Ben Zobrist: Potential Offseason Target

Ben Zobrist

Position: 2B/SS/RF, occasionally LF/CF/3B/1B. Essentially, every position except catcher or pitcher.

2015 Stats: .276/.359/.450, 13 HR, 11.6 BB%, 10.5 K%, .295 TAv, 3.0 WARP

How He Fits: It’s good to be great. That statement seems axiomatic enough that I’ll leave it here without further justification, and move on to a second—and perhaps more controversial—claim: that it might be just as good to not be terrible at anything. That seems to be the case with respect to roster construction: research at FiveThirtyEight found that it doesn’t matter whether you build a “stars-and-scrubs” roster (one built around one or two expensive stars, and a lot of cheap “scrubs”) or a “balanced” one (with no one single player drawing most of the resources or producing most of the results).

Looking at the numbers as a whole, we arrive at this conclusion: Build a balanced roster or a stars-and-scrubs roster. Either way, which players are good, and how good they are individually, doesn’t make any difference after we control for how good the team is in the aggregate. The moral of the story is to find players who generate as much value as possible, in whatever combination, period.

The same principle, generally speaking, also applies on a micro level. It’s possible to be an adequate or better big-league player with just one elite tool: think Giancarlo Stanton’s power, or Billy Hamilton’s speed. If you have two elite tools, that’s better still: think Aroldis Chapman’s fastball-slider combo, or Miguel Cabrera’s zone discipline and contact ability. And some players—like Mike Trout or, before him, Pedro Martinez—are elite in three or more areas, and they’re the game’s superstars. But what if none of your tools are elite? What if you’re just good at a few things, decent at everything else, and terrible at nothing? If that’s the case for you, there’s a very good chance that you’re Ben Zobrist. And there’s a very good chance that you’re a very good big-league player. Here’s the top five position players in the major-leagues since 2009, ranked by the fWAR they’ve produced in that seven-year period:

That’s a list of four superstars, and one guy who’s a free agent this offseason and won’t get superstar money. And in a nutshell, that’s the fit: Ben Zobrist is a very good big-league player, and the Cubs could use more of those. But, of course, there are more details to dive into. So let’s talk about Ben Zobrist: elite at nothing, terrible at nothing, and a very good major-league baseball player.

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When Zobrist was at his best—which was probably in 2009, when he generated 6.4 WARP for Joe Maddon’s Tampa Bay Rays—he was an exceptionally patient switch-hitter with 20-homer power, the ability to play average defense all over the field, and strikeout and walk rates hovering in the mid-teens. Because none of his tools are truly elite, there’s no one data point I’d like to show you in addition to that overall profile, but—if you want to see what great plate discipline looks like, check out this swing rate chart covering the 2007-2013 seasons (Brooks Baseball doesn’t have data from 2006, Zobrist’s rookie campaign, and we’ll get to Zobrist’s 2014 and 2015 profiles shortly):

That’s a player who knows what he wants to do at the plate, and won’t swing at anything that he doesn’t feel like he can hit. More to the point, it’s a player who’s consistently able to implement their game plan: Zobrist’s GB/FB/LD ratios have stayed pretty much constant in the years since his debut. Over the course of his career, about 20 percent of his balls have been hit on the ground, 45 percent in the air, and 35 percent on a line. That’s led to a fairly stable BABIP (right around .300 most years, which is league-average) and a profile that hasn’t changed a lot even as he’s aged. When you’re looking to buy in free agency, a stable profile is a plus; it means you sort of know what you’re going to get.

And, luckily for the Cubs, Zobrist’s profile fits the Cubs’ needs like a glove. Maddon—who’s extremely familiar with Zobrist from their time together in Tampa Bay—can use him defensively to spell Starlin Castro at second base, Addison Russell at shortstop, (occasionally) Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo at the corners of the infield, and various players all over the outfield. He’ll also be able to use Zobrist in-game for late switches and matchups, much in the way he used Chris Coghlan (to less effect) in 2015. Meanwhile, on the offensive side, Zobrist will bring strong on-base skills (his career mark is .355) and very strong contact ability (career 85 percent contact rate) to a club that’s actively looking for them. All of that in one player? No wonder the Cubs have had their eye on Zobrist for years. He checks all the boxes but one (youth) and won’t command a nine-figure contract. Sign him up.

Why it Won’t Work: If the Cubs don’t land Zobrist this offseason, I’m guessing it’ll be for one or both of two reasons. Either the Cubs will decide that Zobrist’s profile won’t age well (2016 will be his age-35 season), or other teams—entranced by the same versatile skillset that the Cubs love—will drive his bidding up into a range that threatens the Cubs’ ability to pull in another top-tier free agent like Jason Heyward or David Price. If that becomes the case, I suspect the Cubs will demur on Zobrist, and take a second look at some lesser alternatives to his skillset. Let’s take a look at those two issues in turn. First, how is Zobrist likely to age, and is it consistent with what the Cubs are looking for?

We’ve already talked about Zobrist’s consistent offensive profile, and for most of the years since his dominant 2009, Zobrist has been pretty much the same player he was that year. That said, there have been some slight changes to his game since then, all of which have diminished his overall value, and all of which became particularly noticeable in 2014 and 2015. That’s not a terrible thing—most players get worse as they age—but it’s worth noting nonetheless. Zobrist has less power now than ever before (he sits around 10 home runs these days), more willingness to put the ball in play (his strikeout and walk rates are now both around 10 percent, rather than 15), and average to below-average defense at somewhat fewer positions. That’s still a valuable profile, sure, but it’s one that’s worth something probably more on the order of three wins a year rather than the five or six Zobrist was worth during his heyday. PECOTA is even more pessimistic than that:

Now, I think those projections undersell Zobrist for two reasons. First, there’s this: the question of how you feel about Zobrist’s future value is in large part a question about how you feel about his future defensive value, which drives a large portion of the total you see above. Zobrist’s defensive scores haven’t been that great for the last two years, and so the system thinks they’ll keep getting worse. I’m not so sure of that, because I’m not sure Zobrist will be asked, in the future, to play quite as many positions as he has in the past. And I’m also not convinced that he’ll be a starter for much longer—his playing time is far more likely to come in late in games, as part of a double-switch, and allow him to get just a few defensive innings under his belt on a daily basis. That’ll decrease the number of opportunities he gets to harm his team on defense, and means a larger portion of his value will come from his offense than has in the past. That can only be good for Zobrist, whose offensive profile is fairly stable, and fairly valuable.

And here’s another thing: I think the Cubs can find more value in Zobrist than most teams can. Maddon clearly understands how to use him well, and both Zobrist and Maddon have spoken publicly about the way Zobrist feels he’s put in a position to succeed when he plays for Maddon. That’ll be key as he ages and his skills diminish. Twenty-nine other teams have a need for Zobrist’s skillset, yes, but only one team has a manager in place with a clear plan for how to use him. I think Zobrist will age far better on the Cubs than he would on any other team. And if he can’t? Well, a player who can produce 8.7 WARP worth of value over five years is still worth about $85 million over those years, at market rate. That’s not bad.

But it’s also a lot of money. Zobrist may have flown under the radar for years, but his skills are too wide-ranging for that to continue through this offseason. He’ll sign soon, and he’ll sign for a solid chunk of money and years. I’m certain that the Cubs would grab Zobrist on the right contract—something like $50 million over four years would probably be a lock for them, for example—but there’s no way he ends up with that contract. Something closer to the 5/$85 I proposed above is far more likely, and I’m not sure the Cubs have the financial flexibility to make a deal happen at that price point, especially given their other plans for the offseason. To be fair, they might—I’m no expert on their finances—and Zobrist might also be willing to sacrifice a few million dollars to play for a manager he trusts and near his hometown of Eureka, Illinois. But if you’re dreaming of a cheap Zobrist deal, you’re going to be disappointed, and soon. Zobrist has value, and the league has noticed. No ‘hometown’ discount will solve that problem for the Cubs.

Alternatives: The alternatives here are pretty much the same as those listed in my Daniel Murphy profile from last week: Murphy, Kelly Johnson, Gerardo Parra, and David DeJesus are all players who’d fill part of Zobrist’s skillset. A lot—as with Murphy—will depend on what the Cubs choose to do in center field; given the flexibility on their roster, that decision will trickle into the infield. That said, they may not have that kind of time: all indications are that the market for Zobrist is strong enough that he’ll be signing soon.

Lead photo courtesy Bruce Kluckhohn—USA Today Sports.