Is Ian Happ a bad teammate?

The Cubs have an interesting dilemma on their hands. They played well in the five game series against the Brewers, winning the middle three games, and reminding us that they really are a fairly good team that deserves the playoff spot they're going to either grab or back into.

But they've created a very strange drama with Kyle Tucker. They sat him for the first four games of the series to give him a "mental reset" because he has (technical term coming up...) sucked ass for well over a month now. Then, while he was sitting in the dugout staring at the wall, somebody leaked the news that the Cubs knew he actually broke a finger on his right hand with that awkward slide in early June.

The thing is, the broken finger is healed now, and he played really well with it, posting a .982 for the rest of the month after he broke it. Maybe they should re-break it?

Anyway, Tucker came back on Thursday and looked bad at the plate. He's been hitting way too many ground balls and the first swing he took was a tepid roller that went just foul. It was hit so slowly that even Andrew Vaughn could field it, if you can imagine such a thing.

But the Cubs have to play him. Why? Because his track record is of a top 10 player in baseball. And it's not just his track record from his previous years in Houston. He was a real MVP candidate as late as LAST MONTH!

You have to play him because he's your best player and if he doesn't figure this out, you're team is screwed anyway. Because everybody else on this team can be pitched to or around, and we know that because teams are doing this to them every day and night now that Tucker is struggling.

Fans were bitching that Kyle Tucker was playing today instead of Owen Caissie.

Imagine that two months ago.

It's the wrong thing to be bitching about. Owen Caissie should be playing instead of Ian Happ.

As the long-time president of the Ian Happ Fan Club, I feel like I understand all of our favorite Cubs player (of all time, in most cases) better than most.

Happ, has of course been the plucky engine of so many of your favorite Cubs' teams. Like the one that blew a 2.5 game lead with six to go in 2018, then scored one run in the game 163 loss to the Brewers and then just one again in 13 innings in the Wild Card game loss to the Rockies. Or, the 2019 Cubs who went on a nine game losing streak with 12 games to go (Five by one run! Two in 10 innings!) to miss the playoffs. Or, the 2020 Cubs who scored one run total in two games in the weird Covid playoffs. Or, the 2021 Cubs who fell apart so spectacularly that Jed traded everybody, but not Happ, because at the deadline, Ian was the worst position player in baseball.

Don't believe me?

Here were Ian's stats on July 31, 2021: .180/.294/.326, 90 strikeouts in 267 at bats. How fun.

Ian also was an integral part of the 2023 choke job that cost the Cubs a playoff spot, and whatever the hell last year was.

He's played for the Cubs for nine seasons. He's played in just eight playoff games. The Cubs have lost all eight of them. Granted, they've only won four playoff games in his career (all in his first season), but he didn't play in any of those. He did play in five playoff losses that year, though.

But you knew all that.

Hey, production can fluctuate. I get it. Baseball's a cruel game. But what doesn't waiver is team leadership, and the Cubs and especially their in-house propaganda arm, Marquee are always there to tell us what a great teammate Ian Happ is.

Why, remember when he wrote a really long scouting report for Ryan Pressly after Pressly made the worst single relief appearance in the 150 years of Major League Baseball? (0.0 IP, eight batters faced, nine runs allowed) It turned Pressly's season around. Now that, is a teammate. How's Pressly done recently? Oh, that's right, the Cubs DFA'd him on July 31 and nobody has signed him.

Intrepid reader Mark G. wondered if I had seen Happ celebrating with Owen Caissie after Owen scored a big run in the Cubs' win Tuesday night over the Brewers. Huge moment in the game. Huge moment in Owen Caissie's young career.

Gotta feel great to slide into home, with Wrigley Field going nuts and having the on deck batter do this:

Wait. Let's not be rash. Let's wait for the replay.

Well...uh...he...uh, nodded. That's not nothing.

Actually, that kind of is nothing.

But hey, at least Ian "gets it." He lives Dusty Baker's credo. This is an "earn it, business."

"Luckily I'm at a point in my career where I'm gonna be out there every day, and that gives you a little bit of comfort. Doesn't make it any easier to go through, doesn't make it hurt any worse when you're not getting the results, because this is a game where you want to help the team. If you’re doing things right you’re gonna be in a good spot over the long term.”

Is the long term more than 117 games? Because that's how many you've been "doing things right" this year and the results are mostly shit.

But the part of the quote that is really galling (not including the part where he said "it doesn't make it hurt any worse when you're not getting results") is this.

"I'm at the point in my career where I'm gonna be out there every day."

Why would that be true? You're not a tenured professor, dipshit. Though he could be a tenured Professor of Dipshit somewhere after he retires.

It really seems like what he's saying is that since he's a veteran he just gets to play every day whether he deserves to or not.

It's not fair to judge a guy on standing there with a thumb in his ass when a rookie teammate in his first week on the job scores a huge run in a huge game.

I mean, if I were a skeptic, I might conclude that Happ isn't keen on the giant kid with the burger clown red hair having enough success to cut into his precious at bats.

This isn't the first time Happ has stood motionless while a teammate slid into home plate. Remember early in the season when Nico was thrown out against the D'bags because Happ stood there didn't try to let Nico know that the throw was going to take the catcher up the line and for Nico to cut in front? No big deal. I mean who actually does stuff like that?

Other than EVERY on deck hitter in the league.

A lot of my problems with Happ aren't really even his fault.

I guess more than loathe him, I just resent him a lot.

I resent that the Cubs and Marquee have for years propped him up like he was the equal of Kris Bryant, Javy Baez, Anthony Rizzo and Kyle Schwarber. He never has been. He wasn't the end of a great run of Cubs first round draft picks (Javy, Bryant, Schwarber) he was the beginning of a shitty run of them (him, Brendon Little, Alex Lange).

I resent that there are morons out there who think he was on the World Series team.

I resent that Jed picked Happ over Schwarber and that since Schwarber left he's hit 208 homers (an average of 42 per year) and has an .869 OPS. While Happ has literally half that many (104) and an OPS more than 100 points worse.

Plus, Schwarber's fun. Happ is the dullest person in the world.

I resent that he's won three Gold Gloves despite being at best an average outfielder, but that we're supposed to act like a left field Gold Glove means anything, anyway. If you could play outfield worth a shit, you wouldn't be in left field in the first place.

I resent that while all of the actual good players left, not only did Happ get the contract extension, but that Jed put a fucking no-trade clause in it. Gotta lock up that kind of mediocrity extra tight.

I regret that his shitty podcast is televised, and that his terrible coffee brand isn't mocked at every turn. What I don't regret is that he lost his hair plug endorsement because his body graft v. hosted them right off of his head.

I regret that the things that make him so torpid, are the reasons Jed and Tom Ricketts can't get enough of him. He's the perfect 2020's Cubs player. White, dull and willing to sign short-term contracts.

The Cubs drafted him to be a switch hitting second baseman with power from both sides of the plate. But he proved pretty quickly that he didn't have the range or the instincts to play second, and he's never been able to hit at all from the right side of the plate. Yet he insists on still switch hitting, even though he's terrible at it.

At least in the early part of his career he slugged. In his first four seasons he had a .481 slugging, and he hit 62 homers, despite spending the first half of the 2019 season in the minors and that the Covid season was only 60 games.

In the six seasons since he's slugged just .428. And that coincided with his move to left field. When he played positions where his power would be a nice bonus (second and center) he did have some pop. When he moved to a position where power is a necessity, he stopped hitting homers.

But the Cubs told us that while his power has declined, it's because he's made swing changes to improve his on base average and to strike out less.

Neat. That'd be something if it were true.

But it's false.

Easily, provably false.

In the last six years, his on base is .340, and he strikes out more than once per game (742 K's in 733 games). In his first four years his on base average was .344 and he struck out 398 times in 372 games.

So what exactly has he accomplished with the super great swing change? His on base average actually went down, he still strikes out at the same rate only now he homers far less often.

And that might be the thing I resent the most. That Marquee just acts like he's good. There's no evidence to support it. At his best he was a slightly above average player. A useful player. A nice player to be the sixth best bat in your lineup. But because the Cubs didn't have anybody else after the purge of '21, they just told us he was really good, despite all evidence to the contrary. They just lie to our faces and a big chunk of the fan base eats it up. They're the Fox News of sports.

The only place Happ could possibly really fit in the Cubs lineup is batting leadoff. But, the team has to bat the guy who should be hitting cleanup (Michael Busch) in the top spot against righties because Happ failed there (.322 on base in 84 games).

So now, Happ bats cleanup sometimes where he's hitting a whopping .182/.250/.182. Or fifth, where he hits .188/.316/.438.

Oh, and his defense is bad now (even for left field) in large part because he can't run, which also is hampering the team on the bases.

Happ's coolness to Caissie is not a coincidence. I get that Happ can be an awkward guy. He's clearly an introvert, which is no crime. But he also is so routine dependent that David Ross said he couldn't lead Happ off in 2023 because he wouldn't have enough time to get ready for his first at bat of the game when they were at home. He had to stare at those magic dots in his helmet to train his eyes or some shit.

And those stupid dots are proof that Happ is clearly a sucker for any piece of junk science anyone peddles him. Hell, I'll bet he's got a garage full of golf swing aides that he bought off QVC. There's a non-zero chance that his entire baseball income is unintentionally tied up in some Ponzi scheme.

He's going to be the first player ever suspended for turning Prevagen into a suppository.

But even though he went to college at Cincinnati, he's not a complete idiot. He knows that Caissie is a threat to him long term, and short term. Long term, Caissie's going to be the guy who plays left for the Cubs when Happ's contract mercifully expires after next season. Short-term, with Tucker back from his sabbatical, there are going to be times when Caissie is in left and Happ is sitting on the bench. And if Tucker turns it around and Caissie keeps hitting, there's not going to be any place for Happ.

And that'll be a real shame. Who will his pathetic bleacher defenders be able to have kicked out of the park for not rooting appropriately when he's glued to the bench?

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Disappointing? Yes.

Surprising? No.

Let's just say you probably wouldn't enjoy talking politics with most baseball or hockey players. Ever.

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