Last season, the Cubs signed Dansby Swanson to team with Nico Hoerner for their middle of the infield.\u00a0 Where does this duo rank in MLB?<\/p>\n
During the last offseason, there were four shortstops<\/a> that many teams bid for to be a cornerstone of their franchise for the next decade.\u00a0 Carlos Correa<\/a> signed with the Twins. Xander Bogaerts<\/a> signed with the Padres.\u00a0 Trea Turner<\/a> signed with the Phillies.\u00a0 That left Dansby Swanson<\/a>, who signed with the Cubs.\u00a0 Although Swanson was considered the least of these four, the argument could be made that the Cubs shortstop had the best year of these prized free agents.\u00a0 In addition to winning his second Gold Glove, Swanson recorded his third straight 20 home runs and 80 RBI in the season.<\/p>\n Teaming Swanson with Cubs farmhand, Nico Hoerner formed a dynamic defensive duo.\u00a0 Furthermore, both have proved very valuable on the offensive side, having double-digit home run totals and 50+ RBIs each.\u00a0 Given both have contract status that will keep them with the Cubs for the next five years, this pair could be considered among the best in the majors.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see how they compare to other top double-play combinations:<\/p>\n Francisco Lindor and Jeff McNeil give the Mets some pop and consistency in the middle of the infield matched by few other teams.\u00a0 Although older than other elite duos, Lindor and McNeil have been consistent contributors for several years.\u00a0 Both sports have an OPS north of .700 and combined for over 40 home runs in 2023.\u00a0 Having played all but six games, the pair shows they are dependable in the lineup daily.<\/p>\n Although the Padres haven\u2019t specified yet, there is a chance that Fernando Tatis, Jr. could be moved to the middle infield.\u00a0 They could pair him with Xander Bogaerts to form a remarkable twosome.\u00a0 Both have an OPS over .770 combined for a WAR of nearly 10.\u00a0 Given their contracts and that they will be together for over a decade, this could be as formidable of a duo in the league.<\/p>\n From a purely offensive standpoint, there may be no match than the Rangers duo of Marcus Semien and Corey Seager.\u00a0 Combined last year, they had a 12.1 Offensive WAR and 1.839 OPS.\u00a0 They also combined for 62 home runs and nearly 200 RBI.\u00a0 Defensively, they are almost equally dominant, with only 14 errors in over 1,080 chances.\u00a0 These two are the best in the business right now.<\/p>\n Given the statistics from this past year, it would be tough to put the Cubs duo higher than fourth.\u00a0 However, given their age and presumptive future together, Hoerner and Swanson could soon move higher on the list.\u00a0 For Cubs fans, this could be as welcome of a daily double as Dunston and Sandberg used to be back in the 1980s.<\/p>\n Main Photo Credits: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last season, the Cubs signed Dansby Swanson to team with Nico Hoerner for their middle of the infield.\u00a0 Where does this duo rank in MLB? During the last offseason, there were four shortstops that many teams bid for to be a cornerstone of their franchise for the next decade.\u00a0 Carlos Correa signed with the Twins. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4995,"featured_media":65440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[24,1071],"tags":[68,488,69,164,2048,93,259],"class_list":["post-65431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-mlb","tag-baseball","tag-dansby-swanson","tag-mlb","tag-new-york-mets","tag-nico-hoerner","tag-san-diego-padres","tag-texas-rangers"],"modified_by":"Evan Mazza, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65431","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\/4995"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}New York Mets<\/strong><\/h3>\n
San Diego Padres<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Texas Rangers<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Where do Nico and Dansby rank?<\/strong><\/h3>\n