Earlier Tuesday afternoon, I located this interesting tweet regarding Ben Zobrist and Joe Maddon:
Most games under manager Joe Maddon
(Including postseason)
1,085 Ben Zobrist
989 Evan Longoria
946 Melvin Upton
— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) December 9, 2015
Clearly, Maddon loved Zobrist's versatility when he managed the Rays, and now, according to the usually-reliable Ken Rosenthal, Zobrist will be a Cub for the next four years:
Source: Zobrist in agreement with #Cubs on four-year, $56M contract, pending a physical.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 9, 2015
That's actually not an unreasonable amount of money in today's market. The risk, of course, is Zobrist's age. The Cubs will be getting his age-35 through age-38 seasons. Zobrist had a good year in 2015 combined between the Athletics and Royals, hitting .276/.359/.450 with 13 home runs. That was worth just 1.9 bWAR, though.
Earlier tweets Tuesday indicated that the Cubs were trying to "sync up" a free-agent signing and a trade, as noted here:
With #Cubs reportedly signing Ben Zobrist, next step may be to move Starlin Castro
— Carrie Muskat (@CarrieMuskat) December 9, 2015
This would make some sense. Zobrist, though he can play multiple positions -- he played second and third base and left and right field in 2015 -- might wind up as the Cubs' starting second baseman if the team can trade Castro. Also, that would help offset some of the money that's going to Zobrist.
All right, your turn.