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It's beginning to feel inevitable that the Cubs will lose someone they really like from the pitching staff by the end of camp. They'll do everything they can to cultivate and maintain depth, because injuries will intrude, and being able to pivot to desirable fallback plans depends on having held on to as many such hurlers as possible. Right now, though, they have 11 pitchers who look likely to start the season healthy and are locks to make the roster if they do:
Starting Rotation:
Bullpen
That only leaves two open slots, although the roster rules surrounding the team's trip to Tokyo to open the regular season will give them a few weeks to fudge it and hold onto as many as five candidates for those jobs. Even if we assume that Javier Assad will begin the year on the injured list and be handled carefully while he nurses an oblique strain, the list of pitchers trying to make a claim on those two jobs is almost 20 players long.
- Keegan Thompson
- Brad Keller
- Phil Bickford
- Ben Brown
- Cody Poteet
- Nate Pearson
- Eli Morgan
- Luke Little
- Daniel Palencia
- Jack Neely
- Caleb Kilian
- Ethan Roberts
- Gavin Hollowell
- Ben Heller
- Brooks Kriske
- Trevor Richards
- Brandon Hughes
A few weeks ago, I would have said Pearson and Morgan were virtual locks to make the team, and neither has really done anything to hurt their stock this spring. It's just that, for instance, Keller showed up pumping 96 snd touching 98 with his fastball, and the Cubs can't keep him if they don't add him to the team right away. The same will be true for Thompson or Bickford, so the team will have to give them at least some small tiebreaker if everyone keeps pitching well—and that's mostly what's happened, over the first six games of Cactus League play. There's some chance Thompson would clear waivers, so he might be the one the team tries to sneak through if it comes to that.
The Much Less Heated Competition to Be Bench Player No. 4
Tuesday was a good day for Vidal Bruján, who turned on a ball and crushed a no-doubt game-tying home run in the fifth inning.
The slightly Sammy Sosa-esque hop and skip out of the batter's box is a nice touch, since Bruján was seen on camera talking to Sosa in the dugout before the long ball. It's a strange but wonderful thing, seeing Sosa in that setting already, giving tips aplenty to hitters between at-bats, and while not even he is going to turn Bruján into a true slugger, there might be something important to unlock here.
In 551 swings tracked by Statcast since the middle of 2023, Bruján only has one that exceeded 76.1 miles per hour of bat speed—one, and, not really. That one seems to have been misread, because it's 6 mph faster than his max otherwise and it doesn't look anything like that on video.
Having one of the lowest average swing speeds in the majors is one thing. Not even being able (or willing?) to cut it loose and get to the dangerous bands of swing speed when the situation dictates it is quite another. Compare Bruján to Sal Frelick and Brice Turang, of the Brewers—two of the game's slower swingers, on average, each slower than Bruján by a bit—and you can see the difference.
Bruján might simply be short on the strength or athletic explosiveness required to swing any faster than he has, but given his former prospect sheen and his age, that feels unlikely. If (whether through a rejiggered offseason regimen, training and instruction from the Cubs, or one magical conversation with Sosa) he can tap into even that slice of Turang's and Frelick's bat speed that exists out to the right end of his current distribution, his value proposition changes in a hurry. We don't have Statcast data for the homer Tuesday, but whenever Bruján plays in Statcast-covered games, watch his bat speeds. It looks like he's found some.
Gage Workman is Bruján's competition for the final bench spot, though they could both start the season on the roster now that Matt Shaw's oblique has created some uncertainty about him for the early going. He's flashed plenty of tools already, but it was a subtler skill that stood out Tuesday. Workman stayed back nicely on an offspeed 1-2 pitch and pulled a sharp grounder through the hole between the second baseman and the bag. With his frame, his recent performance record (he slugged .550 after Jul. 1 last season) and the little we've already seen this spring, it's safe to say that he'll hit for power—if he hits at all. Because he's run big, scary strikeout numbers in the minors, the big, scary question for him centers much more on the hit tool. That single was a neat demonstration of his ability to adjust and adapt.
He muddied the signal a bit, shortly afterward, by getting an atrocious jump and being caught stealing, but it was just one attempt. It seems as though either Bruján or Workman would be the best defensive third baseman on the roster, should they make it, and both should be able to accumulate some steals. Workman has to prove he can make enough contact to consistently get on base. Bruján has to prove he can generate some power. In that regard, each player had a very good game Tuesday.
Owen Caissie's Effect on the Cubs Offseason
Shaw's injury has eased whatever degree of logjam the team faced when camp started. Even before that, another injury (or two?) had a major effect moving in the same direction. A few days ago, I wrote about the team bringing Travis Jankowski and Greg Allen to camp, and about how they were replacing Owen Caissie, more than truly vying for the backup job to Pete Crow-Armstrong. Caissie is still not close to starting competitive action, as he deals with a groin strain.
Belatedly, we learned that Caissie had core surgery in the early stages of the offseason. Multiple league sources confirmed to North Side Baseball that Caissie's medicals killed "at least one" significant trade for the Cubs this winter, so the effect of that ill-timed injury has had a profound effect on the organization. Not only did the team not accomplish the trade in which they were prepared to send out Caissie, but (to whatever extent their own confidence in his ability to recover and reach his ceiling) they had a tougher decision on their hands whenever potential suitors asked about Kevin Alcántara.
The 2025 Cubs would look somewhat different—and perhaps have people meaningfully more excited, even if the extra improvement came at a long-term cost—if Caissie were fully healthy, or even had a currently encouraging prognosis. His health will be worth tracking for the next few months, no matter what, but right now, it's almost inarguable that Alcántara has surpassed him as a likely long-term outfield piece for the team—for good reasons, and bad ones.
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