Jason Ross

CB Bucknor is the best advertisement for why the ABS challenge system is needed.

Actually, it does! Don't focus on the velocity so much - I know we're conditioned to see 91 and think "uh oh!" but since his velocity dropped, he's gotten much better results on the fastball. Throwing 94-95 is cool to us, but his shape suffers at that velocity. By dropping the velo, allows for the earth to react to the baseball a bit more and create more shape. Now, his issue with the fastball tonight has been placement - don't love him down at the knees with that thing. It's shaped and designed up in the zone. Think of him as a poor-mans Shota in that aspect. Shota throws 90-91 but it's the shape of the fastball (his is better than Michaels) and gets good whiff when he gets it up. Ideally Soroka would be on the upper third of the plate when he comes with the four-seam, not on the bottom third.

horsefeathers. He hung that one.

Matt wrote an article about it. The velocity drop is designed and isn't really a bug, it's a feature.

To bring some data, he gets a whiff 38.1% of the time and has a 27.4% put away on it.

That slurve is nasty.

wOBA: .282 xwOBA: .305 League 3b wOBA: .307 I'm not sure he's underperformed so much as he's been the recipient of poor batted ball variance. Part of what is happening more recently stems from change, but part of this is that he's always been unlucky and some balls that weren't dropping are more frequently.

Well, Akin has a .371 wOBA against for LHH. This isn't a bad spot for Pete.

Brasier has a 2.14 ERA and a 3.33 xFIP in the year. He didn't pick Ethan Roberts, he picked a RHP who has been very good between two RHP who has been very good.

Well, bad luck on Counsell's end. Yeah it was a rough pitch.

Ahh! Well Braiser vs LHP - 29.6% K%, 3.7 BB%, 2.68 xFIP He's crushed lefties too.

Because the top of the Orioles lineup is super lefty heavy. Henderson has a 67 wRC+ against lefties and Thielbar crushes lefties this year to the tune of a .147 wOBA. It's bad luck but it wasn't a bad call. In fact, it was easily the right call. It was just the wrong outcome, which can happen even when you make the right call. Henderson is an MLB hitter and a good one at that. Thielbar is a human. Sometimes the 1 of 100 happens.

Fun inning from Kittredge

You know what...give me a day or so. Because I'm going to be honest and say without a super deep dive...I don't know. Probably something small mechanical however, if I were to guess. His approach and eye is fine so it's not pitch recognition errors. I'll look into it tonight and see if I can find a thing.

You do. Kelly is good. But I'm not sure he's so good I'd have matched the Rangers there. I think there are more than one way to skin a cat. Probably would have gone the BP of Doom route. Bednar, Bird, types.

I'd have passed on Kelly at the package. But I do agree that he needed to pivot somewhere. I'd have gone after those sub-Duran BP arms myself. Just build a badass BP.

Not enough to off set it. Let's just do this, and say you can either sign Kyle Tucker at a $50m (AAV) or sign Michael King ($25m), Bo Bichette ($25m). Kyle Tucker is currently on pace for about 6 fWAR on the year, Michael King for 2.5 and Bo Bichette 3.6, They're about equal. But here's the rub...Kyle Tucker is just one roster spot, meaning if you have another roster spot that is capable of producing 2-3 fWAR you're way ahead the Tucker route. It's not close when all things are factored in. One player will aways beat two.

Maybe. The Rangers didn't get Kelly for free and there are varying views on their package. Some are pretty high on what Arizona got back, and the equivalent from the Cubs may have been quite painful.

Over his career he has been worse against RHP. In 2023 he was much worse, last year split neutral in that he was bad against everyone and this year in SSS worse against RHP.

To temper your fears, I think it's a good thing to remember that 4 months ago, Ryan Gallagher wasn't even on our radar as a thing. He was a mid-round pick coming out of UC-Santa Barbara. Over the last few years the Cubs have had similar pop-up prospects like Sam Armstrong (ironically...also in this trade) and Brody McCullough, both who have fallen off (for various reasons) since. They have also gotten pretty good production from other mid-round pitchers such as Brandon Birdsell and Will Sanders. Gallagher is a cool story and gone from "no one knew him" to "looks like might be a thing" however, the Cubs have shown an ability over the last half decade of consistently finding interesting players beyond the top two or three picks, and we should expect that the 2025 draft will probably have another Ryan Gallagher (I'll go ahead and say Dominic Reid, third round pick is next year's guy). I'm not jazzed we traded him, but I think if we consistently convert 6th round picks into any version of MLB talent (even rentals) that the Cubs will win that conversation far more than they will lose it.

I had been, then saw his horrible July. I think the bad start and July kind of scared teams into thinking he's dead.

I don't think I'm over valuing Cubs prospects when I say that the Cubs should overpay to get what they want. If anything, I think that shows I'm probably valuing them less than fans who defend the process of keeping the prospects, wouldn't you think? Kevin Alcantara probably can show little in 2026 that is going to make anyone more confident about him. He will be 24, and repeating Triple-A for a third time. Any positives from next season will be met with heavy scrutiny; his age is no longer working his direction nor will his data. Sure, if he makes more contact on breaking balls that's not a bad thing, but is it just because he's 24 and doing it for a third time? He's kind of MLB ready by opening day - you either see what he is or isn't, but there probably isn't a good route to that with he and Caissie. Jonathon Long is also likely ready. His batted ball data is extremely good. I've got questions on power potential (as a 1b/Dh at 18-25 home runs the landing strip is narrow) but that's not going to be answered in Iowa by next year. There is no path for him currently that isn't as a short side platoon and his splits skew towards him being better against RHP. And while none of these guys on the bench is a complete waste, it's a misuse of funds. You aren't saving much financially by paying Jonathon Long as your backup 1b - you're saving $3-$5m; it's an easy price to both find and pay bench players. Rookies you feel have starting potential should be starting, as they are saving you more money and thus are a better value prop. By instead taking your prospects and flipping them for useable assets and then just signing a utility player, you make your team better - the Cubs cannot sign an impact SP for $5m. We cannot fear the future so much so that we ignore these holes just because we're afraid we might lose a good player. Lastly, these prospects outside of Alcantara don't lend themselves to a modern MLB bench as is. With the modern DH, you have effectively four bench places for the entire team. The Cubs have two catchers, so what versatility is Ballesteros bringing on the bench? He's LHH and hasn't hit lefties well, so he can't platoon with Busch. He can't play anything other than C/1b, and any one can DH and defensively at catcher is well, well beyond Amaya and Kelly currently. Long is effectively a 1b/Dh who hits RHP better as well - he might moonlight 5-7 games at 3b, but that's it. This cannot be an effective MLB bench. It leads the Cubs to a very difficult position. These prospects are too similar in age, ETA and lack versatility among themselves. They don't fit the current roster nor will they fit it better in 2026. Prospects should be seen as assets first and foremost, and some of those assets need to be rearranged in a better way. The Cubs can't really keep both Caissie and Alcantara. They can't really keep both Long and Ballesteros. Two of these four make sense, all four do not. 2025 will suffer for the Cubs keeping assets that will be unlikely to add much. 2026 will suffer similarly if they further refuse to move off of them. By 2027, the Cubs system will look very different; they have drafted three new OF'ers, they will see more popup prospects as well. What they lose, they should feel confident in recreating shortly.

My guess is that the Cubs plan for Castro is that he will play most every day against LHP, but that it will be a bit of a chess piece they can move around. He can basically play everywhere except 1b and C so I would expect they will be creative with him. Sometimes for Pete, sometimes for Happ, maybe sometimes for Shaw, and if they want to get crazy, he could probably bump Ian Happ or Kyle Tucker to 1b and have him be the Busch guy. I also think he'll play a bunch against RHP doing the same taking some time at LF, 2b, 3b and SS. I don't think he's a great defender at any one spot, but you can mix and match. Imanaga is a good day to get Willi Castro on the infield, Cade Horton is a good day to get him in the OF, for example. But I think he'll play more than any bench hitter we have had all season.

Ah, bummer no Castro. Wonder if they just couldn't get him in until late-last-night based on the time they traded for him. It was a later moment trade, so getting Castro who was presumably in Cleveland at 6pm est to Chicago was probably a bit of a night for him. Coupled with an afternoon game...

Just to add to the last point, the Cubs freshly drafted a college OF'er in the first round, a presumably quick moving college-OF'er in the 2nd round, and had their 2nd highest bonus to a prep-OF'er in the 6th round. It's almost inarguable that the Cubs spent the biggest assets of the 2025 draft class backfilling the OF stock.