In Cubs history, shortstop has been the domain of Ernie Banks. World Series champion Joe Tinker is immortalized in a poem, but holds little attention in discussions of Cubs past as a whole, let alone in competition with his fellow middle infielders to don Cubbie blue.

Banks is iconic beyond the baseball field as well, and he is as much a piece of Chicago as he is their National League baseball team. His spirit and charm will grip northsiders for many more years, even as another young shortstop is dazzling in Cubs pinstripes.

But while Banks is remembered for his zeal for the game and radiant smile, Addison Russell, his twenty-first century counterpart, has so far spent two seasons unassumingly wielding the leather and the stick. He possesses almost the same quality elementary school students imagine in their teachers: that he simply reports to the ballpark and performs dutifully and then disappears somewhere to wait until the next day.

Javy Baez, his bombastic partner in the middle infield, is flash enough for the two of them, and I suspect Russell prefers it that way. He may not show the same childlike zest for playing baseball --- at least not outwardly --- that Banks had, but Russell has the unique opportunity to change the face of the "best of" conversations about the Cubs in the years to come.

Even in his first two seasons, while Kris Bryant was overshadowing him in many ways with Rookie of the Year and MVP honors, Russell was putting together numbers that would have forced some attention. Maybe among the parade of video game-esque prospects the Cubs had joining the ranks of the 25-man roster in 2015 and 2016, the quiet defensively-minded shortstop is too easy to overlook.

But look closer: In his rookie year, Russell posted a 1.6 WARP and an FRAA (explained here) of 4.3, which is considered "great", according to Baseball Prospectus' spectrum of the metric. For comparison, Banks had a much higher WARP (2.7) as a rookie in 1954, but his FRAA (-5.9) would be labeled as "poor."

In their respective second seasons, the numbers follow this pattern. Russell improved on his WARP significantly (3.9) in 2016, and did so even with a slight dip in his FRAA. He made up for this with a notable spike at the plate, boosting his numbers across the board. His TAv (explained here) went from .252 as a rookie to .275 as a sophomore. Put another way, his hitting went from slightly below average to notably above.

And in his second season, Banks did something similar. In 1955, he more than doubled his WARP, going all the way to 7.6. This would prove to be the third best season of his career, topped only by the 1958 and 1959 campaigns. Banks had massive jumps in his numbers at the plate, but also had a much, much more successful year with his glove, going all the way up to a 7.7 FRAA.

Interestingly, Banks is remembered as a shortstop even though he stopped playing the position in 1961. He'd had some very strong seasons defensively to that point, but at 30 he switched to first base, where he played --- minus a fleeting stint in the outfield in 1961 --- until he retired in 1971.

Russell, whose introduction to the majors came as a second baseman so Starlin Castro could remain at shortstop, is probably going to stick at short for longer than Banks did and holds the potential to perhaps even surpass Banks in Cubs lore, at least in terms of who gets the nod as the best shortstop in Cubs history.

He already has, after all, quite a bit of a postseason highlight reel. Both on defense:

And at the plate:

And at the plate again:

You get the idea.

It's not really that anyone needs convincing that Addison Russell isn't already good. The more exciting proposition is how much better he can become. Russell turned just 23 in January, and showed at least from his rookie year to his second season that he can make great strides in all aspects of his game.

Where he goes in 2017 and beyond that is a fun thing to ponder, but keeping only the immediate in mind, Baseball Prospectus' PECOTA projections carry a rather modest outlook. The most reasonable expectation, according to PECOA is for a 2.5 WARP season, but that's with no real gains at the plate from 2016.

But even with very modest growth from last season on offense, Russell jumps to a 4.8 WARP. Just a handful of extra home runs and a four-point uptick in his batting average from 2016, and he is nearly a worth another win above replacement.

And even this strikes me as pedestrian compared to what I think Russell is capable of. On CLTV's Sports Feed on Sunday night, I told host Josh Frydman that I thought Russell had MVP-caliber potential for 2017. I think Frydman suspected me of being hyperbolic, but even that 90th percentile PECOTA projection has Russell hitting for just a .288 TAv, so while calling for an MVP award this season might be a bit aggressive on my part, Russell isn't too far away from bringing home that kind of hardware.

Projection systems don't exist to make wild proclamations, that's what writers are for, but in this case, we are probably all being too tame. The gentle and almost placid demeanor has probably lulled us into a lackadaisical attitude about our shortstop, but he looks poised to make us scoff at even our own prognostications and eventually supplant one of Chicago's favorite sons as the greatest shortstop in Cubs history.