Dansby Swanson is the highest paid player on the Cubs roster and carries one of the most accomplished resumes.

In college, he not only won a National Championship with Vanderbilt in 2014 but he was named the Most Oustanding Player in the College World Series.

As a professional player, he was the 1st overall pick in 2015, a consensus Top-10 prospect in the entire game and made his debut as a 22-year-old with the Braves in 2016.

He helped lead Atlanta to a World Series title in 2021, has been an All-Star twice, won a pair of Gold Gloves and garnered MVP votes in 3 separate seasons (2020, 2022-23).

But this season has been a struggle overall.

After posting WAR totals of 5.5 and 4.8 over the last 2 seasons (by Baseball Reference’s metric), Swanson sits at 0.7 WAR this season with 61 games remaining.

Defensively, Swanson ranked among the best defenders in baseball last season – regardless of position – with 18 Defensive Runs Saved. This year, he has a DRS of 0 in 748 innings.

However, Swanson ranks in the 97th percentile in Outs Above Average and his Fielding Run Value on Baseball Savant sits in elite territory in the 93rd percentile.

While much of his value comes from the glove, it’s really the offense that has been a major issue this season.

Swanson entered this season with a career .253/.322/.417 slash line (.739 OPS).

This year, he’s hitting .210/.284/.343 (.627 OPS) entering play Monday.

If the season ended today, it would represent career worst marks in average, on-base percentage and OPS and he is striking out (26.9%) more than he has at any other point in his big-league career.

Swanson’s average exit velocity and hard-hit rate are actually higher than last season but his groundball rate is way up – the 50% represents a career high.

The Cubs lineup has struggled to put together consistent production this season – which has often been highlighted as the team’s main weakness this season by Jed Hoyer and Craig Counsell.

Part of that offensive inconsistency is due to one of the team’s best players performing far below his career total.

So what’s behind Swanson’s offensive struggles?

In short, the Cubs don’t have an exact answer. If they did, they would fix it.

“We want answers, obviously,” Counsell said. “I think Dansby has generally been a player who his hot stretches kind of carry him. And we haven’t got to those extended moments where he’s been kind of in the middle of everything [offensively].

“There’s been good days, but not good weeks. I think that’s what Dansby has kind of normally been known for.”

It’s worth pointing out that Swanson dealt with a knee injury in May, missing two weeks of action while on the IL.

He is in a good place right now, coming off the 4-day All-Star Break.

“[Feel] great, ready to roll,” he said after Sunday’s walk-off win. “Just happy to be back. Obviously had a few days off to get a little bit of a reset and ready for what’s next.”

[WATCH: Dansby Swanson explains his advice to Shota Imanaga]

Luck is also a factor, as it often is in this game.

Based on his batted ball metrics, Swanson’s expected batting average is .245 and his expected slugging is .421 – both significant increases over his current .210/.343 marks.

The Cubs have plenty of other issues to resolve on the offense, including getting Cody Bellinger back in the lineup as he recovers from a fractured finger.

But if this team is going to turn things around and accomplish its goal of making the playoffs, Swanson and the rest of the lineup will have to perform more in line with their potential.

“We’re trying to score more runs,” Counsell said. “I mean, the runners in scoring position thing bit us for a while – that’s not like a thing that you say we’re gonna fix that [midseason], right?

“Guys that you count on to have some level of production that aren’t [so far] – you’d hope we can get that straightened out and we work on that every single day.”