Howdy Cubs World- let's talk Pressly. [ Uh huh huh. ] 

(Oh by the way- paid writers are mostly paid to edit. Unpaid writers give you a good enough draft.)

Ok, first, the good news. we DID get a GOOD closer/setup veteran with a couple of elite pitches. Facts. And, he's got a resume of incredible work under pressure. He's a guy with a baller resume that you're glad to have in a post-season run.  

The bad news: He's almost as risky as Hector Neris Last Year. 

I hate to be a downer here, but I'm not convinced Ryan Pressly is quite the same level of player anymore, or was the best available option within their budget. His decline over the last year tracks with a decline in several fundamentals with no abrupt injury cause. He went from a marginal All Star closer in 2022 to an above-average setup guy in 2024, with no clear signs of recovery in August or September. He is mostly leaning on 3 pitches currently:  a plus 4 seamer with cut action, a really wide AND deep, plus-plus breaking curveball with insane spin rates, and a solid, plus controllable slider with unusually high velocity. These account for 87 percent of his offerings in 2024. He's also been largely healthy for many years- probably his best attribute. And, despite all the exceptional breaking action on his pitches, his walk rate is slightly below average.  

For sure, he's an upgrade. He was a top 50 pen pitcher in 2024, meaning most teams don't have 3 guys better than him, but do have 1 or 2 guys better than him. And yowsa, I love his curveball and slider, still.

But, I'm not sure his three pitch formula is playing well enough. He's gonna need to really resuscitate his changeup and sinker, both of which really fell off last year -- accordingly, he had cut back on their usage as they were landing randomly for mostly balls. Unfortunately, his fastball has also fallen off a bit, averaging only 93.8 mph, although he can still turn it up to 96 a couple times a game to get that punchout.  Pressly's fastball and slider remained solid in terms of vertical break, spin rate, and control, but neither quite has the ol' velocity to strike fear into the hearts of batters. Still, his wacky curveball soils drawers when hitting the edge of the zone.

What to expect

I really feel like Pressly can still work as a closer. He's also so darn consistent that he's never had a truly BAD season, ever. That's wonderful news and provides assurance he wont' explode as bad as Neris did.  However, not a top 10 closer, without some real pitch lab magic. He overperformed his fundamentals last year when he produced a 1.99 ERA in his last 32 appearances of 2024. Now, maybe he figured something out that I didn't see at first glance and I'm wrong about his secondary offerings being busted. Us fans never get to know the secret conversations regarding rescue missions of aging veteran offerings. Perhaps his stuff plays better than David Robertson will at 40, and I'm just ignorant. But its perturbing that we have to even have these high-risk comparison conversations, innit?

And it is this realization that makes me feel extra annoyed that we lost the bidding war for Tanner Scott - indeed, we are still relying on coaching to reshape a player's natural trajectory! He's still got hopes of a breakout, Kirby Yates type season - but to get there, he and the boys are gonna need to pull off some surprises either in terms of velocity hacking or a shiny new sinker, or whatnot. I'd really like to see him fix that lost changeup, as that one move alone could drop his ERA by .5. 

With a 3.0-3.5 ERA, he is slightly better than Kyle Finnegan at the moment, relying on bats to bail him out of jams sometimes. Both Finnegan and Pressly have WAR projections around 1 to 1.3, a small uptick in performance in 2025. David Robertson and Kenley Jansen, both of whom project as 1.3 to 1.8 range WAR, seemed to me slightly better options despite their advanced age. I think Hodge and Miller will both outpitch Pressly a tad while serving as the two setup guys. They both should have ERAs below 3. 

I can't help like feeling the only reason we have Pressly and not the other guys was the price - and again, that annoys me. They are running out of ways to spend their remaining cash. 

That being said: I hope Pressly proves me wrong, resets his strategy, and comes in looking like the All-star he was only 2 years ago! It's entirely possible. Surely we don't pay the full price of 14 Million for 1 to 2 WAR gamble? My guess is our cash responsibility in this deal is about 10 million. Let's hope he squeezes out a 2 WAR season against the odds and rescue's Hoyer's reputation of assembling mediocre, extra-volatile bullpens. 
 

What about the War situation? 95 Wins under Healthy Conditions

In closing, I currently project the Cubs to win 95 games - but that's with all the stars being relatively healthy all season, which is unlikely.  My injury-adjusted projection is 92.5 games, and for the Brewers, 89 games. Toooo close for comfort! If we really want to pad the theoretical win rate, we've only got 1 clear roster spot to do it with, and only a few high-slugging platoon lefty bats left to chase.  

Other than Randal Grichuk, the next best option remaining seems to be Ramon Laureano. I price Grichuk at two years, 25 million floor, and Laureano as 1 year, 7 million. He's a career .800 OPS bat against lefties, and that's good enough to take 250 at bats against mostly left handed pitching for the otherwise lefty heavy Cubs outfield. Laureano is a low-to-mid-700s hitter against righties who can hold his own as full-day sub. He can also play smallball well, with plus contact rates and reliably stealing 10 bases off the bench. He's a non-liability corner outfielder. A bit better glove than Grichuk, he has an expected defensive value of .3, based on +2.4 defensive war over 8 seasons of MLB work. He's also young enough that he's not expected to fall off from age, whereas Grichuk at 33 may have already had his best season last year. Laureano is worth 1 to 1.5 total war above our current option Alexander Canario's 0 to .5 WAR projection, versus Grichuk's 2 to 2.5 WAR value range. Laureano doesn't quite have "it" to be a starting right fielder but he makes a valuable platoon bat. In short, he would raise the projection to 96 wins, and 93.5 after injury adjustments. That's a solid division victory, right there. 

I'd be more than fine with Laureano if Hoyer intends to make a big mid-season splash with the remaining war chest of about 30 million, or if he uses half of it to extend Justin Steele, who increasingly has the look of a perennial down-ballot Cy Young guy for most of the next 8 seasons. As a side note, I'd be interested to see a 6 year Steele extension in the 130-145 million range, which would be both team-friendly and yet substantially increase Steele's earnings over the next two arbitration periods, and nearly equaling Max Fried's rate of pay.