Every Team's Most Interesting Player: Chicago Cubs, Ian Happ
This is the fifth in a series of articles about the most interesting player for fantasy owners on each team heading into the 2020 season. We are going alphabetically, so today we’re going to talk about Ian Happ of the Chicago Cubs.
Happ, a 25-year-old former Top 10 overall pick in 2015, has had a weird career thus far. He entered professional baseball as a promising combination of power and speed, and he’s flashed it often, but also put together mostly uninspiring campaigns at the big league level. Enthusiasm for Happ peaked after 2017, when he hit 24 home runs and stole eight bags to go along with a .253 batting average across 115 games. Those numbers are very encouraging from a 23-year-old, but he’s unfortunately failed to capitalize. Happ hit only 15 home runs the following season despite appearing in 142 games, and in his three MLB seasons he’s struggled to find a primary position and stick with the big club altogether. The main culprit for his slow start has been strikeouts; while he was never a contact maven even in the minors, Happ struck out 36.1% of the time in 2018 and finished the year with a .233 average. That’s just hideous, and unsustainable in a major league lineup without major power numbers, which he was definitely not providing.
This year, however, things are looking up. Happ chopped that whiff rate by 11 points last season, slashing .264/.333/.564 with 11 home runs in just 58 games. He played some second and third base too, but mostly spent time in the outfield (36 games) where he posted a 3.0 UZR. That defensive metric seems irrelevant to fantasy owners, except plus contributions with his glove can keep him in the lineup when he slumps. Even better news—the Cubs no longer have Ben Zobrist or Addison Russell clogging up the lineup, meaning Happ has the inside track to either start at second base or in center field. Fangraphs’ Roster Resource page slots him in at CF, but the second base options of David Bote, Nico Hoerner and Daniel Descalso shouldn’t send shivers down Happ’s spine.
With more consistent playing time, the improvements Happ made in a small sample size last year could take hold and transform him into a contributing fantasy asset. He was a more aggressive hitter in 2019, swinging at nearly 10% more pitches and raising his contact rate up about eight percentage points to 71.7%. He really improved on pitches in the strike zone, making contact more than 80% of the time, a great stat when you pair it with his .300 ISO.
Happ has a lot of pop, and if he can make that much contact in the zone over a full season we have a 30-35 home run player on our hands which is valuable even if he doesn’t do much on the bases.
His current ADP is No. 348, so he’s a total afterthought right now. It might rise during spring training if he hits the ball well, or even just as people realize he’s likely an every day player for the Cubs in 2020. But he should stay a value all offseason, and with one of your last picks you could wind up with an everyday 3B.