
* 29 - Hendricks

Our non-starting pitchers aren't exactly young by MLB standards either:
* 34/35 - Morrow (35 in July)
* 33/34 - Strop (34 in June)
* 35/36 - Chavez (36 in August)
* 32/33 - Cishek (33 in June)
* 31/32 - Wilson (32 in August)
* 29/30 - Monty (30 on July 1)
* 27/28 - Edwards (28 in Sept)

No doubt our brain trust will try to bring in some good young pitching, too, tho' it tends to be so costly and at least somewhat unpredictable.

Despite 4 consecutive playoff years, most of our core players are still quite young:
* 29 - Rizzo and Heyward (both turned 29 in August)
* 26 - Bryant and Contreras
* 25 - Baez (will turn 26 in December), Schwarber (will turn 26 in March)
* 24 - Almora and Happ (who turned only 24 in April and August, respectively)
Bote turned 25 in April and Russell played the entire season at age 24.

As for Russell, if Cubs are rather convinced he did the very bad stuff he's accused of, I'd guess he's gone pretty quickly...if they aren't convinced, they may still wish to move him after he gets at least somewhat hot.  After all, before his personal problems surfaced, in '16 he hit 21 HRs (95 RBIs) with 49 extra-base hits at the age of 22 (some in the biggest moments)! 

Some of the young Cub hitters will likely make significant improvements next season. One could well imagine Bryant coming back with a great season in '19 and some of Contreras, Schwarber, Almora, Happ and Russell could have much better seasons, too, due to expected improvement as they move toward their peak years.

Of course, some will get hurt and/or regress for one reason or another.  It will be interesting to see if we do make a run at Machado or Harper or some other big FA.