Cubs make trade with White Sox, casting spotlight on work in progress at third base

Gage Workman? Meet the Red Line.

The Cubs traded Workman, the Rule 5 draft choice they DFA’d earlier this week, to the White Sox on Saturday, getting cash considerations in return.

That’s not exactly worth a breaking-news alert, but the move closed the book on the Cubs’ project with Workman, who was part of a revolving door at third base in the days after the team sent top prospect Matt Shaw down to Triple-A, creating a mystery at the hot corner.

That mystery has yet to be solved.

Manager Craig Counsell has said he plans to play multiple players at third base as the Cubs try to figure out that position, a mix of newly arrived veteran Nicky Lopez, fellow vet Jon Berti and the versatile Vidal Brujan. The Cubs also have Justin Turner, who starred at third base for years with the Dodgers, though the 40-year-old has only made two appearances there this season, used mostly as a pinch-hitter.

Counsell has mostly leaned on Berti, with Brujan and Workman getting the only two starts at third that Berti hasn’t made since Shaw’s demotion.

Coming into the season, Lopez had made only 44 career starts at third base, Brujan had only nine, and Berti led the group with 136. Coming into Saturday, Cubs third basemen led baseball with six errors at the position, Shaw and Workman responsible for all but one of them.

“[Defense] always factors in. That’s [a part of] the equation to every lineup decision every day,” Counsell said Saturday. “Vidal’s strength is [that he can play] everywhere on the field, and the ability to play center field and the outfield is probably his biggest asset. Third base is one of the positions he’s probably played less than the other ones, than the other guys.

“Nicky’s played mostly middle infield, as well. Jon’s got the most experience there. But I’d put them all in the same bucket defensively.”

The Cubs are hitting so well right now that having one nagging spot in the order doesn’t seem too glaring of an issue.

The hope would figure to be for Shaw, ranked as the No. 18 prospect in baseball by MLB.com, to get his bat going at Triple-A and return to take over the position. After batting just .172 in 18 big league games, Shaw was 1-for-13 in his first four games with the I-Cubs.

“He got some exposure to a different level of baseball, and it’s pretty good, right? And he struggled with it,’ Counsell said last weekend. “You don’t just abandon ship, from Matt’s perspective. … Understanding, ‘This is my swing, and this is what the league tries to do and this is what I’m going to have to adjust to,’ I think he got a really good lesson in that. He’ll learn from that, and he’ll adjust to that.

“The speed at which it happens? We didn’t see it in the [roughly] 70 plate appearances. But it’ll happen.”

Until that happens, however, it’s moving on to Plans B, C, D and all that comes next.

Burning through Workman isn’t the biggest deal, but it’s a relatively tough break. After all, the Cubs liked him enough to pluck him out of the Tigers organization over the winter.

“We took him in the Rule 5 draft for a reason,” team president Jed Hoyer told reporters earlier this month. “He’s been in a hard spot. We were trying to give all the reps to Matt, and he’s played really sparingly. It’s hard enough to break into the big leagues. It’s even harder when you’re not playing every day.”

“Gage was in a tough spot,” Counsell said Saturday. “Rule 5 picks are always in a tough spot, especially on this team, [with] the expectations of this team. In a lot of ways, you could say he did not get the appropriate opportunity. We couldn’t give him that opportunity.”

That leaves the Cubs still searching for an answer at third base.