Prior to the Cubs’ final series of the season, David Ross sat in the visitor’s dugout of Great American Ball Park and proclaimed the corner outfield spots locked down.
“Talking to a lot of these outfielders, left and right are taken,” Ross said. “Pretty simple, if there’s an open spot it’s in center field. That’s where I’d put in my work, that’s where I’d try to get better.”
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Want to get playing time, Christopher Morel? Don’t bother trying to win the job in left. Need at-bats for Nelson Velázquez? Center is your best chance. If Brennen Davis or Alexander Canario want to break into the big leagues, they’ll have to handle the middle of the outfield.
After the Cubs signed Seiya Suzuki, it was clear that right field would be his position to lose for the foreseeable future. But left? Ian Happ had struggled for much of 2021 and the naysayers suggested his strong end to the season was just a mirage. Doubting Happ wasn’t completely unfair. He’d flashed brilliance before, only to go into deep slumps that dinged his value and at times made it hard for him to even be in the lineup.
But 2022 was the veteran’s breakout.
“One of the most gratifying things for me in this job is watching that arc of a player, watching that development,” team president Jed Hoyer said. “He took a really remarkable step forward in terms of his consistency on the field. I think his career had been marked prior to this year by really high highs and really low lows. He made a very concerted effort with his swing and his mentality to even that out. I think he did a fantastic job. There’s no reason he can’t continue to do that.”
Over the years, Happ made slight tweaks to his swing, allowing him to close one of his bigger holes at the plate. In 2018, only nine players who saw at least 400 fastballs in the upper third of the zone or higher swung and missed at those pitches at a higher rate than Happ’s 19.4 percent. It was one of the major reasons he started the 2019 season in the minors.
Happ often downplays the need for him to be sent to Triple A that year. He believes he could have continued to hone his craft at the highest level. Perhaps that’s true and the reality is that time in Iowa didn’t fully correct this specific issue. In 58 games with the big-league team in 2019, that number actually jumped to 19.6 percent. But Happ wasn’t done working. He continued to adjust the placement of his hands and very slightly come to the ball at a different angle.
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Each year after 2019, Happ improved in this area. But the results didn’t fully come until this past season, when he had a career-best 13.3 percent swing-and-miss rate at those high fastballs. It’s hard to just lay off those pitches in general, because pitchers have learned how to command heat up in the zone. So being capable of at least fighting those pitches off is important. Happ seems to have done that.
In Happ’s eyes, the biggest adjustment was mental. He stopped doubting himself. Ross gave him regular playing time and he stopped looking over his shoulder. That, in his mind, was the key to the consistency that Hoyer spoke of.
The above chart shows just how volatile Happ was prior to 2022. The highs are the types of performances that elite players deliver. But the lows are so bad that it largely renders those great stretches meaningless. It’s very difficult for a manager to pen someone into the lineup daily when they’re going through that type of extended slump. To become a trusted player a manager could rely upon, Happ had to reduce those down periods.
“Ian created that himself,” Ross said. “He identified what he wanted to be. Part of that was being consistent, part of that was expanding his game and being versatile. A lot of that has to do with getting the at-bats, in his mind.”
Happ didn’t put up his best offensive season this year, but he avoided the low lows and reduced his swing-and-miss considerably. His 120 wRC+ in 2022 puts him in a similar category as Rhys Hoskins and Matt Olson, but with more defensive value. After regressing to a 29.2 percent strikeout rate last year (he was above 30 percent in his first two seasons in the bigs), Happ’s number dropped to 23.2 percent, just eight-tenths of a point above league average.
His batting average was a career-high .271 and while his power numbers seemed down, he actually hit 42 doubles on the year, more than double his previous career-best of 20. If a few more of those go over the fence, suddenly his .169 ISO jumps a few dozen points and his overall numbers look much better.
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Happ has often been adamant that all he needed was regular playing time. Under Joe Maddon, the team was built to win. Developing a player like Happ and allowing him to work through extended struggles just wasn’t realistic at the time. It meant Happ was yo-yo-ed in and out of the lineup. That’s difficult for any player, but especially for a switch-hitter who still hadn’t found a permanent defensive home.
The latter finally happened for Happ late last season as he settled into left field. Ross stopped playing Happ in center for much of the second half in 2021, giving him just two starts at the position after the All-Star break. In the offseason and the spring, Happ dedicated himself to learning the nuances of the position. He looked at where the data said he could improve— route efficiency and burst — and worked to correct those issues. It led to him posting positive defensive numbers across the three main advanced metrics (Defensive Runs Saved, Outs Above Average and Ultimate Zone Rating) for only the second time in his career, the first in a full season. DRS had him as the sixth-rated outfielder, second among left fielders.
Happ also has emerged as a veteran voice in the clubhouse. He saw Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Báez all traded away last summer. Jon Lester is retired and while Ross has returned, he is no longer a player. Happ has seen winning and knows what it takes. In the clubhouse, his locker is next to Nico ho*rner’s, another quickly emerging presence in that space.
“His voice was fantastic,” Hoyer said of Happ. “It was all about winning and all about developing guys. He and Nico have a really great relationship that way. Immediately he took Seiya under his wing and tried to mentor him in the way baseball is played and things are done over here. I think he really found his voice from a leadership standpoint.”
The all-around player who sets the right example is exactly what the Cubs need more of to get back to the postseason. Most assumed that the next time the Cubs were playing meaningful October baseball, Happ would be gone. They could be right. Perhaps the Cubs find a deal they can’t pass up this winter or they don’t do enough to reach the playoffs in 2023 and Happ walks in free agency. But Happ has proved the doubters wrong. A year ago, some wondered if he was a non-tender candidate. Now, he looks like a big key to a 2023 turnaround.
“It’s just giving such a well-rounded game,” Ross said. “You see the growth of a young man that’s gone through a lot of adversity and tried to please a lot of people. He’s tried to maximize what everyone else wanted and I think he’s learned over time, ‘This is where I’m going to be the best version of me.’ And I think it’s a really good version.”
(Top photo: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)
Sahadev Sharma is a staff writer for The Athletic and covers the Chicago Cubs. Previously, Sahadev was a national baseball writer for Baseball Prospectus and ESPN Chicago. Follow Sahadev on Twitter @sahadevsharma
