The Cubs need a big bat
There are some big names on the free agency market, one of them is 11 letters long



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Since apparently Cubs President of “I was told 83 wins would be enough” Jed Hoyer is coming back next season, it would behoove him to fix some of the glaring problems the roster he slapped together has and will continue to have next season.
Assembling a decent bullpen would be nice. The Cubs are going to miss the playoffs for the fifth straight real season (their two days and out Covid appearance was more of a fever dream than an actual playoff anything), and their inability to hold leads is a major reason why. So get to work on that Jed, you dipshit.
But the bullpen so leaky that North Shore Adult Diapers couldn’t contain the mess was only part of the problem.
The Cubs also weren’t great at scoring runs. So getting the leads didn’t happen as often as it should. They will likely finish the season 10th in the National League in homers, tenth in batting average, seventh in on base and ninth in slugging. What were they good at? Well, they’re fifth in getting hit by pitches! And fourth in stealing bases. Terrific. Great stuff.
Last year the Cubs struggled to homer and Jed said his priority was going to be to search high and low until he found somebody to mash some dingers, since it’s so hard to string together hits to score runs. Every once and a while some burly chested slugger needs to pop one out.
He sure did a great job fixing the offense. The Cubs will hit more homers this year…if they hit 40 in their last 12 games. They won’t.
And last year they were eighth in homers (so they’re not only worse in number of homers but two more teams have outhomered them than last year), they were fifth in batting average (five spots worse this year), third in on base (four worse this year), fourth in slugging (five worse). They were, however, sixth in getting hit by pitches (ONE BETTER THIS YEAR!) and fourth in stealing bases (oh, the same.)

Well, Jed did a helluva job fixing the offense. He’s the kind of mechanic who tells you he fixed your car and then hands you a box of parts that he took out and can’t remember where they went.
At the very least the Cubs need to add a real slugger. Someone who has a proven track record and will strike fear in the hearts of opponents.
It’s hard to find those guys. But if it were easy, everybody would have one or two or six of those guys.
One guy who figures to hit the market, though his current team will try very hard to bring him back, looks good on paper. He’s been an MVP very recently. He’s hit 30 or more homers in six of his last seven full seasons. He’s a career .511 slugger and gets on base, too at .382.
And, you could steal him from your fiercest rival.
Hey, what if the Cubs signed Paul Goldschmidt!