One of the main talking points since the trade deadline amongst the media and Cubs fans has been the acquisition of Isaac Paredes at the trade deadline. The Cubs shocked all of Major League Baseball when they decided to make a move for the 25-year-old All-Star third baseman Paredes in return for the once-coveted Christopher Morel. Because of the fact that the Cubs made such a surprise game-changing move that Cubs fans didn’t expect, Cubs fans have kept a keen eye on the play of their newest third baseman.
The results, overall, have been mixed, but the good sign is that Paredes’s play on the field has vastly improved since he was first acquired. Paredes was hitting merely over .200 prior to the end of August, but it seems like the third baseman has turned a corner. Since August 26th, Paredes, in 18 games, has been batting .300 with a .436 OBP and .367 SLUG.
The Cubs are getting improved playout Paredes, which is important for the future of this team. With most trade deadline acquisitions, you are trading for a rental player who is trying to help you make a push for the postseason. What Jed Hoyer and company did at the deadline was getting ahead and doing off-season work during the regular season. They made an investment in Paredes with the plan for him to be the third baseman for the Cubs for many years to come. After all, Paredes is under control through at least 2028.
While the numbers that Paredes has been able to achieve over the last couple of weeks are promising, there is still a big problem that needs to be improved upon. Much of Paredes’ positive offensive numbers have come on the road, which means his offensive numbers at Wrigley Field do not seem to be improving. This was a major red flag that people circled when the Cubs first made the acquisition of Paredes.
Because of Paredes’s pull-side hitting, it never seemed like it was going to play well at Wrigley Field, unlike how it did at Tropicana Field for Tampa Bay. If you look at Paredes’s spray chart for this year with an overlay of Tropicana and Wrigley, he would have 24 home runs with the Rays while 15 with the Cubs. Heading into the series with the Oakland Athletics, Paredes was hitting a mere .081 at Wrigley Field this season.
You have to look at the positive signs of this going forward with Paredes. Paredes was thrown into a tough situation from the start. You never really know what the struggles are for a player who has spent nearly their entire career in one place, just from one side of the country to the other. You can see he is starting to settle in, which is hopefully a positive sign of things to come for this engagement with the Cubs and Paredes.
Nonetheless, Paredes is the third baseman of the 2024 Cubs and beyond. The Cubs would not make such a big investment at the trade deadline for them to just jump ship going forward. We are talking about a guy who was once a top prospect and had some of the best offensive numbers for a third baseman over the past couple of seasons. The most important part will be the Cubs building on this roster in the off-season and not having to rely on Paredes to be one of their main offensive contributors in 2025.
