Kimbrel Traded to White Sox

[Eye Black]

Assuming the Cubs play Madrigal at 2B and move Nico Hoerner to SS next year, they will have two of the highest average, low slugging players in baseball in their middle infield.

[monty57]

Madrigal will need to be traded by the time the Cubs are relevant again so I don't see it as a big deal in relation to the Brewers.

 

He has five years of service time left. I hope the rebuild takes that long, but that might be overly wishful thinking.

 

It would kind of suck to be him. Good young player who thinks he's going to play in some meaningful baseball, and maybe even get a World Series ring as soon as this year, and then he's traded to the rebuilding Cubs.

[LouisEly]

Not a fan of the Cubs getting Madrigal… Not one bit.

He was the 4th overall pick, but so far to me has looked "good" but not "great". For a guy who is 5'8" he doesn't walk much; he also rarely strikes out but that means he's highly dependent on his BABIP for success (so far .338 for his career). He's also played in a lousy division with weak pitching, so his numbers might go down in a better division. Yes, he's only 24 and is still developing, but he's not a guy I'm going to lose sleep over unless he starts showing more power. Heuer is in the same boat; still developing, but so far seems more "good" than "great".

 

Good trade for the Cubs, got a couple of solid pieces, but I'd rather they have those guys for five years than Kimbrel for the rest of this year and next.

[Lathund]

It's a good return for 1 1/3 season of Kimbrel. But like LouisEly says, it's not something to lose sleep over. Madrigal will be an annoying player to face, but his approach also puts a hard ceiling on his offense. He's a spray-hitting groundball hitter with good speed, so his BABIP will be above average even if he doesn't hit the ball particularly hard. And because 85-90% of his plate appearances end with the ball in play, he'll get a lot of hits. But groundballs (Or weakly hit balls) don't result in many extra base hits, and putting the ball in play to this degree means you also swing on many pitches you shouldn't, pitches you can't get good contact on, or pitches that would be balls. So those balls in play will be his entire offensive output, and it'll be mostly singles with a few doubles in there. It'll be enough to make him an above average hitter on its own, but he can't really get better without changing his game. The reason he can hit for such a high average is because he has absolutely no power.

 

He's a good player, he'll be an average to above average starter. Maybe he'll even go to an all-star game in one of his better years. He'll get some annoyingly timed hits against us for sure. But he's not some superstar who is going to terrorize us for years. So again, Cubs did well, but it's a "safe" low-ceiling high-floor type of return. Remains to see what else they do, with a Hoerner-Madrigal infield they have two oldschool infielders who can hit but with little power. Probably looking to build with a lot of power around them.