CHICAGO -- Maybe it comes down to this: If you follow a team that hasn't won the World Series in 108 years -- let's call them the "Chicago Cubs" -- and even when that team is riding the crest of one of its best seasons ever, you've got to complain about something.

There are internet forums dedicated to deriding the offensive struggles of Jason Heyward. There have been articles pondering whether Heyward should be benched, or at least platooned. There have been boos and catcalls at the ballpark. The eight-year, $184 million contract Heyward signed last winter has been a consistent source of hand-wringing in Cubbie Nation and a punching bag for pundits.

The blare ignores the fundamental reality of free agency: You are not paid for what you've done, but for what you are going to do. On that basis alone, suggestions that Heyward was a bad signing for the Cubs are, frankly, just plain silly. We are four-fifths of the way through the first season of Heyward’s deal, with the most important part still ahead.

"It's really hard to restart during the season," Cubs president Theo Epstein said. "Players, sometimes it takes the offseason to get a sense of renewal and come back anew. Trying to do it during the season is difficult.

"He's been working his tail off all year. For a player who has struggled as he has, he's earned the respect of everyone in the clubhouse with his hard work and team-first attitude, and not backing down from the challenge."

I would go one step further. Not only is it far too early to declare the Heyward deal a bust, but what he has contributed to date has been enough to justify his acquisition. And it's going to get better.

A little thought experiment: What if we were to given two choices to project Heyward's OPS for the next two months? First, we can go with Heyward's 2016 figure of .630. Second, we can go with the aggregate of his previous three seasons, .768. Which would you pick?

Any forecaster worth his salt would opt for the second figure, though his actual projection would have to take into account Heyward's 2016 dip. In other words, given Heyward's track record and the fact he's in the early part of his career prime, his season-to-date performance is not indicative of his true level of talent. That being the case, the Cubs will deploy him like a .768 hitter, not a .630 hitter. And it only makes sense to do so.

"The fact that I've done it, been doing it, and going to continue to do it, that's just something that you know," Heyward said. "The teams we play against know that. At the end of the day, that's what it's all about."

But career regression is not the only thing working in Heyward's favor. There is also the luck factor, something that Cubs manager Joe Maddon has brought up time and again. Heyward seems to have had an inordinate number of hard-hit balls that have ended up as outs.

In fact, there is statistical evidence to back this up. For the season, 22.2 percent of Heyward's balls in play have been line drives. The Cubs' team rate is 20.9 percent; the league figure is 21.4. Heyward's figure is better than that of Anthony Rizzo, though to be fair, Rizzo is a prodigious flyball hitter.

The league OPS on line drives is 1.661. (That's why players try to hit them.) The Cubs' team number is 1.724. Heyward's result? It's 1.300, 431 points lower than the second-worst figure of his career. Heyward's rate of line drives is actually at a career-high level. In other words, never has Heyward hit more hard balls into play, and never have so many of those drives been turned into outs.

So, yeah, Heyward really has been unlucky. The good news is that those things tend to even out in the absence of some underlying cause. And best I can tell, no such cause exists, and already the ship is starting to right itself.

"His swings are better," Maddon said. "His bat is more on time. The contact is harder. It's all over the place, too. Again, he got robbed a couple of times in L.A. I think his confidence is up. I think he thinks he's going to get a hit right now. So there's a lot of good stuff happening right there."

None of this is to say that Heyward's offensive output has not been disappointing. It has. It's only to say that if you think what we've seen from him is what we can expect going forward, you're almost certainly wrong.

Recently, when the Cubs were on the road, Maddon gave Heyward three games off to regroup in the way that Epstein says is tough to do. Lo and behold, entering Tuesday's game, Heyward was riding an eight-game hitting streak, during which he hit .333. His 2016 overall numbers are toast, but that hasn't had an effect on Heyward's work ethic.

"I believe he has one motive, and that's to win every day," Maddon said. "We're all about ourselves to a certain extent. But with him, he's raised properly, man. I believe when he played Little League and eventually got to professional baseball, he's always been that guy that plays to win. The fact that he plays the complete game that he does, he understands that 'I don’t have to hit to help my team win.'"

The other thing that is strange about Heyward complaints is that the Cubs have the best record in baseball. Right? And it's not like he hasn't been a part of that success. After all, this is a team for which defense is the standout attribute, even on a dossier with no real weak spots.

According to baseball-reference.com, Heyward's WAR sits at 1.0 -- a full win above replacement -- this despite having an offensive WAR of minus-0.5, the worst on the team. The reason is simple: His 14 runs saved on defense rank 14th in all of baseball. The defense has been a constant, even as Heyward has struggled to find himself at the plate.

"You're always going to struggle in baseball," Heyward said. "It's happened before. It's happened to all of us here. It's just a part of it, but it keeps you hungry."

There is no real reason to think that Heyward's contract will prove to be an albatross for the Cubs, though you never know what things will look like at the back end of a deal that long. In the short term, the Cubs' best chance to win involves Heyward being on the field. And the best use of their last six weeks this season is to get him in rhythm at the plate, something that might already be happening.

"He's a presence," Maddon said. "I've always been a big believer in the presence of particular people within a group, or within a lineup. When his name is in that lineup, we just look better. We just do."