You no doubt noticed that Dansby Swanson sat yesterday, and that it was the second time in a relatively short span that he sat. Since he is a guy who never wants to sit, it was easy enough to figure there was something there. But we didn’t have a chance to discuss it because of the game timing, so here’s that discussion.
Yes, there’s something there.
“His right knee has been bugging him a little bit,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said of Swanson, per Cubs.com. “He hurt it on a slide on [April 25] here against Houston. Through the road trip and homestand, it’s just not improving. So we’re going to try to get him a couple days here and then see where we’re at.”
It’s the old Joe Maddon trick of giving a guy a rest day before or after an off-day, so that there’s a little more impact – two full days off. Hopefully that’ll be enough to get Swanson over the hump, rather than having this continue to be a lingering thing all year. If there’s a thought it could be approaching that kind of issue come tomorrow, though, here’s hoping the Cubs just put him on the IL and let him really rest – with backdating, you’d be talking about an absence that was only about a week. It could be worth it, particularly given the Cubs’ ability to put a pretty darn good shortstop there in Nico Hoerner (or call up Luis Vazquez, who is a premium defender at the position and is already on the 40-man roster).
Consider that, since the injury, Dansby Swanson has hit a frightening .159/.229/.227/36 wRC+, with a 31.3% K rate. The sample is small enough that sometimes you’d see stretches like that on chance alone, but since we KNOW there’s been an injury issue, it sticks out all the more.