Cubs 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread

[Donzo]

1 hour ago, Jason Ross said:

Is it a concern? Probably, yeah, any time someone is unique and different there probably deserves some concern into how that will translate. His footwork behind the plate is weak thus far and he isn't ready to be an MLB catcher today. 

But I will say this; Alejandro Kirk has shown that his body type isn't an immediate excluding factor. 

Doubling down on the Kirk comp is awful. Other than being overweight Ballesteros is an awful defensive comp.

How does Ballesteros look "weird"?

[Tim]

This may come as a surprise given my previous statements on him, but I'd be for signing Robert this offseason. Part of that is seeing what Vaughn did with proper coaching after his trade. Part of that is Robert quietly putting up a .298/.352/.456 126wRC+ line in the second half, while cutting his K's to 15.2%. He was also a positive in the field and on the bases this year. 

I'd only be in favor of it if he comes at relatively low risk. If he's getting $100M payday from someone, hell no.

[Donzo]

1 minute ago, CubinNY said:

Have you looked at his last three seasons before this one? 

I've looked at his last two seasons.

LIS, I have no problem not wanting to spend $300M on him... A few factors involved with that.

[Jason Ross]

7 minutes ago, Donzo said:

Doubling down on the Kirk comp is awful. Other than being overweight Ballesteros is an awful defensive comp.

How does Ballesteros look "weird"?

Doubling down on the Kirk comp is not "awful", it remains relevant here as it did elsewhere when we did this last time. It's a much more meaningful data point than "look at this picture" where we ogle his size.

Frankly, I bowed out of that prior because it's a waste of time to go around and around on it. I have no interest in continuing it a month later in this thread. I think your position is a poor one, but you're entitled to your position regardless. Beyond that, I'm uninterested in it again as nothing as changed in terms of information. It would simply be rehashing the same thing.

[Tim]

I would absolutely LOVE to have Tucker back next year. I think he's the guy who he was if you look across the whole year. His wRC+ since 2021:  146, 130, 139, 176 (partial year), 136.  That puts him in the top 15-20 hitters in MLB. He's a positive on the basepaths, but a bit negative in the field. 

I don't think that combination at age 29+ makes him worth $300M. A lot of that probably depends on the shape of the next CBA. But it does make him a player I'd really, really like to have for the next 4-5 years. I think I'd ideally like to pull off a Twins/Correa thing. Sign him, get the first few years of the deal and trade him before it's popular but while you can still get someone to take on the full contract.

[chibears55]

17 hours ago, Tryptamine said:

This would make no sense to me since frankly the rotation is already kind of great. Yeah Steele likely doesn't start the year in the rotation but Assad can cover him for a month or whatever. 

Steele/Boyd/Shota/Horton/Tallion is really really good and might even have Wiggins joining them at some point.

They need another big arm for the top, otherwise you'll likely see the same as this season with Boyd and Imanaga getting drained come September and who knows what they get out of Steele returning from injury and how much he'll be able to give right away as far as pitches/innings goes. 

If TR/Hoyer want to seriously contend again, they need to get a TOR starter and build a solid bullpen from the start with a legit closer, cant be giving away games in April and May because you go cheap on the pen in offseason.  

 

 

[Donzo]

2 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Doubling down on the Kirk comp is not "awful", it remains relevant here as it did elsewhere when we did this last time. 

Frankly, I bowed out of that prior because it's a waste of time to go around and around on it. I have no interest in continuing it a month later in this thread. I think your position is a poor one, but you're entitled to your position regardless. Beyond that, I'm uninterested in it again. 

It's a message board, it's not difficult to stop a conversation. You just don't post on the coversation anymore, like I did when you made stuff up about Kirk, but you're entitled to your rant.

Kirk has proven to be a good catcher at his size, Ballesteros has proven to be a bad catcher at his size = awful comp.

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, Donzo said:

It's a message board, it's not difficult to stop a conversation. You just don't post on the coversation anymore, like I did when you made stuff up about Kirk, but you're entitled to your rant.

Kirk has proven to be a good catcher at his size, Ballesteros has proven to be a bad catcher at his size = awful comp.

Did I miss where you brought something to this conversation beyond "I saw a picture where he looked fat"?

[Jason Ross]

Kyle Tucker is an easy $300m+ player in my book. The injuries he's had recently are not ones I find a lot of concern in. The calf issue at the end of the year is likely the first one I'd raise an eyebrow out, but is not a consistent issue. Beyond that, he fouled a baseball off his shin; that's not going to be a reoccurring fear for me. 

I do think the potential for a CBA with a cap could impact this down the road, but whether or not there is a cap or not, I'm going to try to look at it from a "today" standpoint. We know that teams are paying between $8 and $9m (or more) per win, and there is some nuance, as a player accumulates wins, he becomes more valuable as well. For our exercise, let's use the $9m number, with the understanding there's a good chance that's a little low. 

At $300m, you're asking for roughly 33 wins out of Kyle Tucker over the length of a contract. At 10 years, that's ~3 wins a season. Tucker has been worth 4.9 and 4.2 wins in every season of material, and his lowest output was last year at 4.2 because of the shin thing. Assuming he's good for what he's doing I think a possible aging curve for him looks like this: 5, 4.5, 4, 3.5, 3, 2, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1 over a 10 year deal. That's 27 wins, so it does come in a little shallow if he decays at a .5 fWAR pace year over year. 

11 players aged 29 or over finished with 4.5+ wins this year. Five of those players were 32 and up, so almost half of the sample size. Tucker keeping a 4.5 win pace into aged 32 would get you to 29.5 alone if the rest of the decay was identical, but if it was again a .5 decay after 32, you're probably well into the black on wins/salary. 

When we factor in things such as inflation, there's probably an even better argument to be made here. 

If you want to say that you don't think he's a half a billion dollar player, I think you're probably exactly where I am. But I also think it's important to remember that Kyle Schwarber put up a 152 wRC+ season out of the DH spot which was good for 4.9 fWAR, and since 2021, has averaged a 143 wRC+, which is a stones throw away from that. There's probably a strong argument to be made that he could both be a valuable DH and that with that in tow, we could consider his value to extend out even more than this process accomplished. 

EDIT: To add one other thing - the team who signs Kyle Tucker to a deal worth $300m (and to be clear, I think he will get above $300m) will be doing so with the assumption that he is probably not going to provide surplus value. Teams who are in this market have an understanding that their advantage is money and they don't need to operate at a pure value proposition. So even if he's more expensive on paper than you plan it out on, that's probably assumed from the get go. If you want to have players give surplus value always, you'll likely never sign the best free agent to begin with. 

[gflore34]

4 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Kyle Tucker is an easy $300m+ player in my book. The injuries he's had recently are not ones I find a lot of concern in. The calf issue at the end of the year is likely the first one I'd raise an eyebrow out, but is not a consistent issue. Beyond that, he fouled a baseball off his shin; that's not going to be a reoccurring fear for me. 

I do think the potential for a CBA with a cap could impact this down the road, but whether or not there is a cap or not, I'm going to try to look at it from a "today" standpoint. We know that teams are paying between $8 and $9m (or more) per win, and there is some nuance, as a player accumulates wins, he becomes more valuable as well. For our exercise, let's use the $9m number, with the understanding there's a good chance that's a little low. 

At $300m, you're asking for roughly 33 wins out of Kyle Tucker over the length of a contract. At 10 years, that's ~3 wins a season. Tucker has been worth 4.9 and 4.2 wins in every season of material, and his lowest output was last year at 4.2 because of the shin thing. Assuming he's good for what he's doing I think a possible aging curve for him looks like this: 5, 4.5, 4, 3.5, 3, 2, 2.5, 2, 1.5, 1 over a 10 year deal. That's 27 wins, so it does come in a little shallow if he decays at a .5 fWAR pace year over year. 

11 players aged 29 or over finished with 4.5+ wins this year. Five of those players were 32 and up, so almost half of the sample size. Tucker keeping a 4.5 win pace into aged 32 would get you to 29.5 alone if the rest of the decay was identical, but if it was again a .5 decay after 32, you're probably well into the black on wins/salary. 

When we factor in things such as inflation, there's probably an even better argument to be made here. 

If you want to say that you don't think he's a half a billion dollar player, I think you're probably exactly where I am. But I also think it's important to remember that Kyle Schwarber put up a 152 wRC+ season out of the DH spot which was good for 4.9 fWAR, and since 2021, has averaged a 143 wRC+, which is a stones throw away from that. There's probably a strong argument to be made that he could both be a valuable DH and that with that in tow, we could consider his value to extend out even more than this process accomplished. 

Will the moves be as simple as sign Tucker and trade Cassie+other prospect for a TOR SP type - Alcantara, Cabera, Ryan or keep Cassie and sign a TOR SP type?

[Jason Ross]

19 minutes ago, Donzo said:

It's a message board, it's not difficult to stop a conversation. You just don't post on the coversation anymore, like I did when you made stuff up about Kirk, but you're entitled to your rant.

Kirk has proven to be a good catcher at his size, Ballesteros has proven to be a bad catcher at his size = awful comp.

Nothing was "made up". You are correct, I missed in the data set that he was hurt during the one season and that was wrong of me. Sadly, as much as I wish I was perfect, I am just as flawed of a human as the rest of us. I have also admitted I missed that, so I've already owned up to my miss there. Please, however, it's not fair to me to characterize it as I just "made" things up. 

[Jason Ross]

10 minutes ago, gflore34 said:

Will the moves be as simple as sign Tucker and trade Cassie+other prospect for a TOR SP type - Alcantara, Cabera, Ryan or keep Cassie and sign a TOR SP type?

I suspect it's either: Tucker + fringe upgrades and one year stuff and something around an upgrade in the rotation + better fringe upgrades. Based on the recent reporting from Sharma, it does not look like the Cubs are intrigued with Tucker as a long term option. 

If you want to be overly optimistic, the Cubs have an easy reset into 2027 with a lot of money coming off and have just hosted five playoff games. I think there's an argument to be made that they'd be willing to go beyond the LT this season by a bit and stay in the first bracket. I'm not saying that's what I would expect them to do, only that they're set up to be in a situation to do it. 

Ultimately, my expectation is that they will spend similarly to this year. Which still leaves a decent amount of action to happen. 

Lately, I think it's important to remember that I think last offseason entering it, a similar feeling of "small changes, maybe a SP upgrade" felt like it was the strong path forward and they went an traded multiple starting players from their lineup, added Boyd and Rea, brought in Tucker and tried to get Bregman and Scott at the end. The Cubs tend to be creative in their own pursuits and any offseason likely has two or three curveballs in it. 

[cl smooth]

2 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Nothing was "made up". You are correct, I missed in the data set that he was hurt during the one season and that was wrong of me. Sadly, as much as I wish I was perfect, I am just as flawed of a human as the rest of us. I have also admitted I missed that, so I've already owned up to my miss there. Please, however, it's not fair to me to characterize it as I just "made" things up. 

[Cuzi]

52 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

If you want to have players give surplus value always, you'll likely never sign the best free agent to begin with. 

*Enter* Jed Hoyer.

[Manny Trillos Brother]

I don't think it's a problem that the Cubs won't go "into the $300's" and I don't think they'll necessarily need to go that far to sign him.

There have only been 14 position player contracts totaling more than $300m and only 4 $400m+. 

He's not getting Shohei money or Vlad's 14/$500m. I think a good comps are Seager's 10/$325m or Devers's 10/$313m. Once you factor in recent injuries and the fact that would be older than 7 of the 14 to sign those big deals and that he has a lower average WAR than every one of them except Tatis, how many teams are lining up to sign him.

I think a 10/$300-320 gets Tucker signed. 

[Cuzi]

15 minutes ago, Manny Trillos Brother said:

I don't think it's a problem that the Cubs won't go "into the $300's" and I don't think they'll necessarily need to go that far to sign him.

There have only been 14 position player contracts totaling more than $300m and only 4 $400m+. 

He's not getting Shohei money or Vlad's 14/$500m. I think a good comps are Seager's 10/$325m or Devers's 10/$313m. Once you factor in recent injuries and the fact that would be older than 7 of the 14 to sign those big deals and that he has a lower average WAR than every one of them except Tatis, how many teams are lining up to sign him.

I think a 10/$300-320 gets Tucker signed. 

This is what will happen. The Cubs will give Tucker their "best" offer. Whatever that number is, will then be used to up the offers of other teams and Tucker will most likely land on the Yankees who were willing to go to $600M or whatever it was for Soto. He'll probably get like 12/400. And the Cubs wont budge from their initial offer and go "Ohwell, we tried." Then pivot to some question mark that if the stars align can be almost as good but only cost a 2-3 year deal. Or they simply go with Caissie and then realize that it kind of sucks to strike out at a 40% rate.

Edited October 13, 2025 by Cuzi

[Connor McConnor]

The horsefeathers Brewers flying the L flag has ignited a hatred for them that was mild before.  I hope LA destroys those motherfuckers and I look forward to the day we fly the W in their stadium. 

Edited October 13, 2025 by Connor McConnor

[Manny Trillos Brother]

Seems to me like the Yankees would just sign Bellinger who they know can handle the NYC pressure vs. a player their fans openly hate who they'd have to give more money and years to. 

Of contenders, I think: Yankees, Brewers, Blue Jays, Indians, Tigers, Padres, Astros are out because of money or no real place to put him. 

Teams I think have resources/needs/interest: Rangers, Angels, Braves, Mets, Diamondbacks

[Thusly Boned]

2 minutes ago, Manny Trillos Brother said:

Seems to me like the Yankees would just sign Bellinger who they know can handle the NYC pressure vs. a player their fans openly hate who they'd have to give more money and years to. 

Of contenders, I think: Yankees, Brewers, Blue Jays, Indians, Tigers, Padres, Astros are out because of money or no real place to put him. 

Teams I think have resources/needs/interest: Rangers, Angels, Braves, Mets, Diamondbacks

I think Bellinger is a near lock to return to the Yankees. He had a good year, he fits their needs, and it seems that he's really into the whole playing where his dad did thing.

[Rcal10]

6 minutes ago, Manny Trillos Brother said:

Seems to me like the Yankees would just sign Bellinger who they know can handle the NYC pressure vs. a player their fans openly hate who they'd have to give more money and years to. 

Of contenders, I think: Yankees, Brewers, Blue Jays, Indians, Tigers, Padres, Astros are out because of money or no real place to put him. 

Teams I think have resources/needs/interest: Rangers, Angels, Braves, Mets, Diamondbacks

Diamondbacks don’t have money. They are all ready in record of saying their payroll will be lower next year. 

[Stratos]

3 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

- Sharma, the Athletic

Link to source

This is obviously written from a point of conjecture, but Sharma and Mooney hold enough clout and knowledge of situations that this is probably an important quote on the state of the Cubs and Kyle Tucker, too.

We have over 10 seasons of evidence to back up their educated guess.  They traded for him in the first place because they had no intention of forking out the dough to sign a player of his caliber.

[Dfan25]

 I have seen people mention trading Shaw and I wouldn’t be against it if it means the Cubs can keep Wiggins out of trade talks .   I like the idea of Bichette at 3B .

I wouldn’t be against Bregman .  Not sure if Polanco is a FA , but if the Cubs think they can make him average at 3B , I be ok with that as well .

[Tim]

I'm all for trading Shaw if we can get value for him and slot in a good replacement. 

Yes, I'm still pissed about leaving the team during a playoff race.

[Dfan25]

Been thinking about the Imanaga decision and I think I would decline the 3 year option . If he wants to pick his 1/15 , I am cool with that. If he declines , offer the QO and if he accepts it’s 1 /22 . No big deal  if he rejects , get the pick for him .

[Bertz]

IMO Pros and Cons to keeping Tucker, given our current assumptions about resources and payroll:

Pros

- Tucker is the best player likely to be available this winter. Probably by a healthy amount

- It is likely to be years before we get another opportunity at acquiring a hitter of Tucker's caliber.  There may be trade options available sooner, but via FA I'm not seeing anyone on this list until the '28/'29 offseason

- Given the post-2026 roster churn, and that PCA and Dansby earn their money primarily in the field, I think there is value in having an impact offensive player under contract through the roster cliff

- It would be nice to know Jed + Tom have the will to win this kind of bidding war

Cons 

- There is an opportunity in front of us right now to work through several very fun kids and see which one(s) worth keeping.  That doesn't just automatically go up in smoke if you re-sign Tucker, but we have seen over the last decade that young hitting is not as liquid of an asset as young pitching

- $40M a year buys some fun arms

- There is significant opportunity cost when commiting to a decade long contract.  So you really need to get value up front.  I do worry that, through no fault of Kyle's, our stockpile of corner bats somewhat lessens that value.  Put another way, beyond the question of whethet Tucker is worth ~$350M, there's a question of whether for the Cubs right now right field is a place to throw a $350M contract

- It's a small considerstion but you do have to account for that 2nd round pick

I lean towards letting Tucker walk, but it's a complicated decision for sure.