Matt and I are all over a Dexter Fowler addition, as you know.

Of course, I'm sure the Cubbies would love to keep him, considering he costs them only $9M if they re-up him and $5M if they let him go.

So the question is whether he exercises the Mutual Option and hits the road, Jack. I bet he will.  He was just worth 4.4 WAR and he will want to take advantage of that.  He'll get multi-years and it will be north of $14M per.  My bet, anyway.

But let's just assume he stays in Chi-town.  Maybe the Cubs win it all and he likes the mojo they have going.  Or maybe he renegotiates with the home team and they give him the big money extension.  So Fowler stays there, now where do we spend our money??

"Teacher, Teacher!! I know, I know!!" says Moe, as he raises his hand.

My new #2 (and rapidly gaining on Fowler) is Martin Prado.  He's a heck of a player.  We should get him.

Here's why:

He's an amazingly consistent bat--and a good one, to boot.  Since 2008, his age 24 year, he's OPS+ed 121-117-119-87-114-104-104-112.  Throw out the high and the low like they do in the Olympics and you have a clockwork bat.  It all adds up to a guy who hits .293-.342-.424 for his career.  Last year it was .305-.359-.417.  He's almost 33 and aging nicely.  Platoon concerns, you ask?  Nah!  His RHB has a career line of .286-.328-.405 vs. RHP and .309-.377-.472 vs LHP.  He doesn't hit it out of the park a bunch (17 HR's combined in '15-'16) but he hit 37 doubles last year and his 162 game average is 52 XB hits.  Give hit 140 starts and you'll get 40+.  Oh, he's got a 3 to 5 Eye for his career so he's a JeDi sort of guy.

But here's the value added stuff:  Since his rookie year he's been a + dWAR guy......and he's done it playing 3 positions.

In '09 he split time between 2B-3B-1B and was +0.5

In '10 he played 2B and 3B and was +1.3

In '11 he was a +1.0 guy, playing LF mostly with some 3B.

in '12 it was the same thing, except he was +1.7

In '13 he's back at 3B with some 2B/COF thrown in: +0.3

'In '14 it was the same thing: +0.5

In 15 he was a 3B:  +1.3

In '16 it was the same thing:  +0.5

The guy can bring the leather. At 3 different positions.

So here's the plan:  Sign him to play LF and he also is your insurance policy for a 30 game injury to Cano or Seager.  The next best thing we have is named Freeman or O'Malley.

OK, he hasn't played LF since the '14 season but I'm certainly not doubting that he can do so with enough decent pizazz to make us forget some of those creative Aoki routes out there.

Actually you can just look at him as a better-bat Aoki with a versatile sticky glove.  I'm in on that, even if he did lead the league in grounding into double plays last year.  He's one guy who makes us better at a bunch of different places and he's hit .288 and .305 the past two years.  In fact, if you chuck out his outlier '11 (.260) he's never hit less than .282.

There is a lot to like in Martin Prado and I like a lot of it.

His last contract was 3x$11M.  Figure out his worth from there.  But he's a great guy to get. 

Nathan H. mentioned a few posts back that Prado's teammate Marcell Ozuna might be getable again....and would be worth getting.  No disagreement here.

But Prado makes us a bunch deeper and give us a classy COF'er.  Dexter Fowler is still my dream date, but Prado is making a run at him.  And he just might pass him in these blurry Moe eyes.

Your mileage may vary, but there aren't many FA's who are better gets than Prado.

Make it so.