Not trying to beat a dead horse here but really just want to emphasize how lucky we are to have PCA because he was hurt at the time we traded for him. Absolutely no shot the Mets would give him up otherwise, particularly because they just didn’t know how good he would be come.
Also – neither did any of us.
For how much people love PCA, you’d think at least one person somewhere was saying he had 40/40 potential. Or that he’d even hit 25 homers this year or over .300 at any point or slug over .500 and hit clean up. There’s nobody on record anywhere that was saying anything along those lines.
But go back just a little further and he wasn’t even Jed’s top choice for Baez. Not that I don’t blame him based on what people said about Bret Baty but even hearing it back now, it’s crazy to think of a Cubs future without PCA. That would be absolutely miserable.
Fortunately Jed hit this one out of the park and it’s going to soon be remembered as one of the great trades in Chicago history. Just need Pete to stay healthy and a couple playoff appearances to seal that one for me.
But think how much life would be different without him. Who would be playing centerfield on this team and how many games above (or below) .500 are we without him in the middle of the order?
I think we’re probably 7 games worse which is an even 34-34 and somewhere in 3rd place I think.
That’s not unreasonable.
At least 5 but probably closer to 7 and I’m open to taking arguments.
But nobody can deny they’re objectively worse without PCA and that’s all for like 50 games of Javy Baez four years ago. And now he’s our centerfielder for at least another 5 full seasons. So that’s nice.
But it was almost Francisco Alvarez and that would be terrible in comparison. No disrespect. Just last thing this club needs is a light hitting catcher with effort problems when you could have the most dynamic outfielder since Mike Trout broke into the league.
To me, Jed would deservedly get more credit if he targeted PCA initially. But I can’t really blame him for wanting healthy prospects. So I’ll just go to the next level and say I think he’s got huge balls to take an 18 year old that had played 6 games at the time of the trade. Almost like the time the Padres traded for Tatis Jr. when he was 16 years old. Of course you don’t know they’re going to be superstars but more credit for taking a shot on a player that could be a superstar when you’re giving up a franchise player like Javy Baez back in 2021.
That’s the point I wanted to make about PCA and now I’ve made it.
We’re very lucky.