Former MLB All-Star slams Dansby Swanson after another loss drops Cubs into abyss (2024)

Now in the second week of July, there are only two teams worse than the 42-29 Chicago Cubs in the National League. That would be the 32-58 Miami Marlins, who never soar like Scott Stapp once proclaimed, and the 32-58 Colorado Rockies, a team where former Cubs great Kris Bryant collects checks to marvel at Charlie Blackmon's beard, watch dinosaur mascots get hatched and whatnot.

While everybody is Wrigleyville is pointing the finger at everyone in Wrigleyville, which is just par for the course, to be totally honest, Marquee Network analyst Cliff Floyd pointed the finger at none other than Dansby Swanson. Like Floyd, Swanson is a former All-Star and a World Series champion. Swanson has played for better teams than Floyd did for the most part professionally, so this irks him.

Floyd has about had it with the Cubs' terrible play of late, and put Swanson on blast in the postgame.

"We might end up getting to the point where you have to single out guys, and it just is what it is. I mean, you go into the offseason and you sign guys to get you over the hump sometimes, or help facilitate what's going on in the clubhouse, and so on and so forth. But at some point, Dansby Swanson has to come through."

Floyd continued by saying what Atlanta Braves fans know all too well in that Swanson will press.

"Like, you can't hang everything on him, but I think when you look at the contract. And let's forget the contract. Just looking at the numbers ... and so many things. Like, you look at hard-hit rates dropping and things you read over the course. It's like at some point, you have to make adjustments. Not saying go back to bare minimum, bare nothing. I'm just saying the adjustments have to come. It looks like he's trying too hard to do something and it's not comfortable for him."

Here is the entire clip of Floyd digging into Swanson's bad play of late over on The Marquee Network.

This all boils down to Swanson being a mega talent, but an incredibly inconsistent baseball player.

I have a unique perspective on Swanson since we grew up in the same hometown. While he hails from Marietta, Georgia proper, I grew up just outside in an unincorporated community known as East Cobb. Guys like Jaylen Brown and Jerick McKinnon went to rival high schools, and Harry Lyles Jr. went to mine. Every baseball player from Cobb County wanted to grow up to play shortstop for the Braves.

Swanson got to do that. He went on to play college baseball at SEC power Vanderbilt before becoming the No. 1 overall pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks. A slew of stupid Dave Stewart trades brought Swanson to Atlanta. While his first few years with the Braves were incredibly frustrating, his offensive game, and especially his glove, went to new heights in the season shortly after COVID.

Atlanta does not win its first World Series championship in 26 years without the former Marietta Blue Devil manning shortstop. He recorded the assist on the final out of Game 6 in the throw over to first to beat Houston in Houston. Swanson then became the vocal team leader in 2022 after Freddie Freeman left for the Los Angeles Dodgers in free agency. Swanson would leave for Chicago in 2023.

What I am getting at is you can be on the top of the world not long before you get toppled on. While Floyd had a similar career as Swanson up to this point, who is he to place all the Cubs' blame on him? Then again, he came over in free agency two years ago to be a team leader and a reason why the Cubs could make some noise in October. Two years in, it has been merely crickets, so here we are...

Overall, Swanson is going to need to figure it out once again, or the Cubs are going to be saddled with one of the worst contracts in baseball. He is under contract through the 2029 MLB season. Once he hits free agency again in 2030, Swanson will be 36 years old. The man just turned 30 back in February. Swanson should be able to bounce back at some point, but the Cubs are beyond abysmal.

At the end of the day, it all comes back to ownership and the Cubs' ownership is a massive concern.