Chicago Cubs: Consistent Ian Happ making his case for an extension amid 2026 disaster

The Chicago Cubs are in a deep and ugly funk. With a 7-22 record over their last 29 games, the team is now a .500 club that would be firmly out of postseason consideration if the season were to end today.

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A lot of fingers could be pointed when it comes to blame. Nobody on this team has been fully pulling their own weight—including the coaching—and some have just been a liability from day one. And while bad luck plays a role in their downward team trajectory, much of that misfortune—especially related to injury—can be credited to poor decisions made in the offseason by the front office.

But it’s in the middle of this mess that left fielder Ian Happ, who is eligible for free agency at the end of this season, may be making his case for an extension.

Happ’s consistency making a case for his return

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It’s not necessarily because Happ is killing it this year, although he is leading the team with 15 home runs and playing his usual stellar defense. It’s that the Cubs, on this wildly inconsistent squad, need some boring reliability.

You can basically pencil Happ in for a .240-something batting average, .340-something on base percentage, and 20-something home runs every year, while competing for a Gold Glove. And in a mess like this one, Happ’s dependable plug-and-play presence can be invaluable.

He certainly says all the right things expected from a calming and dependable clubhouse influence.

“Offense is contagious in both ways,” Happ recently told reporters. “You guys have seen this offense rolling, scoring eight to 10 runs a game for a week or two weeks at a time. And when that’s going, everybody feels like they’re going to get a hit with runners in scoring position, and it just keeps compounding. When it’s not, the hardest part is getting out of your own way and just letting things happen, trusting your process.

When you’re struggling and going through it, it’s challenging mentally, it’s a challenge on everybody individually. The hardest part is that everybody wants to help, everybody wants to help this group and everybody wants to win ballgames. Everybody looking within and trying to find out how they can do that, that’s the part, the pressure part of it, the thing that makes it so mentally grinding.”

The realities facing the Cubs

On a team brimming with superstars playing at their self-actualized best, Happ might be expendable. A case could be made for trying someone else out in his spot, perhaps a young stud with more explosive game-changing capabilities.

On a team like the Cubs, though, Happ is like a sturdy cement foundation underneath an otherwise rickety house.

Right fielder Seiya Suzuki, who is also eligible for free agency at the end of this season, has a greater offensive upside than Happ, but is also much less reliably consistent. If only one of the two corner outfielders can be re-signed, Chicago would be better served dealing with Happ.

Retaining the veteran won’t fix the struggling Cubs for this year and beyond, but it definitely might keep the team from falling further.

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Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-ian-happ-extension-suzuki/