Cubs acquire Ryan Pressly

[chibears55]

58 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I would bet Rea is #5 over Assad. 

Whichever way it goes,  I think Hoyer done adding SP for now.

I personally do prefer Assad in the bullpen and as a spot starter when needed, I think he's much better and helps the team more coming out of the pen.

[Rcal10]

13 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Whichever way it goes,  I think Hoyer done adding SP for now.

I personally do prefer Assad in the bullpen and as a spot starter when needed, I think he's much better and helps the team more coming out of the pen.

I think he will be in AAA to start the season. Starting. And this is especially so if they add another pen arm. 
Right now they have:                                 Pressley, Pearson, Thielbar, Morgan, Miller, Merryweather and Hodge in the pen. That is 7 guys. If they signed another arm the pen is full. And that doesn’t count Brown, Wicks, Assad, Thompson and Poteet. There are several others as well. I just think anyone with options will start at AAA. Ideally that last spot would be another lefty, but Chafin, as you mentioned earlier, is a reverse split guy. 

Edited January 27, 2025 by Rcal10

[WhyCantWeWin]

1 hour ago, Tim said:

Adding Berti + Pressly would put the 40 man at a 42 man. I'm guessing they're working hard to fill a role through an asset consolidation trade.

Gotta find a way to keep Zastryzny and Festa on the 40 man

[Post Count Padder]

Gavin Hollowell is still on the 40 man. Seems unlikely he survives much longer. An easy space to free up would be returning Workman and then working out a deal with Detroit to keep him, if that's how that works.

[Rcal10]

I think if the Cubs have $16M or so left I would rather see it spent in the bench. Maybe Cahna, J. Turner or Grichik for a right handed bat and Moncada for a left handed bat. I think they have enough options in the pen to have a good bullpen.  I count 7 pen spots filled without including Brown, Wicks or Assad, who I think will all be pitching at AAA. Maybe if Brown has an impressive spring he takes the 8th spot. I would do consider that a good off season. Could have been better by investing more in a pitcher other than Rea, but still, good. Even spending $16M gives them a cushion to add at the trade deadline. 

[muntjack]

Why Rea over Assad?  Javier has better career #s, better #s last season, K's more, gives up fewer HRs and at 27 still has upside.  

[Bobson Dugnutt]

1 minute ago, muntjack said:

Why Rea over Assad?  Javier has better career #s, better #s last season, K's more, gives up fewer HRs and at 27 still has upside.  

Presumably because Assad has options and they have area a guaranteed deal. Not saying I agree with it.

[squally1313]

22 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

I think if the Cubs have $16M or so left I would rather see it spent in the bench. Maybe Cahna, J. Turner or Grichik for a right handed bat and Moncada for a left handed bat. I think they have enough options in the pen to have a good bullpen.  I count 7 pen spots filled without including Brown, Wicks or Assad, who I think will all be pitching at AAA. Maybe if Brown has an impressive spring he takes the 8th spot. I would do consider that a good off season. Could have been better by investing more in a pitcher other than Rea, but still, good. Even spending $16M gives them a cushion to add at the trade deadline. 

I feel like the make up of the Cubs lineup (and projected AAA roster) somewhat minimizes the importance of a good bench. Not saying that it wouldn't be nice to have one, but the lineup is very consistent up and down, or said another way very much not a stars and scrubs set up. There really just aren't that many pinch hitting opportunities that are going to present themselves with our standard line up. Happ, Tucker, Suzuki, Hoerner, Dansby are all probably hitting no matter what. Busch maybe should be. That's 2/3rds of your lineup right there.

Yeah, you want days off, but we get an outsized amount of those early on, and yeah, injuries happen, but when they do happen, none of these mentioned names are the preferred choice over Caissie or Alcantara or maybe even like, Triantos. 

I get we're somewhat maxed out on fringe bullpen options but signing Robertson and 'being forced' to eat a little cash to dump the bottom guy would be great, making a trade for a #2-#3 starter would be even better. 

[Rcal10]

50 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I feel like the make up of the Cubs lineup (and projected AAA roster) somewhat minimizes the importance of a good bench. Not saying that it wouldn't be nice to have one, but the lineup is very consistent up and down, or said another way very much not a stars and scrubs set up. There really just aren't that many pinch hitting opportunities that are going to present themselves with our standard line up. Happ, Tucker, Suzuki, Hoerner, Dansby are all probably hitting no matter what. Busch maybe should be. That's 2/3rds of your lineup right there.

Yeah, you want days off, but we get an outsized amount of those early on, and yeah, injuries happen, but when they do happen, none of these mentioned names are the preferred choice over Caissie or Alcantara or maybe even like, Triantos. 

I get we're somewhat maxed out on fringe bullpen options but signing Robertson and 'being forced' to eat a little cash to dump the bottom guy would be great, making a trade for a #2-#3 starter would be even better. 

I am completely on board with a trade for a #2 or #3 starter. I just don’t think they will do that. I understand Robertson too, and wouldn’t be opposed to him. But they have a lot of guys in that one. At lease one good bench bat would be nice. But if I really thought they wouks trade for a guy to slot ahead of Tailon that would be what I would spend the money on. 

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, Bobson Dugnutt said:

Presumably because Assad has options and they have area a guaranteed deal. Not saying I agree with it.

Exactly. And I dont necessarily agree with that logic either. But I doubt the Cubs signed Rea to be a swing man, so Assad can be in the rotation. And TBH, I like Wicks more than Assad, if they aren’t going with Rea. I just think he signed to be the #5 guy. And with Assad and Wicks having options I expect them to start at AAA. 

[Bertz]

Festa is the roster casualty 

 

[KCCub]

 

[Jason Ross]

In a weird way, you like hearing he fought something mechanical. It shows both that he understands an issue is present, but also that you assume the Cubs have identified this and a way to go about improving on it, as well. 

[mul21]

6 minutes ago, 1908_Cubs said:

In a weird way, you like hearing he fought something mechanical. It shows both that he understands an issue is present, but also that you assume the Cubs have identified this and a way to go about improving on it, as well. 

He was just on the Score and said he'd been working with someone this offseason and has it 99% solved.  Seems encouraging to me and Hottovy has instilled enough confidence that I feel good about him fixing the rest of it.

[Bertz]

I'm guessing it's tied to velo.  There was a note in, I believe the Athletic, about how the Cubs felt they could get a little more velo out of him.  I also saw someone, Brendan Miller maybe, noted that his velo was kind of all over the place last year.  Like he was down a full MPH for the year but he had a lot of outings where he was still sitting 95.

[mul21]

18 hours ago, Bertz said:

I'm guessing it's tied to velo.  There was a note in, I believe the Athletic, about how the Cubs felt they could get a little more velo out of him.  I also saw someone, Brendan Miller maybe, noted that his velo was kind of all over the place last year.  Like he was down a full MPH for the year but he had a lot of outings where he was still sitting 95.

He explicitly called out having mechanical issues as the reason for the struggles last year, so that's likely tied to the velocity loss.