{"id":2209,"date":"2016-11-29T20:19:47","date_gmt":"2016-11-30T01:19:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonbaseball.com\/?p=2209"},"modified":"2016-11-29T20:19:47","modified_gmt":"2016-11-30T01:19:47","slug":"chicago-cubs-sign-jon-jay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2016\/11\/29\/chicago-cubs-sign-jon-jay\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs Sign Jon Jay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <strong>Chicago Cubs<\/strong> have made their first impactful move of the offseason. They have signed former <strong>San Diego Padre <a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jayjo02.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jon Jay<\/a><\/strong>. Jay played 90 games last season, mostly in center field. The deal is reportedly for one-year, and is valued at $8 million.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-lang=\"en\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Cubs agree to terms with OF Jon Jay on 1-year, $8 million contract.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Mark Gonzales (@MDGonzales) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MDGonzales\/status\/803747375466614784\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">November 29, 2016<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><strong>Mark Gonzales <\/strong>of the <strong>Chicago Tribune<\/strong> was among the first to report the signing.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Chicago Cubs Sign Jon Jay<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fowlede01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Dexter Fowler<\/a><\/strong>, the Cubs 2016 center fielder, hit free agent this offseason. It\u2019s uncetain whether Fowler was their primary target heading into the winter. After this signing, however, it appears that left-handed Jay may be a platoon bat with righty <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/almoral01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Albert Almora<\/a><\/strong>. Jay, 31, will now play for the third team of his career, after being with <strong>St. Louis Cardinals<\/strong> for six seasons and the Padres for just one.<\/p>\n<p>Jay is a career .287 hitter, with an OBP of .352. He doesn\u2019t have much pop, with just 31 career home runs. He\u2019s always been a platoon-style player, as he was just a 1.1 WAR player last season. He\u2019s not an outstanding defender either, with a -0.5 defensive WAR in 2016.<\/p>\n<p>Although Jay doesn\u2019t have outstanding numbers, he was putting together a nice season last year. Jay was hitting .296 and led the league in doubles, with 24, before suffering a broken arm, after being hit by a pitch, that caused him to miss two months.<\/p>\n<p>Jay brings even more depth to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/maddojo99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Maddon<\/a><\/strong>\u2019s outfield next season. The Cubs will be getting <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/schwaky01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Schwarber<\/a><\/strong> back, along with <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/heywaja01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jason Heyward<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/z\/zobribe01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ben Zobrist<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/solerjo01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jorge Soler<\/a><\/strong>, <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/szczuma01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matt Szczur<\/a><\/strong>, and likely Almora. Unless there are several injuries, Jay likely won\u2019t be an everyday player, but will instead\u00a0give Maddon the option to split time with Almora, along with a spot starter at any outfield spot.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/603282792\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/603282792?et=3mNmyVEhSeJnQiPx6mPCLg&amp;viewMoreLink=off&amp;sig=5dHhejZcSz-TfuNDL0UUlScSvCauUmGPzavuygbQZzA=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Cubs have made their first impactful move of the offseason. They have signed former San Diego Padre Jon Jay. Jay played 90 games last season, mostly in center field. The deal is reportedly for one-year, and is valued at $8 million. Cubs agree to terms with OF Jon Jay on 1-year, $8 million [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1488,"featured_media":2216,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,35],"tags":[724,68,312,461,723,69],"class_list":["post-2209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-news","tag-albert-almora","tag-baseball","tag-dexter-fowler","tag-joe-maddon","tag-jon-jay","tag-mlb"],"modified_by":"Josh Greenberg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1488"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}