Welcome to the 2022 winter offseason, Chicago Cubs. Dansby Swanson will be their first “real” signing, or “major signing” of the hot stove season, as he moves over from the Atlanta Braves.
According to multiple sources: NBC, ESPN, BR etc. the Cubs are expected to finalize and sign, seal, deliver the deal with Swanson and his camp tonight. Word is it’s seven years, $177 million.
So you can expect an official announcement and press release from the Cubs in about a week. Oh wait that’s Christmas Eve, so Boxing Day, December 26th probably.
Typically that’s just how slow Major League Baseball moves with these kinds of things- official word doesn’t come out until about a week after the news breaks.
So what are they getting in Dansby Swanson, a man whose name sounds like a character dreamt up by F. Scott Fitzgerald?
The fact that he went to Vanderbilt just adds on to this theme.
(“Indeed, Dansby Swanson, of the East Hampton Swansons, heir to a textile mill fortune, he excelled in crew at Vanderbilt, from having summered on Hyannisport, but prior to that he was an elite fencer at Exeter Academy.
“While his father was a clothing production magnate, his mother was a Savannah debutante, a child of a railroad dynasty”)
Anyway, in the 2022 Shortstop free agent winter, an offseason with four elite SSs on the market, he is the weakest link of the four. That said, being the weakest link of an elite quartet is still very good.
No, he is not Carlos Correa, nor Xavier Boegarts, but he’s really good, and he’s instantly one of the highest quality position players on the Cubs.
He’s a good signing, but this doesn’t mean that all of a sudden, Ricketts has a plan now. Like the Cubs are actually trying to rebuild.
In signing him for seven years, it means that the Cubs are actually signing a free agent long term, and that’s what you have to do in order to play the free agent market game. In order to get somebody good, you got to offer them a long term contract.
He’s good.
Welcome to the Cubs, Dansby Swanson.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
He’s written for numerous publications, including the New York Daily News, Sports Illustrated and the Chicago Tribune. He regularly appears on NTD News and WGN News Now. Follow the website on Twitter and Instagram.