craig

Yeah, same! Kinda weird having Az Phil reports with Ryan Jensen and Ed Howard being main names. Seems eternity ago that those guys were fresh 1st rounders we dreamed were prospects. Kinda bizarre to have Jensen, Howard, and Hartshort in the same AzPhil recap.

Yeah, will be interesting. My guess is that they do what it takes to extend Tucker, and that's the main thing. Run it back. If there's a good opportunity at value they like, perhaps tinker with rotation. But not guessing they're going to spend big on a rotation pitcher. *IF* Tucker leaves, obviously they're going to want to do something of substance either in RF or pitcher or both.

Wow. Nice. Cubs rarely bonus much for pitchers, so I'm guessing he's got some possibilities.

This will be super interesting for sure. I think they've got a chance to augment the roster via trade. Maybe yes. Flip is that this was kinda the trade-deadline logic and it didn't happen then. The logic last winter, and it didn't happen then either. Maybe it won't winter either? Various thoughts: Every trade is case-by-case. How much does Hoyer value the guys he's trading; how much the guy he's acquiring. Last winter, he explored a lot, but ended up NOT finding a deal where the value worked. This summer he explored a LOT, but other than small-level deals, the case-by-case values never quite worked. Who knows this winter? Caissie is not blocked. Happ and Suzuki will be expiring. Hoyer believes it takes time for a hitter to kinda figure things out. Might make ideal sense to keep Caissie, use 2026 as a depth-year, figure-it-out year? Then let Happ or Suzuki (or both) walk after 26 to create a bunch of budget space for whatever is needed then? (Part of Theo's problem was that Almora and Underwood etc. never really filled in cheap; suddenly all of the young guys were arbing up but there were no good cheap young guys to replace expiring vets as Fowler, Zobrist, Arrieta were leaving. Caissie might not really be blocked at all. Having him ready to be a primary starter by 2027 might be very ideal, perfect. Ditto Moises. Maybe hints his defense has been progressing? *IF* they believe he can be a share-time guy, having Kelly expiring isn't really blocking him. At all. Timing might be perfect. This winter will be closer to lockout. Might not make great sense to burn Caissie or Moises for a pre-FA SP who might lose a hunk of their limited Cub-controlled time to the lockout? Alcantara, not sure on "diminishing returns" bit. Very possible; if he doesn't progress this last month, and doesn't hit better next year, that will be variably true. But, his trade value hasn't really seemed that great yet last winter or this summer. It might get even worse, but has it ever really been that large? Kevin-for-Cabrera, Kevin-for-Gore, Kevin-for-Suarez, Kevin-for-Keller, teams haven't liked him enough to do 1-for-1's thus far. Will they this winter? Hopefully yes, that would be great. But *IF* you hypothetically don't get a serious buyer offering serious value for him, perhaps keep him again? In post-Happ world he might be a good depth/platoon outfielder for us? Pltoon for Caissie some? Maybe platoon some for PCA if PCA's issues with certain lefties get more established as hopeless? Or perhaps if Kevin does have a breakout next summer, and has 25 HR and OPS'ing .920 next July, then by next July he'll look like a really good ready-now starter; rather than value-diminished, it will be value-enhanced, and next year you'd be able to get Cabrera/Gore/Keller/Suarez type guys, maybe better, with Kevin as the primary ready-now piece? Long: Hard to guess. Don't imagine even this winter that he's going to be the primary guy in Cabrera/Gore/Keller/Suarez type trades. Maybe if you keep him, and by next July he's matching and further improving this year's numbers, but with 25 HR's, and his value will continue to escalate? at that point, he'll look established as a ready-right-now starter? Or, maybe he'll improve his platoon splits, and look better as a depth/Busch-platoon guy, basically take Turner's role plus much more? Depth: Last year, Dansby and Hoerner played with fairly limiting injures, with the option being Miles Mastrubuoni. Counsell figuress those guys at 80% were still better than Mastrobuoni. This year Happ got hurt and came back kinda fast; tucker got injured and played through it, and ended up struggling for some length. The options were Berti and Brujan, playing vets at 70% still better than going with Brujan every day, right? But what if you've got a stock of Caissie/Kevin/Triantos/Long/Moises guys available? Maybe you establish a new team culture: don't play hurt, that hurts the team. We've got some talented, energetic young depth guys, take your IL, get healthy, and come back healthy. Don't 70%-your-way through and stay 70% for months. Rotation: Horton-Boyd-Imanaga-Taillon-Rea-Assad-Brown-Steele-Wiggins. Hoyer may not see the rotation as being that shallow entering next year? If he's spending hard on Tucker, and Keller, and spreading some around on Thielbar and maybe Castro, he may not be committing all that heavily to rotation? Either in FA or in trade? May want to hold his trade cards for unpredictable situations yet to come? Maybe spending no higher than the Boyd-type range, perhaps not even much higher than Rea? I wonder, if Soroka does come back and seems healthy and like a hard-worker good-chemistry guy, whether Soroka himself might still end up getting extended on a low-commitment depth contract?

Interesting thoughts, Jason. Not sure I track them well. Hard to guess how far over lux they're willing to go. My best guess is that they'll jump lux, but stay under first surcharge. That might allow maybe $30-40 bump in payroll? My guess is that they WILL extend Tucker. Tucker, Keller, Thielbar; maybe Castro; I'm thinking that would shoot well beyond lux, and might not leave space for a pitcher in the Thielbar/Imanaga/Boyd price range or above?? Cubs have little built-in programmed lux raises for next year. Steele and Shota, that's basically it. Coming off will be Turner/Pressly/Brasier/Bellinger money, more than enough to cover the programmed raises, but not that hugely much free space left over? Will be in good shape, but not that little. *IF* you don't re-sign Tucker, I'm guessing they'd still spend much of the Tucker money towards some short-term vet or other to replace him. Bellinger? castro? Don't think they'd just commit all-in to Caissie/Kevin/Triantos as OFers.

Kinda crazy to have two short OBP-guys like that stacking 1-2. We'll see as they progress, guys can get better at base-stealing. But while Kepley has a bunch of steals, his success ratio doesn't seem that great for Myrtle-level. May not be a prolific base-stealer in the majors? (If he hypothetically gets there.). southisene also seems to be cutting back on his volume of SB-attempts, guessing he's not going to be a SB-league-leader or anything in the majors. But yeah, I can't remember the Cubs having OBP-oriented guys like these two, Really fun for their level. Will be fun to see how they progress. Seems like the Cubs haven't truly had a stereotypical leadoff guy for a while. Would be fun if one of these guys became huge-OBP leadoff guys for the big-league team down the road.

September only adds one extra pitcher, it's not like the old days. Barring injury, I see two spots available between Assad, Hodge, Soroka, Brasier, Wicks, etc. I guess in my ideal world, Assad and Hodge at their best would be my preferred two, with ideally all the existing guys staying healthy. But yeah, there's plenty of time for injuries to come. And if Soroka looks good, Brown could always get optioned to open a 3rd spot, if they think Brasier or Soroka is more useful. Also possible that Taylor Rogers could get replaced, beats me.

thanks, Donzo and Jason! Yeah, I hadn't been up on the news that he might be semi-close. I admit my mental association with bad-shoulder is long-term out. So hadn't realized he might be back already fairly soon. In my head, I just hear "bad shoulder" and assume months plural. Glad that may be faulty. We'll see! Hope he comes back and contributes well. That would be fun. Any effective pitcher can make a big difference. Obviously coming off a bad shoulder and getting sharp quickly, that doesn't always go together. Perhaps he'll be back and be a stud reliever, that would be fun. But also possible that it might take a while. There isn't a lot of time left.

Haven't word anything about Soroka. Are you anticipating him being back this season? I've just kinda totally forgotten he existed, and assumed his Cub career was done. Have also forgotten about Morgan, but he pitched today, his second outing. he's got options, though, so no problem keeping him down. I also tend to forget the new September roster rules exist. Not like old days with a handful of added guys possible. With just one extra pitcher, I've been kinda hoping for Assad to replace Wicks, and then add a re-calibrated Hodge, and that's it. No Wicks, no Soroka, no Morgan, no Pearson, no Brasier in my ideal September expanded roster. .

Triantos catch was great, but partly because he had a terrible jump and broke back on a shallow fly. Obviously catching is a huge part of outfielding, but so is reading swings and balls-off-the-bat and getting good jumps. I'd love it if Triantos picked all that up quickly and became very good. But I'm guessing it's going to take a whole lot of repetitions and practice to become close to average as a big-league CFer.

Hopeful thought... if Madrigal walked like Southisene, we'd have liked him lots more?

Do we have any scouting info on camacho? He'd been walking the world in ACL, so I don't think I'd given him a thought. But that's flipped at Myrtle in early small sample. He's short, shorter than Florentino. Camacho in ACL: 20BB/23 IP. Camacho at Myrtle: 4BB/16IP.

You guys have any scouting info on Yenri Rojas? 7K/5IP shutout today. I'm just wishfully-thinking that maybe he's got a good arm, and a lively fastball that gets GB and avoids HR. But has been a developmental guy from day one, and is perhaps only starting to develop into competitive breaking stuff.

Rojas up to .189 average and .549 OPS. Hasn't been a fast start for him, that's for sure. Small sample, of course so one 3-for-5 game with a HR could make all those Knoxville numbers look better.

Lumpuy's got his OPS up over .600, and his batting average isn't far below .200 anymore. Progress! I hope he keeps progressing during the remaining weeks. Southisene has gotten his average over .200, and his OPS up to .588. So progress in his case as well. His BABIP is only .264; not sure whether that reflects some bad luck, or just reflects that he doesn't hit the ball hard or on the nose very often. Would love to see him emerge as a competitive enough hitter to become a prospect.

Are you meaning the starter, or the reliever? Romero pitched the first 4; Martinez-Gomez the 5th-6th. Maybe you're meaning the second guy? Or are they maybe both pretty fast?

I wonder, what would be the disadvantage of having Shaw move another inch or two (or more) closer to the plate? Naive unsophisticated thought is that he could cover the outside corner a little bit more easily, without committing oppo so early. And if as a result they challenged him inside a little more often, thinking he's more vulnerable, he might get more inside-half pitches that he could better pull and drive.

https://www.mlb.com/draft/tracker/2025/all/team/cubs All numbers now listed. For the back 10, two slots, two small overslots, and 5 variable underslots. I'd love to know the logic for back-10 underslots, given no impact on cap-space? Like, why is Kantro offering $140 to Knox, rather than full $150? Why not just go full $150 for all of those underslot guys? Where does $10K drop-in-buck drop into? If Knox said, "not going for less than full $150", would Kantro have picked somebody else? Did Kantro take a lesser guy to save $10K? I don't really get it. Are all these scouts really calling lots of guys and haggling over $150 vs $140 vs $100? Why not just offer them all the full $150? Hunsacker, why $45 vs $50? And why the sequence? Not counting Franklin, college guys went 150-100-150-100-45-180-140-50. I see no pattern. One might think more valued guys would get more and draft higher, I'm also a little curious about rounds 8-10 sub-slot guys. Book agrees for $100K. He wasn't confident he could get $150 slot in rounds 11-20? Did Cubs call ten other guys first who they maybe liked better, but they all said "No, I'm going to bet on myself, I think I can get $150 in rounds 11-20, rather than settling for $100 now"?

For the other "day 3" guys, do you have bonus info? I've got: slot for Eli J (#11) overslot for Franklin/Poteet (#14 and #17) Underslot for #15 Noah Edders ($100) Any ideas for #12, 13, 16, 18, 20?

Nice to have this all wrapped up. I have to say, I kinda like the draft rules with the snappy signing deadlline. Get it done!

The following always has comprehensive coverage of Cubs draft info. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1R9hzhGo0Q_29g2bfa2yQwHYqNN799JzkCP7HyK-XCKY/htmlview?pli=1#

Cal, I've got analogous numbers for yours. To put it in a different way, with 2-sig-figs roundoff they've got $3.6 to cover Wing, Hartshorn, and any teens overslot. They like those two guys a LOT. Hartshorn is getting at least $2. I don't have links to source this, but "A quote from Hartshorn. "“I fly out to Arizona in the next day or two to get a physical and once I pass my physical, I will look into signing and then I will report in a week or two to Arizona,” he said." Earlier he said that he had turned down several offers in the high ones (presumably the high one millions) but he held out on his number until the Cubs finally agreed with it and drafted him. His agent called him to say that the Cubs had agreed to his "number".

I'd wondered if Jemberzeck might overslot. Post above says no. (I'm kinda disappointed; I'd hoped they'd love him enough to motivate some real overslot.).

Thanks for input, guys. I'm guessing that there's a shot a little more velo will come with age and development? But as a short slender guy, he doesn't seem like the obvious velocity-projection candidate. Obviously the Cubs go with a lot of finesse low-velocity pitchers, Taillon, Imanaga, Steele, those are all below-average velocity guys. But definitely it would be fun if Florentino grows into some and gets up nearer big-league average.

What kind of velocity does Florentino have? Well below average, yes? Not sure it matters if it's always about the movement and break, not the speed. .