There has been talk about Castellanos, because he can hit, make contact, and is less vulnerable to the upper-half pitches than the other Cubs.
I wonder whether signing BOTH Shogo AND Castellanos, AND keeping Schwarber too, would actually make sense? Probably not monetarily. But while that might seem like overkill (Shogo plus 3 corner outfielders....),having some surplus has a certain appeal to me. Guys get hurt. If Shogo isn't that good, Hayward could fill some center. Castellanos could sit against some RHP. Schwarber could sit against some tough LHP. Heyward could sit some during his slumps and be late-inning defensive replacement. Perhaps with the four of them, you'd actually end up with quite a very good offensive outfield, overall? And on games or innings when both Shoto and Hayward played, perhaps the defense would be pretty decent, too?
The other advantage of spending on OF and going surplus there, is that you'd not need to be sending infielders out there. How many games this year (and prior) have we had Bryant playing OF, with Bote at 3rd? Or Zobrist in OF? Or Contreras in OF?
Ron has expressed some concern with Bryant's 3B defense: what if he just played 3B all the time, and practiced 3B, and focused on 3B? He's been great in that he could go to left, center, right, or 1B, and play any of them reasonably well. But might it not be best for both him and the team to just stay put at 3B?
Not sure if you want to ever see Happ play another inning at 2B, or Bote either. But perhaps if you do keep one of those two guys, and 2B is the position with some available starts in combo with Hoerner, maybe doing less multi-position stuff and more practice and focus on a primary position might help those guys, too?
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