Is Jason Heyward Realy Worth a Spadillion Bucks?

Named the nation's #1 travel destination the past three years, my hometown of Charleston SC is what you would call a destination. People accept jobs paying a lot less money to live here in the 29401.

The 60613 is becoming a destination too. That's the zip code for the iconic structure at 1060 W Addison St. on Chicago's Northside. Both Ben Zobrist and now Jason Heyward have agreed to bring their lunch pails to the shrine on that site for the next several years, despite more lucrative offers to ply their trade elsewhere.

The newest Wrigley Field denizens join John Lackey as 2016 additions to a squad that roared to 97 wins and a spot in the League Championship Series in 2015. Both said at their signings that they wanted to be part of the crew that brought a World Series title to Cub fans after 108 years.

Heyward: Just .268, 16 HR 59 RBI
The predictable blowback on Heyward's haul began the minute word of his eight-year, $184 million deal hit Twitter. Heyward is the prototype of the baseball player undervalued even in 2015 by casual fans and those not yet sophisticated in the ways of baseball analysis, such as many of the media's self-described baseball analysts. But here's why Theo Epstein is a millionaire and a future Hall of Fame front office guy while your average baseball writer is still struggling to understand OPS.

In his six-year career, Jason Heyward has averaged a mere .268, 16 HR and 59 RBI. If that's how you see the world, Heyward is a fringe starter in the outfield. And if that's how you see the world, give my regards to the woolly mammoth.

We've learned over the last 38 years that those three numbers are weak diagnostic instruments. Heyward's walking proclivities and double & triple power show up in his laudable .353/.431 OBP/SLG numbers. His 86 steals in just 113 attempts, combined with superb baserunning prowess, add to his value. Defense that dazzles the eye as well as the stat sheet adds more fuel to the fire, so that by the time you're done, you have a five-win player who's just entering his age-26 prime.

In other words, Heyward is all the things that traditional measures, like cubits and pieces of silver, don't measure. He gets on base without the gaudy batting average. He slugs doubles and triples, not homers. He's circumspect about his base-stealing, but highly efficient. He fields all three outfield positions and scores on doubles -- things that don't show up in the boxscore.

For the Cubs, there's even more value. Heyward can staff the central pasture and offset some of the defensive pain inflicted by two all-bat corner catastrophes -- Kyle Schwarber and Jorge Soler.  And his addition in Chicago is subtraction from St. Louis, the Cubs' chief rival and tormentor.

Murderers Row, 2016
As for easily-dismissed broad skills, Ben Zobrist is much the same, and with full infield defensive flexibility. He and Heyward join Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant, Schwarber, Soler, Miguel Montero and Addison Russell as the Cubs' starting lineup if the season began today. (Sadly, it doesn't.) The guy squatting behind the dish flashes a lifetime .343 OBP while averaging 15 home runs-a-year -- and bats seventh in this lineup. Sheesh.

With Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester and John Lackey flummoxing opposition bats, Hector Rondon turning out the lights and Joe Maddon pulling the levers, it's no wonder free agents are turning down marginal bags of money to hop on the Wrigley Express. They will be young and loaded in 2016 -- and Theo might not even be done.