Jason Ross

We usually see a medium signing sometime around the Thanksgiving mark. So I'd guess someone in the like...Chris Bassit/Lucas Giolito/Dustin May range? Maybe a team jumps the market on Dustin May because of his age relative to others?

I understand, but it it's apart of the context. The Cubs are almost assuredly not going to trade Taillon at the deadline, and that's the point. The injury potential factors into that. Let's really figure out the pathway in which the Cubs would benefit from a Taillon trade at the deadline: 1. The Cubs need to be basically injury free in the rotation allowing them to even consider it. 2. Jaxon Wiggins has to be having a great season in Iowa and you're comfortable throwing a rookie into the playoff race in those two months. 3. One of the 20-teams he can accept a trade to, wants Jameson Taillon - he has a 10 team NTC and without a player option or some sort of sweetener, we can assume most those 10 teams will remain on a no-trade-list. This list must be submitted well before the deadline. This requires Jameson Taillon to be having a good enough season that teams want him, while also not so good of a season the Cubs can't trade him. 4. One of the 20-teams who wants Jameson Taillon is going to offer something to the Cubs more valuable than the pitching depth that Taillon provides While starting pitching is valued at the deadline, are we expecting him to bring back more, than say, Michael Soroka? Soroka brought back a Triple-A OF'er who projects as a fourth-OF'er and a 19 year old lottery ticket. That probably isn't going to be what the Cubs would value over a Taillon in depth for a playoff run. Instead, what they would need is an MLB for an MLB trade and while it's not impossible (as has been brought up, Montgomery for Bader) but this is a very, very rare trade at the deadline. Made more difficult because you would need to find a team short in P's but also flush in whatever the Cubs actually need and willing to move that player. And the Cubs would need that player to help more than Taillon would to really consider it. Impossible? No, but all the less probable when all considered? Yes. This is an incredibly narrow pathway to a trade in July that doesn't involve the Cubs being bad. Beyond that, we have a team who is signaling over and over again this offseason that depth in the rotation and pitching staff matters. You can mitigate most of these issues with a trade in the offseason. More of those 20-teams will be looking for pitching and a pitcher on an expiring contract and the Cubs will be more willing to bring back MiLB depth in the offseason when they can re-spend that $17m aav elsewhere on pitching depth to backfill. How likely is it the Cubs even trade him? Probably not very high! But if the Cubs still want to pair a Cabrera with a Michael King (who is being projected around the 4-year, $20m aav mark and has been connected to the Cubs multiple times over the offseason already and last offseason) which would help the roster cliff next year, trading Taillon makes sense now far more than later.

Teams almost never trade MLB for MLB at the deadline. And while SP prices are up, Taillon isn't a front line starter, and on an expiring deal. You're not looking at a lot of value. You'll get something back, sure, but if he's pitched well enough to get value, chances are the Cubs aren't just...trading him in July if their season is looking like one that ends in the playoffs or beyond. They're not going to replace him with a rookie like Wiggins at that stage, and it's very likely between OD and July that one (if not two or three) of: Shota, Horton, Steele, Boyd or new-guy are already on the shelf (remember, every member of the Cubs rotation outside of Boyd spent time on the IL). At that point the value they'd extra from Taillon in July probably won't be worth the value he can provide the team as depth or on the rotation. Too risky for the type of return you'd expect from a #4 SP on an expiring deal. The Cubs are almost assuredly never going to be in a position to move Taillon in July. It's this off-season and plan for the depth or he's a Cub unless they are terrible. Hoyer loves depth. He won't trade off of it at the deadline if the Cubs are good.

The Cubs have spent all offseason so far with the biggest talking point of "we didn't have enough depth in the pitching staff last year after the deadline" and that they couldn't find adequate prices on pitching to supplement the staff at the the deadline. The Cubs are incredibly unlikely to then, turn around in July and sell pitching. They're far more likely to hoard depth. Taillon has a NTC. At the deadline, the teams on the NTC could very well be the teams who are contending making it even harder to move. It's a pipe dream. The Cubs aren't trading him mid year unless they're bad. Even if they have six starting pitchers, or seven, they'll find a way to keep them, I'm sure. They know an injury or two could sink them. They will either trade Taillon this offseason and adequately supplement their depth then, or he'll be on the Cubs until next offseason unless the Cubs are terrible.

There a plenty of issues why a team in contention won't trade a useful SP. @Outshined_One explained one reason. Another reason why is that injuries may force the Cubs hand to keep him; we know how often pitchers get hurt. You trade him now and ensure you're covered or you don't trade him at all (unless the Cubs are terrible which they shouldn't be). There isn't much of a world where the Cubs are good and they sell Taillon in July. There is a reason contending teams don't trade SP's. The Cubs aren't going to do it.

No one said that. They were wondering how a player with essentially the same wRC+ could have different offensive run value. Squally explained that offensive run value also factors in base running value - despite the two looking like on FanGraphs that they are entirely separate.

He does have a 10-team NTC protection, but I do believe he would be quite moveable.

If you do want a positive; a lot of players took the QO with the fears of a potential cap or limit on spending in the future. Internally, those players are clearly of the mind they can do better the next time than this time. Maybe gives you a feeling on where the players feel the future of the league is going spending wise.

Bo Bichette is a good player, but I think you're overselling what kind of an offensive force he is and will be. He did post a 134 wRC+, but it was also a career high - something he's never gotten to prior (or that close). But career wise, he's a 122 wRC+ hitter, and is projected from STEAMER to be a 120 wRC+ hitter next year. In context, Ian Happ has a 119 wRC+ over his last four seasons. We have seen how people have treated his offense.

It would be nice to add extra thump in the lineup, but it isn't like the Cubs are thumpless. I'll admit, STEAMER isn't my favorite projection system (ZiPS for the win) but the Cubs currently have three players projected at .199 ISO or above (Busch, Suzuki and Pete Crow-Armstrong). Last year, 44 players were above a .199, so having three projected in the same lineup isn't nothing and the Cubs offense isn't as lackluster as some are worried about. Can they just go with an unprotected rookie at DH? No way. But if the Cubs got an Adell/Bohm/Okamoto, or the like the Cubs will likely be fine. fWAR projections have them in the top-5 or 6 right now as a position group, and even if they don't add a lot, their current projection gets them into the top-10 most years. They're coming off of a top-5 run scoring team effort (and losing Tucker will certainly cut into that). If they properly add to the their run prevention while supporting a rookie DH with something better than Justin Turner they're going to be fine in the aggregate. None of this should read "it's okay to entirely ignore the position player group" but it should read "maybe we're a little too worried about the run scoring potential of this team than we should be".

I'd be fine with any and all of those names. Give me a guy who has some big stuff who can step into a top-line role. I've gotten into the weeds on Imai and he's become a bit of "my guy": but at the deadline Cabrera was my guy, so it's probably recency bias.

Bruce Levine, speaking about Tatsuya Imai and the Cubs:

On cue, per Bruce Levine (when speaking of the Cubs and Tatsuya Imai): "I think so. Yeah, I definitely think so. I don’t they’d back away, and I don’t think the Cubs would be afraid to make a huge investment in Imai.” He calls the idea that the Cubs won’t spend money a misconception.

I think a lot of it depends on what you make of Caissie's second half. Over his last 140 PA's Caissie's K% was 20%. His wRC+ was 161. And his batted ball data is elite (diagram below). I don't think Caissie is going to be a 20% K% guy at MLB. But Owen Caissie being Kyle Stowers good feels like it's on the table and he finished with 4 wins. A lot of that will hinge on how much of the improvement was just "I've done this enough" versus "I actually got better". I think those answers will probably beyond anything you and I can speculate about. But if you come down on the side of "Kyle Stowers is a real outcome" than Caissie performing as a 3 fWAR player in 2027 feels very real.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the Cubs really like Imai. Just a pure, entire, guess, but I really think Imai will be a guy they like. Jed spoke both about "top of the market" free agency and "IFA's" at the GM meetings in a media scrum.

No. They only get draft compensation if an MLB team signs him. And there is a date within the offseason in which a team can sign him and the QO will go away, but it's very late.

Valdez seems like a turd. He threw at this own catcher last year (he can claim he didn't; he obviously did). In terms of 2026, he might be a star pitcher in front of our defense. Beyond that, I'm very uninterested.

Image courtesy of Pacific League TV/YouTube The Chicago Cubs ended their 2025 campaign with a game started by Drew Pomeranz. There was a time (before the Covid-19 pandemic) when that sentence wouldn't have seemed crazy, but that was also the last time that it wouldn't have. Since then, Pomeranz has transitioned from a starting pitcher to strictly a two-pitch reliever. Shota Imanaga, who was on regular rest, spent the entire game in the bullpen. There are many reasons the Cubs didn’t win the World Series in 2025, but their loss in Game 5 was truly a microcosm of what was wrong with the roster. They were one pitcher short, relying too much on a bullpen to hide the deficiencies of their rotation.. Jed Hoyer, in his end-of-year press conference, essentially admitted as much, speaking of how difficult it was for the team to make the additions they wished they could at the deadline. This will have change as the team looks to build on their 92-win season in 2026. Luckily for the Cubs, there are many options on the market. If they would like to attack the free-agent class, top-line arms such as Framber Valdez, Dylan Cease and Ranger Suárez are all available to be signed while surrendering draft-pick compensation. If they don't love any of these options, they could look to the trade market, hoping that the prices on Joe Ryan, MacKenzie Gore or Edward Cabrera have come down. Instead, though, the Cubs may look to a place they have looked multiple times in the last few seasons: across the Pacific Ocean, to Japan. Enter: Tatsuya Imai, a 27-year-old right-handed pitcher from Japan's top flight, Nippon Professional Baseball. Imai's club, the Seibu Lions, have confirmed their intentions to allow the pitcher to come to America this offseason. His agent, Scott Boras, said Wednesday that the hurler will officially be posted on November 19, which is next Wednesday. Imai is likely to have plenty of suitors, and his contract is expected to rival those in the top tier of free agency, with The Athletic predicting he will earn north of $140 million. The Cubs have not been a team we associate with big-time free-agent contracts in recent years, but I think the righty may be the type of player the Cubs will be willing to break the bank on. To understand why the Cubs may target Imai, we need to first understand what the Cubs rotation lacks: strikeouts. In terms of ERA, the Cubs finished in the top 10, but they were 23rd in strikeout rate. Chicago’s defense is excellent, but adding more swing-and-miss would give the team’s run prevention a needed boost, and the Japanese star would certainly do that. He struck out 27.8% of all hitters and over 31% of righties in 2025. Ben Brown is the only Cub who made more than five starts with the team and struck out even 25% of opposing hitters. There is a caveat. Imai's fastball isn't going to be nearly as special in terms of velocity when he comes over. However, I don't think this will scare off the Cubs. To put it in context, in NPB, Imai had the second-fastest fastball in the league, clocking in around the 95-mph mark and touching 99 on occasion. When he comes over, though, his fastball will be around average for a right-handed starter in Major League Baseball, which was 94.6 mph last year. The good news for Imai is that his arm angle is funky, which should allow him to create deception. While NPB does not make arm angle public on their tracking site, it's likely that his angle will put him around the flattest in baseball. Compare the above video of Imai to the below video of Seattle Mariners' starter Bryan Woo. Woo clocks in around a 23° arm angle, the 12th-flattest of any starter in 2025. I expect Imai to be in that range. Uk8yeU5fWGw0TUFRPT1fVUFVSFZGUUhYd2NBWEFSVUFBQUhBVkFFQUZrRFUxa0FVRlVNVWxJRlV3b0RVVkZR.mp4 While I hesitate to compare the two directly in terms of fastball value, Woo's fastball sat at 95.6 mph last year. And while the shape of Woo's fastball is good, grading out on FanGraphs's Stuff+ as a 105, on shape and velocity alone, it falls short of elite. Despite that, Woo's fastball performs among the best in the league. It's pretty well-known that the Cubs, who threw the most four-seam fastballs of any team in 2025, value the pitch highly. While we shouldn’t expect Imai to duplicate Woo’s success with the four-seam fastball, it also wouldn’t be surprising to see the Cubs attempt to use Woo as a template for what can be done. The Cubs have managed to squeeze extra velocity out of a few arms in their system over the years, and when you add year two of Tyler Zombro and everything Tread Athletics can do, it gives the Cubs a strong foundation to help get the most out of him. Imai may never dominate on velocity alone, but I think there’s potential for the pitch with a good fastball organization, like the Cubs. Imai’s most unique offering is his "slider". I'm going to be careful what I call it, though. It's not really a slider, at least in the traditional sense, because Imai throws his with arm-side run. This effectively makes it a “reverse” breaking ball, or screwball, running toward a right-handed batter instead of away from them (as most righties’ sliders do). I suspect that Stuff+ models will hate the pitch, but the results in Japan were stunning. The slider generated a 45.9% swing-and-miss rate, which would have placed it in the top 10 in whiff rate in MLB. It's fair to wonder how the pitch will play against American big-league hitters due to its unique nature, but if there's one thing I'm confident about, it’s that the Cubs aren't afraid of a funky pitch. Due to his slider-fastball combination, Imai has been absolutely deadly against right handed hitters. On the surface, this makes sense; both of these pitches play up against like-handed hitters before we factor in the funk factor of his delivery or slider profile. Beyond that, it would appear as though he added a sinker to his repertoire late in the season—yet another pitch that will help him navigate the best righty batters in the world. It’s great to have all of these offerings, but there’s a drawback; none of these pitches are great against left-handed hitters, and this has been a general Achilles heel for him over his career in NPB. One of the hallmarks of the Cubs pitching staff in 2025 was their on-the-fly development of changeups, a pitch often used to attack opposite-handed hitters. Both Cade Horton and Jameson Taillon, who badly needed an extra offering, developed very strong kick-changes before or during the 2025 season. It wouldn't appear as though Imai would be a direct candidate for the kick-change like the other two, as he tends to be more of a pronator to begin with. (The kick-change, which involves using the placement of the middle finger to "kick" the spin axis sideways as the ball comes off the fingers, has usually been a tool employed by pitchers who tend to supinate and specialize in glove-side movement.) Despite that, an organization who can continue to get the best ot his changeup is likely the organization willing to spend big on the pitcher to begin with. Before 2025, Imai had terrible walk issues with lefties, specifically, walking 11% of them in 2024. He developed a better changeup in 2025, which dropped his walk rate against lefties to 8.5% and allowed him to make major strides in terms of run prevention against them. The Cubs, an organization that excels at teaching the changeup, would continue to work with the pitcher to solve this issue. It's likely that this isn't entirely behind him, as the step up in competition will push him to his limits. I don't think that the overall package that Imai has today puts him in the same tier as Yoshinobu Yamamoto was when he came over from NPB two offseasons ago; I don't think anyone does. Even the priciest predictions have Imai making around half of the $325 million that Yamamoto got from the Dodgers. But he's also a clear step above what Shota Imanaga was when the Cubs signed him, and he's proven capable of being somewhere between a second starter and a fourth-best option. I wouldn't expect Imai to headline a rotation, but I do think there's more than enough clay to mold a front-line option. There are probably going to be some tweaks. Imai's fastball location leaves something to be desired; the changeup is just starting out and likely needs refinement; and it will take a good organization to best use Imai's funky reverse slider. Still, I think he fits into how the Cubs view pitchers. They love four-seam fastballs, lower arm slots, changeups and funk. Imai fits Chicago in other ways, too. The Cubs have been active in scouting Japanese players under Hoyer. They have signed both Seiya Suzuki and Imanaga. They have been major players, regardless of outcome, when it comes to Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki. They have even reportedly offered a contract to 22-year-old, undrafted NPB outfielder Kotaru Tsunematsu (though we are unsure if he's accepted as of writing this article, and he seems as likely to become a force in their front office someday as to blossom on the field). He's also the right age for this kind of investment. Pitchers rarely hit the market at the age of 27. While the Cubs have shied away from big contracts, their two biggest signings of the last decade were offered to 26-year-old Jason Heyward and 29-year-old Dansby Swanson. Pitchers are aging better than hitters lately, too. Will Imai end up in Chicago? It’s no sure thing. The New York Mets are interested, and have recently signed Kodai Senga. The New York Yankees are always a premium destination and are looking for pitchers. There will be plenty of competition. But I also feel like this is a unique situation in which the pitcher's style aligns with much of what the Cubs like. Coming over from Japan, there is no draft-pick compensation attached, which is likely a factor for the Cubs. Taking all these factors in conjunction, I think the Cubs are going to put him very high on their offseason list. If the Cubs are going to spend $150 million on a player, Imai is probably the type they are willing to look at. View full article

To be fair to the Cubs here as well, though, if we're going to say "Hottovy works magic" than we have to remember this; advanced metrics don't like the Cubs pitching as much either. They were top-10 in ERA and 18th in xFIP on the whole. Part of that is because of their defense, but I think it's kind of a self fulfilling prophecy; if we believe the Cubs are good at getting more out of players (young players like Amaya or mediocre pitchers like Colin Rea) than they probably will out perform their advanced metrics. I don't want to beat a dead horse here or make it a longer discussion than needs to be - only saying that I don't mind that the Cubs have identified pitching as their primary need. In a perfect world, I would trust the Cubs to spend money on Kyle Schwarber on a five year deal and if/when it got ugly, would just move on from it and use their financial advantage, but sadly, I just don't. The Cubs will probably always need to be more careful than they should need to be in how they spend. And because of that, I'd rather them just go in on the players I feel most comfortable with when it comes to meeting their contractual value.

Yeah, I just don't think that's a good idea on his part.

Heyman; Shota expected to decline QO.

So, I'll push back on few things: 1. I don't know we lost our best hitter. Michael Busch finished the season with a 140 wRC+. Kyle Tucker finished the year with a 136 wRC+(career 138 wRC+). It's certainly possible we saw the best season Michael Busch can or will ever have - but he made a lot of progress with the swing and even against LHP. And while we have seen Kyle Tucker go bananas for stints, we haven't seen him really be consistently better than 140 wRC+, either. I'm not saying Busch is our best hitter, but like, it isn't as if the Cubs were a one man show. This isn't me saying "it's okay to let him go" or "Kyle Tucker won't be missed" but that I think we forget how good Busch (140 wRC+) was. 2. The Cubs, even without Kyle Tucker, project to be average or better than average at every position on the diamond right now except for DH. They also are very much a team with a glut of offensive prospects - they shouldn't keep them all and hoard them, but we should feel fairly confident in their ability to pick one of them and turn them into a good MLB regular. They've consistently done this the last few years, they get a benefit of the doubt here. So while you've brought up Hottovy and the Cubs pitching infrastructure, it's also fair to remember all of the progress we have made developing young hitters. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Matt Shaw, Miguel Amaya and Michael Busch have seen big strides with their swings over just the last two years. If the Cubs choose to go with with a rookie there is also a reason to believe that they can get the most out of them, much like Hottovy could get the most out of an under the radar arm. 3. I'm not going to defend the Cubs if they walk into the season with a $175m payroll adding a down-year Michael King, building a cheap ass BP and ignoring the offense. But I think the payroll concerns don't match with how the Cubs have behaved. They're cheap in that they clearly care most about profits, don't spend to their ability and don't want to break the bank on great players but they've never been "win 92 games and then drop to the 17th (in 2025) best payroll" cheap, either (unless we count 2020 into 2021 but I think the Pandemic was the root cause and there has was no recent pandemic). I wouldn't expect them to blow past an LT, but I do expect they'll get to around the same payroll. I also don't expect they'll ignore the offense entirely. But I do think what we're hearing over and over is that the Cubs priority is pitching, and as @Bertz showed, it's their obvious issue.

You doom boner it up. I don't take it as bad. Like I said to you, I'm not super in love with this class of bats. I think if the Cubs are thinking in terms of just Uber loading up on pitching, this is perfectly fine if they also don't love these hitters. Obviously that calls on you to believe their comments. They did say they'd look at all levels of the FA market and trade market for arms. They talked about the pitching at the end of year presser. So I do believe that they're definitely interested in pitching. Will they get a little irrational and get Cease or Imai? Or will they instead do a Ponce, King off-season and call her quits?