Solid player that will never be great making the most out of your position players? Overpaid for him IMO, yes he is good defensively but from what i hear his great defensive war come from 1.7 plays a game... is that really worth over $20mil per year for 8 years?
Those 1.7 plays a game are almost always impact plays though and that's kind of the point. Most outfields are pretty routinely ok fielding in a particular range. That's why BABIP on fly balls is low and a place like PETCO helps pitchers. Infielders make more errors because they are difficult shots quickly at them. However, when they screw up it's usually just a single. On the other hand, outfielders are generally considered good because of great range or a cannon of an arm. Great range prevents doubles/triples. Same thing can be said for a great arm and often times a great arm can stop a run from scoring.
The defensive metrics say he saved between 20-22 runs last year over the course of a season. That doesn't sound like much but consider the cubs as a team gave up 608 runs and of those 546 were earned. And it's not just what Heyward gives you but it's also what you got out of Fowler/Soler. DRS didn't really like Fowler at -12 runs in CF. UZR liked him slightly better at -1.7. Either way, that's costing you runs so it's more for Heyward. DRS had soler at -8 and UZR had him at -7 last season though he only played 100 games. For the sake of argument, let's just say Heyward is +30 runs from last season. that's a 5% decrease in one player. Or put another way, the cubs gave up 3.75 runs per game. Take away 30 runs from that they are at 3.57. The top team in the majors in that regard was the cardinals last season at 3.24. The dodgers were #2 at 3.67. You're now taking away Heyward from the cardinals and increasing the cubs. It's not crazy to think the cubs may give up the fewest runs in the majors next season.
And that obviously says nothing of his offense. His defense isn't everything but it likely allows them to put a bat like Schwarber's into the line up long term and Schwarbers bat even vs a typical decent LF is a big deal.
