Matt Duffy could be disillusioned by the disposable nature of professional baseball or bitter about the injuries that stalled his career. The San Francisco Giants traded Duffy less than nine months after he finished second to Kris Bryant in the 2015 National League Rookie of the Year voting. A misdiagnosis of Duffy’s heel/Achilles issues cost him the entire 2017 season. The Tampa Bay Rays — a team that constantly wrings more out of its assets — released Duffy after the 2019 season.
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The Texas Rangers cut Duffy loose in the middle of a pandemic, right around the start of summer training camp last year, when a veteran hitter who can handle multiple defensive positions would seemingly be an ideal depth player in case of a COVID-19 outbreak. Duffy quickly pivoted toward another minor-league deal, but he never appeared in a real game with the New York Yankees last season.
That makes Duffy’s reemergence with the Chicago Cubs such a bright spot — as a contact hitter in a lineup that desperately needed that dimension, a versatile defender for a team dealing with multiple nagging injuries and a wise voice in a clubhouse filled with players who know there will be another reckoning at the trade deadline.
“I’ve seen a lot of guys, when they hit bad streaks with their injuries, blame this one, blame that one, the manager, the coach, my aunt,” said Paul Cohen, Duffy’s longtime agent. “He just never did it. I said, ‘This guy’s either got an incredible backbone or he can win an Academy Award. He’s just the best actor ever.’ It’s one of those, and since I don’t see any of the studios calling us, I assume it’s the backbone and not the acting skills.
“He just loves playing the game, and he really thinks through it in a respectful way. After things didn’t work out with Texas and the Yankees, I probably had half a dozen teams reach out to me: ‘Would he be interested in joining our front office or our coaching staff?’ That’s the kind of impression this guy has made through his travels.”
The Cubs pursued Duffy after the 2019 season, viewing him as a good bench player with a strong grasp of situational hitting. Duffy didn’t see as much opportunity on the left side of an infield anchored by Bryant and Javier Báez and chose to sign a minor-league deal with Texas in January 2020. Five months later, the rebuilding Rangers were more focused on the future than Duffy’s ability to step in at a moment’s notice.
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The Cubs reached out again last summer and were disappointed when Duffy picked the Yankees, a team stacked with All-Stars and a bench group that typically leans toward power hitters and defenders who play premium positions. The Yankees stashed Duffy at their alternate training camp in Pennsylvania and included him in their additional player pool for the postseason.
Major League Baseball presented options to all 30 clubs during the 60-game season. Teams could opt in to receive and share video and/or data from the alternate training sites. The Yankees opted out of the video-sharing component but provided data, which amounted to a rudimentary version of the Gamecast system on MLB.com — hitter-vs.-pitcher matchups, pitch types, velocity readings and the outcome of the at-bat.
Cubs scouts had closely tracked Duffy during spring training in Arizona — in case he didn’t make the Rangers’ Opening Day roster — and believed he could handle shortstop on a short-term basis. The data from the Yankees last summer, while incomplete, showed that Duffy still had those bat-to-ball skills against a mix of pitchers that rated well in terms of stuff and velocity.
“You have to step back and get a complete picture of a player,” Duffy said. “If you’re down one run with two outs in the ninth, I’m probably not the guy you want up to the plate. But if there’s a runner on third with one out and you need a ball in play, maybe I’m your guy. The game is a lot more nuanced than just one number can show.”
Theo Epstein would resign from the Cubs last November, but his “our offense broke” declaration in 2018 still hadn’t been resolved. The Cubs scored one run during two playoff losses to the Miami Marlins last year at Wrigley Field. Duffy understood COVID-19 uncertainties would slow down the pace of the offseason even further. For years, even before the pandemic, baseball’s middle class of free agents had been feeling the squeeze from front offices guided by algorithms and ownership groups in tank mode.
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Duffy wanted to make a deal sooner than later and agreed to a one-year, minor-league contract before Christmas that would be worth $1 million in the majors plus $500,000 in incentives. Duffy appreciated the sustained, sincere interest through the transition period within Jed Hoyer’s baseball operations department.
“The front office staff had just really loved my ability to make adjustments and put the bat on the ball and not try to do too much,” the 30-year-old Duffy said. “Keep it simple. They thought that fit really well with the guys that they had in the clubhouse already. It’s huge for me — especially with the way that the game of baseball has been going over the last four or five years — to hear that. They have that confidence in me to where I don’t feel like I have to change and be somebody that I’m not.”
Duffy spoke directly with Cubs manager David Ross, the former catcher who had vivid memories of the Giants’ winning formula. In the middle of capturing three World Series titles in five seasons, San Francisco had selected Duffy in the 18th round of the 2012 draft and promoted him to the majors within two-plus years. Another one of Cohen’s longtime clients, Tim Hudson, had played with Ross at Auburn University and on the Atlanta Braves. Duffy explained the injuries he’s endured and how he’s shifted to more preventive training methods to stay healthy.
“I just tried to let him know how well he could fit in here,” Ross said. “We talked about (what) he’s been through the last few years with injuries and getting to know his body a little bit better and how to take care of that. He’s very analytical in his approach, so we talked about some of the things that he thought were the keys for him to have success. And that when he is healthy, he is a pretty darn good player.
“I remember thinking about the Giants and how they had so much talent. But they knew how to get ’em over, get ’em in, that type of mentality, the old-school (way of moving runners over). They were station to station a lot of the time in that big ballpark out there in San Francisco and really used that right-center gap to their advantage.”
Duffy tries to set an example with his approach. The Cubs won two close games with the wind blowing in at Wrigley Field last weekend by only hitting singles. Dinking a team to death is not a recipe for success in the long term. But being able to win in different ways and not relying solely on the long ball is the mark of a well-rounded offense.
Entering Sunday, Duffy has started one more game at third base this season than Bryant while batting first, third, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth and ninth. Duffy’s entrance into the lineup on a more regular basis coincided with Nico Hoerner’s arrival, but Duffy has clearly helped diversify the offense, getting on base 36 percent of the time. In Saturday’s extra-inning loss in Detroit, Duffy went 3-for-5 with five RBIs and a home run.
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From the start of the season to April 20, the Cubs were 29th in baseball with a 71.4 percent contact rate. On April 21, Ross inserted Duffy into the starting lineup, where he has largely remained. The Cubs’ contact rate has jumped significantly since and over those 37 games, they’re tied for eighth in baseball with a 76.6 percent contact rate. Duffy certainly isn’t doing this on his own, but it’s hard to deny the impact his presence has had.
“That’s something that’s in his blood,” Cubs pitcher Trevor Williams said. “If you go to Long Beach State, you get labeled as a dirtbag. And he’s kind of a dirtbag player where he’s grinding at-bats and coming up with big hits.”
When Duffy first arrived in the big leagues, he wasn’t going to be eased into things. The Giants expected him to produce and eventually used him as a reserve player in the 2014 World Series, a seven-game classic remembered for Madison Bumgarner’s MVP performance. Hunter Pence, one of several grizzled veterans on that team, immediately respected Duffy’s understated, not-flashy style of play.
“Duffy has incredible hand-eye coordination and an incredible (bat) path,” said Pence, who now contributes to The Athletic’s podcast network. “He just puts the ball in play and grinds at-bats on the pitcher. He’s an old-schooler. He’ll drive it the other way and give you a good at-bat.”
Pence recalled a moment in the postseason when Duffy pinch ran and scored from second on a wild pitch. The next season, Duffy raked during spring training and earned a starting spot with the team. Pence also saw a genuine fire within Duffy, who was fueled by being on a winning team and having veterans there to continue to guide him.
“He has natural leadership and charisma,” Pence said. “He studies the game, studies hitting. But also he’s just a good human in life in general.”
Pence recalled a stretch of play when the pitchers had dominated, covering for a San Francisco offense that wasn’t always producing. There was a game in which a Giants pitcher gave up the lead and Duffy turned to his teammates and screamed “the pitchers have been picking us up all season, it’s our turn now,” before stepping to the plate and ripping an RBI double.
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“He said it so powerfully,” Pence said. “I felt his energy and he meant it. It was just an energy and enthusiasm that made me believe it.
“That was our mentality. We’re coming to play to win. We wanted to build that confidence and purpose within the clubhouse.”
Duffy is applying what he learned from the Giants to this transition period for the Cubs. During Tuesday’s one-run loss in Cleveland, Duffy saw a frustrated Adbert Alzolay walk off the mound after surrendering the lead in the fifth inning. As Alzolay sat on the bench stewing over his mistakes, Duffy approached and directed the young pitcher to follow him into the tunnel for a chat.
“What a professional athlete,” Alzolay said. “I love just having those guys around. When you get in that situation, you know they got your back. He came down, talked to me and got me out of that hole I was getting into and brought me back to pitch in that sixth inning.”
Alzolay struck out the next three batters, completing six innings for just the second time in his career and keeping his team in a game against AL Cy Young Award winner Shane Bieber. Duffy has been trying to get his career back on track while the Cubs have been searching for what he brings both on and off the field. The two sides have finally come together.
“My journey here has given me some perspective on the fact that this game is a blast,” Duffy said. “It’s not always perfect. Despite that, if you choose to enjoy it as often as possible, then it stays fun. I think there’s a lot of distractions you can get caught up in that can zap the fun out of anything, even this. If you’re able to step back as often as possible and remind yourself how cool it is to be in the position that we’re in, it’s hard to have a bad day.”
(Photo: Rob Leiter / MLB Photos via Getty Images)