Jason Ross

Right position, wrong guy. Yeah, that's Joe.

Based on? I think we can be better than to find fault with Hoyer in made-up senses. For example, we know he swung and missed a few times this offseason on players like Scott/Bregman/Luzardo/Cease/Sasaki - there is ample reporting. We can fault the results and the inability to get across the line because there's actual information there. But there's no reporting to suggest that Hoyer didn't even try to trade Bellinger in any other sense than strictly a salary dump. In fact, the reporting was pretty clear from very early on that the Cubs were interested in moving him - what kind of talks occurred and with whom and for what between the end of November and trade-day is likely to have been pretty wide. The most concrete stuff we heard was with the Yankees, but it doesn't mean he didn't try something else. So I think for argument's sake, it's best not to stray into conspiracy here. Just because he didn't do something does not mean he didn't try to do that thing. All of the things you mentioned in your post could have been discussed, for example and for a host of reasons, never happened. Most of the trade talks that happen never make it to the press.

Franklin on the I-Cubs IL is interesting. Mostly just for me. I refuse to give up the dream.

...is that Koyie Hill?

That's fair on the Jolee thing - but you'll notice, I didn't quote you on that originally. You said we didn't need to bring that up, and I explained why I did. So I wasn't calling you out specifically. I will specifically address the last line because Cubs fans enjoy having their cake and eating it too when it comes to "aggressive enough" on Hoyer. Now, I'm not saying you particularly, but Cubs fans have lamented Hoyer all offseason for trying to save his butt, for trading Parades and Smith for just one year of Tucker. For saying that the Cubs aren't good enough for an all-in move. At the same time, some of these same people, and others, lament him for being not-aggressive enough. It can't be both. I posted this in another thread, but I'll continue it here, I don't think there was some $200 line, the Cubs tried to spend that money. That's not a plus, it's just a fact. They did. I think the plan with the Bellinger trade was two fold: 1. Trade Bellinger, a player who wasn't going to start at any specific position (RF, CF, LF, 1b or DH), clear $20m to use on players who would more readily contribute. 2. Make one more impact move., The Cubs accomplished part 1. They traded Bellinger. They proceeded to add Turner, Braiser, Berti, Pressley and others. These will be players who will contribute to the team in various, and likely, positive ways. Part 2 is where they missed. I don't think for a lack of effort (they had a real good offer in on Scott, Matt's consistently reported the Cubs interest in Cease, and then there was the week of Bregman rumors). The Cubs don't win games based on effort to improve, surely, though, also don't think the roster is currently, overly flawed or an issue. I do think they could probably use another SP, though with Brown over Rea, the team is prioritizing upside over stability and it's probably a better rotation than we expected. They could probably use one more high leverage reliever, but outside of Scott, there really wasn't a ton available who was so good you couldn't miss on. And maybe the amount of youth (Shaw, PCA, Amaya, Busch and a reliance on prospects as "next up") hinder the offense. If you want a positive it's that with this route the Cubs have a bit more flexibility. Let's say Brown takes that fifth spot and runs with it - a possible outcome for Brown for sure. Then maybe you gain more clarity and the rotation isn't some glaring spot that needed a Luzardo trade and now those resources can be used to fix elsewhere. Or maybe Brown is good to go for half a year as a starter, and you can trade for Cease much more cheaply as you move him to the pen to limit innings later. Or maybe the offense and the youth show stability and contribution, and you feel far more comfortable trading Kevin Alcantara or Owen Caissie than you did before in a bigger move. There's inherent risk involved, and I'm not saying it's the path I'd have walked, but my personal preference isn't always right, and I think there's some merit and logic. On the overall, I think we agree that the Cubs as an org probably don't put enough money into the baseball side of things. Hoyer's a weird one to evaluate. I think most of what he does has a pretty consistent, and obvious logic behind it. Individually, he rarely makes a bad move - his biggest blunders on a one-on-one basis have been essentially "he gave Mancini two years instead of one" or something like that. I think he's put together a good enough roster in 2025, but I think we also agree there's some variance there that could probably be cut out some.

I'm not sure there was a "trade him for someone" out there. Seattle seemed steadfast that they weren't dealing from their SP depth, and Bellinger wasn't really exuding surplus value for many teams. So maybe you get a Jordan Montgomery, and then you have an expensive TJS guy. It seems like the Cubs did try to spend that excess money - they spent over the $20m saved post-Bellinger trade and left enough cash in the chest to make legitimate runs at at least Scott, Cease, and Bregman. I don't want to give Jed like a free-pass, at some point effort isn't enough and while I can understand players have choice...you don't win games on effort to improve the team...but I do think the general concept was: 1. Take Bellinger's money and repurpose it 2. Take the remaining and improve with one more impactful addition. Part 1 happened, part 2 hasn't yet and likely, won't happen until July. Even then they won't spend all the way to the line, more than likely.

Oh really? I had a feeling he might stick around due to his association with Zombro and the Cubs somewhat-thin SP depth chart (with Assad, Horton, and Birdsell currently unavailable to fulfill an MLB SP role for various reasons). A bit of a bummer, but not one I'd ruminate over, either.

The issue is that there are two competing issues here: 1. People who are trying to play "gotcha" with Matt 2. The discussion about Cubs payroll and their inability to have gotten a second impactful deal over the line. The reason I point these out, is that my post was attempting to address both. There is no gotcha with Matt - his article - which is directly about spending the money saved from Bellinger is correct. Factually, the Cubs spent more than they saved with Bellinger. There is no gotcha there. Those using that argument is flat-wrong. So in that vein, it's 100% meaningful - and the reason I and others have pointed that out. I don't disagree that the Cubs should have found a way to get a second move done. If you'll go back and read, I addressed that entirely. I think any individual move, you can accept the Cubs missing on or understanding why. The reality with free agents is that agents have agency on their choice, and other teams have agency as well. I really don't blame Jed or the Cubs for missing on any specific move - Scott, Bregman, Sasaki. I do think a bigger point of the Cubs missing on a second impactful piece is something to bring up. I think it's fair to bring up the lack of spending the team does. Which is nuanced - I don't think Jed's plan when he traded Bellinger was to end up $20m under the LT - instead he took some swings and missed on them. Which is a harder thing to pin-point in the error of his way. Ultimately, I think most of this will be for naught, though. As it stands, I still think the Cubs are the best team in the NL Central. I think they'll win the division. I think, come July, a second fairly meaningful piece will be added. We can quibble over how long that piece may be around for (a rental or something more long term), but I suspect the Cubs will add another SP, or RP, or bat that will move a needle. I don't think that absolves anyone entirely for putting the Cubs in a bit more of a precarious position than they maybe needed to be (a full year of Dylan Cease vs 2 months, for example) but will end up being one that is moot in that I think the final version of the Cubs will still win the Central and still have that second piece headed into the post season.

He hasn't gotten time yet but I would suspect he will - call it a guess - but he gives the Cubs a LHH option there and he has the size/bat. Especially as he comes off a surgery. It would allow the Cubs a LHH 1b option if Busch goes down without having to pigeonhole Moises Ballesteros into 1b or take away from his dev, and while I like Long, assume the org is higher on Caissie than Long currently.

I think there needs to be some nuance here. On one hand, we did re-spend the money saved on Bellinger, as has been pointed out. The Cubs spent another $25m behind that deal, which essentially, re-spent that. There was also a concerted effort to spend more - the Cubs put forth competitive and lucrative deals to Bregman and Scott. These are all facts. Where the nuance needs to happen is that I think we can both absolve Hoyer to a degree in that they put forth competitive offers to both, and probably maxed out their ability to sign both (per Hoyer, he's stated he had to ask for the funs to make Bregman happen). I think any of their attempts to reuse that money, missing on any of them is defensible on their own merits. The Dodgers probably could have continued to outbid the Cubs on Scott, Bregman was given more than the Cubs likely could have offered (that's a Ricketts thing, probably). The Padres may not have been reasonable on Cease or King. But with nuance comes the general belief that, yeah, the Cubs don't get we-tried-points, so missing a few times, at some point it's on you to get it over the finish line. And for that I think it's fair to point out that the team feels like it just, isn't as complete as it could be. Perhaps they'll get there in July with the deadline and it'll all work out still, but you'd probably have liked to have gotten to that point sooner if possible.

AZ Phil recently reported that Long is getting a lot of work at 3b on the backfields. I wonder if the Cubs are prepping more of a "rotation" at 1b - with Ballesteros, Caissie and Long rotating in off of RF, C, 3b and DH respectively.

Tuck!

Happ

In my defense, I can't read.

It really does! I was the opposite - central to eastern and man, as I round my mid-30's and head towards my 40's, even then it's killing me. I hate when they put the Eagles on MNF or SNF - I can't stay up until 11:30 and then hang out with middle schooler's all that well any more. They're good kids but man they drain the energy haha.

I wonder if the Cubs think they can sneak Poteet through. He's worked with Zombro in the past and this is prime-time "sneak a vet to Iowa" time period with a bunch of teams setting 40-mans.

I used to be a night person, but as I've gotten steadily older, and now owning a cat who's very schedule oriented (breakfast time is 6am every day - she does not understand weekends or summer break) I've become a morning person instead. EST is not good for not-night-people - so I used to love it. Now I hate it. Enjoy Sunday! That should be a good one. Believe Shota is going for the Cubs!

I told my partner that I'd be staying up late past our normal bed time, pretending I'll make it to the end of the game. She knows me better than to think I'll make it past the fourth as well.

Man, I wish tonight's game started at 9pm for me! horsefeathers EST is the worst for this. Did I strategically ensure that my district benchmark exam is scheduled for Friday? A day in which I only have to proctor an exam instead of entertaining 125 12-14 year olds with an actual lesson?

Yeah, I'd say as of now, Armstrong in a 6th/7th inning role feels like a good outcome for him. You can likely get his K% to play up a bit, add in a penchant for ground balls and there's a role in a BP for a guy like that. It helps hide the issues he'd see more as a starter. And hell, if the outcome for a 13th round pick out of Old Dominion is "org up/down lower-leverage reliever" or even "decent middle reliever" then it's a pretty big scouting win.

I'm going to do my best to not sound like a single-issue-voter here...but I would classify his K% issues as far more concerning than the slight positive bumps of the other things. For example, a small decrease in BA against may be a Sam Armstrong thing, but can also be explained by improved defense (the higher the level, usually, the higher the defensive ability). This also goes to WHIP, which, I'm pretty uninterested in, in general, when we speak of pitching as is (just feel it's a very outdated stat and we have better). I'd say that K% drop is more concerning especially with Armstrong's profile - in that he's a command/control/pitchability guy over someone who has projectable stuff. I really wish we had access to Statcast on him, because I think looking at things such as pitch location, pitch tracking, and things such as EV, xBA, etc would really help tell us more of the story here. There's still enough behind the veil that it may be a bit less of an issue than it may seem, so don't take this as like...gospel. I also don't want to entire throw those things away, either - the improvement of ground balls over fly balls is a good thing, for example. I just think that Armstrong is the type who's capable of hiding his deficiencies at these levels behind a pitchability profile and if he can't improve that K%, he'll eventually hit a wall. And while all prospects have some deficiencies and issues, Armstrong probably doesn't offer the upside as a SP or a RP that those are enough to ignore. Like, sure Wiggins might not throw enough strikes, but there's an 8th inning profile there if he can't. If Armstrong can't strike out enough guys, he's probably topping out at org up/down. In the end, I'd hate to be giving off an impression or a suggestion that I'm giving up on him, or that development, progress, etc can't happen. I really like Zombro and he can bring a lot to the table and help someone like Armstrong, for sure. There's a lot of things to like there! But he's got a bit of a concerning profile, and while he's certainly not the bevy of previous arms in a similar mold, they're cautionary tales on pitchers who follow this general build. For his sake, the Cubs, sake and everyone involved, Armstrong taking the next step and finding enough to keep his K% and whiff% into acceptable rates moving forward would be a win.

It's not impossible, but is probably more improbable than other pitchers. Many times, pitchers like Sam Armstrong find initial success in lower levels, where I believe command and control can hide stuff deficiencies far more than at higher levels. There's a handful of reasons for that - younger, more aggressive hitters, hitters with less talent, etc, etc. But these pitchers tend to get exposed at higher levels as they lack stuff to get guys to swing and miss on. If you can't get guys to chase your pitches out of the zone, if you can't get them to swing and miss, it becomes very hard to consistently throw pitches on the shadow of the strike zone (the "heart" of the zone is the general middle where as the "shadow" are the fringes). MLB hitters, regardless of velocity, destroy "heart" pitches. It just takes one, and it becomes a numbers game. If hitters wont chase and expand, you have to throw more in the zone, and the more times you are in the zone, the more times you give yourself a chance to miss just enough to find that area. Looking at Armstrong, you can find some cracks in the armor currently, as upon his promotion from South Bend, his K% dropped to the 18% range over his 50 innings in Tennessee. Comparing this to MLB K% averages; only 12 pitchers who logged 100 innings last year posted a <18% K and a just single one of those finished with an xFIP below 4.50. Continuing to look at that sample size of 12 pitchers, ten finished with an ERA over 4.75, with most of those ten breaking the five+ ERA mark. The reality is that a K% in that range at the highest level is untenable. Armstrong isn't hitting that level of strikeouts currently two levels below and against far less than MLB hitters. It's not a great indicator of future success, even if his ERA, xFIP and the like look good. If you want some positives, it's that Armstrong has worked hard on transforming his body from his college days, has thrown a good amount of ground balls (this is a way to help mitigate a poor strikeout rate) and has limited home runs. If Armstrong can continue to develop some secondaries and post a K% in the 20's, there's a route to being a bottom of the rotation, ground ball machine of a SP. It's why I say it's improbable and not impossible. My word of caution; most draft seasons the Cubs find a guy like Armstrong: a college pitcher (usually), who uses command and control to put up some fun early numbers in lower levels only to fall away when stuff becomes more important. So we'll see. I don't want to fully write him off because there's a chance, but his profile doesn't usually pan out well.

Will Sanders as Lance's prospect to watch is notable - I really think Lance is the tops when it comes to the pitching side of things. He does great work and has awesome insight into pitch movement and pitch mix stuff.

I don't think it's this straight forward either - so we're in agreement. But it's a quick and easy way to remember that while I think Cam Smith is a pretty damn good prospect (there are hundreds and hundreds of prospects and to be consistently considered among the top-75 is a really amazing feat) industry belief hasn't been that Smith is some generation-can't-miss type, either. It's just a quick data aggregation of lot of opinion for disucssion's sake. I will say this on the fact that that Jimenez and Torres had far more data behind them, I think that both works against Smith (in that I am not sure what he is as much without as much data) but for him in that he hasn't dealt with prospect exhaustion and it becomes a lot easier to create pie-in-the-sky outcomes. It's a push-and-pull scenario. Generally speaking, I sincerely wish Cam Smith the best - I'm ultimately a fan of the Cubs and not someone who revels in how a player fails elsewhere. The best case scenario for all - the Cubs get Kyle Tucker, and he's really good and we extend him and Cam Smith being awesome - is something I'd be more than happy to see! I just think some people need to find some sort of a realistic footing on how we should view Cam Smith's current call up.

So, I'm going to be very definitive with this: I have not been "shitting" on anyone - this is a pretty unfair way of characterizing the point of my posts. I have repeatedly say that for his sake I hope he does well, that I think he's a good prospect, have brought up his top-100 ranking, have explained multiple times I would say this about any prospect in the same situation as Smith...there is simply no "shitting" on him. The moment with his family was super cool and he seems like a good dude. As a person, I'm happy for him. Instead, let's recalibrate what my actual point is: 1. I don't think he's being put in a situation to succeed. It's not that he hasn't "paid his dues" it's that the best prospects on the planet, with more experience struggle at the highest level. Smith has no track record against Double-A pitching. - this is the highest level of baseball and he's skipped basically, everything between the "College World Series" and "hitting against Tarik Skubal". This is a recipe for bad outcomes. It doesn't mean it will happen, but that this is about the toughest assignment one could draw up for someone. And while Smith is a good prospect, he's not been considered to be the same level as better prospects who had more experience and struggled heavily. If this constitutes shitting on him, then I guess I horsefeathers on Matt Shaw when I suggested he would have a hard start to his MLB career recently, in which I also explained that better prospects than Shaw have struggled and that this is just what is to be expected. 2. I brought up Gage Workman because ST numbers simply shouldn't shift our understanding of players greatly. Do I think Gage Workman has looked pretty good in practice games? Sure thing! Do I think Gage Workman, at age 25, and with a defined floor of having a really good glove, makes sense as the 26th man? Sure thing! I thought that in January. (No, I don't think Smith = Workman, these are anecdotes). So either people should understand that they're greatly shifting their evaluation of Cam Smith off of a handful of practice games or they have believed for a while that Cam Smith should have been the starting RF for the Houston Astros. I think both are silly for different reasons. 3. It's pretty silly for Cubs fans to consistently feel the need to worry about these trades. We did it in 2016 when everyone was convinced Gleyber Torres (who the industry was higher on than Smith) was going to be a star. We did this in 2017 when the Cubs traded Jorge Soler (who the industry thought of higher than Smith). We did this later in 2017 when everyone was convinced Eloy Jimenez was going to be a star (who the industry thought was better than Smith). Each of those player have been fine, but have fallen far short of the crisis situation some made it out to potentially be. Does that mean Cam Smith has to follow that path? Absolutely not - Cam Smith is his own entity. He may very well buck a trend, he might hit the ground running and be great! But what most people are doing is playing the doom-and-gloom of worrying about the 95%^ outcome when the previous three anecdotes are being used to highlight the idea that prospects usually fall short of what the dream-outcomes are (yes, Dylan Cease was traded in that group and he was good! This isn't a comprehensive list nor am I purposefully forgetting him). So, sure, Smith could be a monster who bombs 35+ home runs for the next 15 years consistently...but the most likely outcome is a guy who probably struggles heavily in his initial call up, then settles into being a fine MLB player but one we look back on in similar veins to Torres, Jimenez and Soler. Useful players but not some generationally bad loss. The TL;DR: I am not shitting on Cam Smith, I think he's being put in a position where initial success will be incredibly difficult. I don't believe ST data matters much at all, and while I think Smith can be a good MLB player, fans have a bad habit of ignoring the realistic outcome of a prospect who's been traded in lieu of fearing the worst-case.