Article: How Should We Rank the Cubs' Needs This Winter?

[Matthew Trueblood]

We're nearly to the end of November, and the Cubs haven't yet checked off any of the major items on their winter shopping list. It's not time to panic, but perhaps now is a good time to clarify their hierarchy of needs for 2024.

Image courtesy of © Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports

It's not especially hard to list the things the Cubs most need in order to be a competitive team next season. Because of their offensive and defensive strength on the middle infield and in the outfield corners, those positions are spoken-for. Catcher is a slightly more complicated story, but it sure doesn't seem like they will (or need to) make improvement there a priority. Positionally, they have some degree of need for five things:

• A third baseman
• A first baseman
• Center field depth
• Starting pitching
• Relief pitching

They also have a couple of needs that are orthogonal to position, but which can be viewed as equally important:

• More power (especially left-handed power) in their lineup
• More swing-and-miss from their starting pitchers

It's hard to argue that they're already adequate in all of those ways, or that they're seriously deficient in any other one. This is clearly the checklist for Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins this winter. Since checking that many boxes in one offseason walks the line between difficult and impossible, though, the front office needs to do some triage and address the most glaring and valuable needs most aggressively. Thus, it's worth trying to put all of the above in order.

I'll tackle this task by addressing the issues in the order of urgency and magnitude of needed improvement I perceive, from greatest to least. You can offer your own opinions on that ranking, though, and prescribe your own solutions.

1. Starting Pitching (with an emphasis on whiffs)
Right off the bat, I'm cheating a bit. This item combines one of the positional needs with one of the production-oriented ones. That's the nature of upgrading a roster, though: you get better at various skills and in various areas by acquiring new players at various positions. To that end, I'm focused most on how well the Cubs can deeper their rotation this winter, without sacrificing upside to raise their floor.

Obviously, a number of names have already swirled through the rumor mill this month. The Cubs don't seem to be frontrunners for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and (by Scott Boras's design, I think) no one is talking much yet about what specific shape Blake Snell's market will take. The most intriguing (though that's an importantly different thing than 'best') names who have come up in close connection with the Cubs are trade candidates Tyler Glasnow and Shane Bieber. 

Glasnow is a baseball Tantalus, with strikeout rates that make any starter this side of Jacob deGrom blush--but a health record not even deGrom would envy. He gives up a lot of hard contact, but that's only when hitters actually make contact, and he's thrown enough strikes to be dominant for most of the last half-decade when he's been able to take the ball. The problem is that he's owed $25 million, would still cost something valuable in exchange with Tampa Bay, and has never thrown more than 120 innings in a professional season.

Like Glasnow, Bieber has a troubling recent injury history. Like Glasnow, he's a free agent after next season. Like Glasnow, he pitches for a team strapped for cash and uninterested in paying him big money in 2024. That's where the similarities end. Bieber is one of the best in baseball at pounding the strike zone, but (though he's only 28 years old) he's no longer the strikeout machine he could be at his best. He would be a solid upgrade at the top of the Cubs' rotation, but it seems very unlikely that he'll ever regain the form that garnered him a Cy Young Award in 2020 and serious consideration for the same in 2019 and 2022. His stuff is diminished.

To me, neither Glasnow nor Bieber is an ideal solution. The ideal solutions to this twinned problem are hugely expensive, though, so the Cubs might shy away from them. The good news is that, though doing too little is a real danger and doing nothing would be a dereliction of duty, the Cubs do have sound depth in the rotation already. Javier Assad doesn't miss as many bats as you'd like. His ceiling in the rotation is relatively low. Still, his stuff is good enough to frequently induce soft contact, and he has a blend of athleticism and competitive intellect that allows him to outpitch his raw talent. If Assad is the fifth starter entering 2024, the Cubs needn't feel badly about it.

2. (Left-Handed) Power
Here's where, pointedly, I'm not being position-specific. The Cubs need a great hitter to round out their lineup, and ideally two of them. It would be best if their best offensive addition were a left-handed hitter. It's fine if they're just a DH, though; the team doesn't need a premium defender at any position as badly as they need an elite hitter at any position.

Yes, that sounds a lot like Shohei Ohtani. It also sounds like Juan Soto. Their costs would be very different, in that you'd have to trade talent (baseball's least renewable resource) in order to get Soto, whereas Ohtani would cost (almost) only cash. Because Soto is a free agent next winter, though, his price tag might be lower than Ohtani's by a wide enough margin to make paying in the more valuable currency worth it.

By ranking this need above the need for a first baseman, I'm nodding in the direction of those extremely lofty targets, and away from Cody Bellinger. As serendipitous as their season together was, Bellinger and the Cubs are an imperfect fit going forward. I'm not sure whether or not the front office realizes that. They like Bellinger's playing style, and they've seemed wary of power-over-hit guys ever since the championship core went to seed due (in part) to their all-or-nothing tendencies. Bellinger is the antithesis of that, at least among guys who hit for some power.

I've wrestled with the underlying batted-ball data on Bellinger for months now, and while I think the narrative that he doesn't hit the ball hard enough to consistently generate power going forward is flawed, I'm forced to acknowledge that there's a lot of real risk there. What we saw last season was a mixture of good performance and good luck for Bellinger, but crucially, it was also a season of very good health. We've seen how bad things can go for him when his body breaks down. That his expected stats were underwhelming even when he stayed healthy only reinforces the argument that he's a risk to get hurt again and lose a lot of his value in short order.

3. First Base
While he's not left-handed, Pete Alonso would solve a lot of problems for the Cubs, if only in the short term. His numbers at Wrigley Field are something out of a video game, and that's not pure coincidence. The close fences in the power alley in left-center field mesh perfectly with Alonso's skill set. I would still surrender more to get Soto than to get Alonso, but because of the positional fit, the gap in what I think it would be appropriate for the Cubs to give up for each is very small.

Failing that big a get, though, I still think the team needs a stabilizer at the cold corner. Unlike the other side of the diamond, first has no clear short-term solutions in place. That (not a genuine belief that he's a good fit for it, offensively or defensively) is why the team has asked Christopher Morel to pick up a first baseman's mitt this winter. I'm not out on Morel's bat (though I tend to agree with the growing feeling that his greatest value to the Cubs is as a trade chip, because he could play a fine second base somewhere else in the league) or ready to give up on Matt Mervis entirely, but the Cubs need to set a much higher floor at that position than they have done so far.

4. Relief Pitching Depth
How much do you want to bet on the health of Adbert Alzolay's elbow and elbow-adjacent structures? That's the key question here, for me, and the answer I give is: as little as possible. Alzolay was a joy to watch in 2023, and his talent is beyond doubt. His durability is much more suspect. You can enter a season with a relief ace who poses this much injury risk when expectations are low or when your depth is superb, but neither of those things is true of the 2024 Cubs. They need someone who will at least co-captain the bullpen with Alzolay and Merryweather. They probably need to land two trustworthy relievers, all told, shoving the likes of Mark Leiter Jr. and Jose Cuas (with their impressive talent but inconsistent results) down toward the end of the bullpen bench.

5. Third Base
Assuming they find a big bat elsewhere on the diamond, I think the Cubs have an adequate assemblage of talent at third base. To many, that will sound a bit optimistic, but the facts are that Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom (between them) do a lot of things well. On a rate basis, no one in baseball was a better defender at third than Madrigal in 2023. That doesn't quite compute, but even the eye test would tell you that Madrigal was very good with the glove--surprisingly so, given his below-average raw arm strength. 

Madrigal's contact-centered approach and dearth of power make it tough to stomach him as an everyday corner infielder. Wisdom's power can make up for that, though, if the two are used optimally. David Ross deserves a modicum of credit for occasionally finding a good balance between them last year, but I trust Craig Counsell to do so in a more complete, yearlong way.

Add Matt Shaw, B.J. Murray, and James Triantos to the list of possible contributors, and this team has a nice mixture of depth, upside, and certainty at third. It shouldn't escape your notice that, whereas the Cubs only kept Wisdom at the non-tender deadline once he agreed to a deal to avoid arbitration in advance, the team unblinkingly tendered Madrigal a contract.

6. Center Field
This one should be non-controversial. With Pete Crow-Armstrong almost sure to claim the bulk of the playing time by midseason, the need for this buttress is limited to the early portion of the season. In my opinion, though, it's further curtailed by the fact that Mike Tauchman is a capable bridge starter, himself. By the end of 2023, the magic of the Summer of Mike Tauchman had faded, but again, the team tendered him a deal earlier this month, so they believe he can be a solid contributor in the right role.

According to Baseball Prospectus's Defensive Runs Prevented (DRP), Tauchman was a slightly below-average defender in center last season. He acquitted himself fine, though, thanks to an arm that nudged him back toward average and good offensive value. His power was fleeting and seems unlikely to return in 2024, but he still has on-base skills. Notably, Tauchman also racked up 4.2 Baserunning Runs (BRR), making plays on the bases once he got there. If the Cubs are going to make an external addition to this mix, it should be either very inexpensive, or someone versatile--like Bellinger was last season.

It's clear that the Cubs need to make multiple high-impact moves this winter, and tack on a couple of smaller but vital ones to finish off a division-winning roster. It's just not clear which ones they'll actually make, and that question depends greatly on how they sort out these needs and opportunities. What do you think of my ranking? Let's keep the stove warm while we wait for the floodgates to open.

 

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[Transmogrified Tiger]

I would probably bump power ahead of K-focused SP, but maybe that's my hitter bias talking.  I'd also put a sizable gap between 4 and 5, or maybe more to the point I'd structure it like this:

Tier 1: SP, Big Bat

Tier 2: Secondary bat, leverage RP

Tier 3: 3B, CF, additional RP

 

I'd rather not do anything in Tier 3 to get to the best possible solution in Tier 1 and 2, but the opportunity is there if options start to dwindle.

[thawv]

I would go with 

 

Ace pitcher

Lock down closer

First base/DH

Bull pen

Third base/DH

DH

 

Not worried at all about CF.  If they choose to leave PCA in AAA on OD, Canario and Tauchman can certainly hold the fort down.  For me, Canario as the main guy. 

[Statyllus]

Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom at 3B in 2024? If that were to happen it would have to be a sign of the apocalypse. Nick is at best an extremely good utility player (ever notice how he breaks down with constant play?) and P-Wissy’s role in life -or so it seems- is to strikeout 14 times in row and then hit a HR.
The 2024 off season might leave the Cubs with these types of make do  “choices”. So many targets seem to involve one year rentals with high salaries and talent acquisition costs. With this risk in mind, why not pursue a deal with the White Sox for 3B Yoan Moncada. He’s a 2+ WAR with a good glove and can be controlled through 2025 with a $14M AAV. While they’re at it, Dylan Cease is much better pick up with 2 yrs of arbitration still head than many of this high priced injury ridden/in decline SP that have been circulating about. 

[Outshined_One]

1 hour ago, Statyllus said:

Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom at 3B in 2024? If that were to happen it would have to be a sign of the apocalypse. Nick is at best an extremely good utility player (ever notice how he breaks down with constant play?) and P-Wissy’s role in life -or so it seems- is to strikeout 14 times in row and then hit a HR.
The 2024 off season might leave the Cubs with these types of make do  “choices”. So many targets seem to involve one year rentals with high salaries and talent acquisition costs. With this risk in mind, why not pursue a deal with the White Sox for 3B Yoan Moncada. He’s a 2+ WAR with a good glove and can be controlled through 2025 with a $14M AAV. While they’re at it, Dylan Cease is much better pick up with 2 yrs of arbitration still head than many of this high priced injury ridden/in decline SP that have been circulating about. 

Welcome!