But it comes down to 115 games for all 3 guys.
Ok I get giving Schwarber a day off here and there to keep his knee's together. I get sitting Baez vs some RHP that have owned him. I get how Zo is getting older. But not 200 PA less action each.
I'm thinking 145 starts each myself. That means Zo in RF and Heyward in CF a good chunk.
Unless Almora just flat out puts up rookie of the year production. Which he could. Jay.... if he is out preforming Almora then they need to keep Almora in AAA and make Jay the 4th
The cubs had 6 players last year play 140+ games and they were fairly healthy as a team. It's not that hard to get 12 guys 500ish PAs(assuming health). As a team excluding the pitcher spot, the cubs had 5935 PAs last year from 20 players. Even if you assume their 8 "starters" get 600 PAs(only 3 cubs had 600+ PAs last year) that still leaves around 1200 or so PAs for your bench. Now do you really have to give Tommy La Stella 400 PAs? Not really but that's not really my point. My point is you can easily give 8-10 guys 400-500 PAs. Obviously you probably want Bryant and Rizzo closer to 600 but even if you assume everyone stays healthy it's not that hard to find PAs for Almora and Baez.
And regardless my point still stands about keeping people fresh. Zobrist played 147 games and took 631 PAs last season. He'll be 36 near the start of next season. He doesn't really need to play 150 games for the cubs to make the playoffs. What you want is him fresh at the end of the season rather than to wear down. And by playing the younger guys slightly more you give them experience you're going to want in the playoffs where pinch hits matter. And even talking about the younger guys, you'll want them not to wear down after playing into Nov the previous year.
I'm quite dubious Heyward plays much CF. If they planed to play him in CF then they wouldn't have signed Jay. What's far more likely to happen is you will see something like Zobrist sit and have rizzo, baez, russell, bryant, Schwarber, Almora, Heyward one day then another day you might sit Schwarber and move Zobrist into LF. Another day you might sit Bryant and move Baez to 3B and Zobrist to 2B. Russell can sit and Baez can play SS with Zobrist at 2B. Rizzo can sit and either Bryant or Baez moves to 1B. So on and so forth. You may not ever see the cubs role out their "playoff" line up during the regular season because you may end up sitting one "starter" every day and just rotate pieces around that way. Likewise you can platoon Almora and Jay in CF and have them rotate when Heyward sits if you so choose.
By doing that you really aren't taking much out of your every day line up but you keep everyone including your bench players fresh and ready should they be called upon. And of course that's to say nothing of pinch hitting or the 10 DH games the cubs get.
