Jason Ross

Most of the Cubs/Bregman stuff (as well as the Cubs/Alonso stuff) feels like it originates with Jon Heyman. Jon Heyman has been rumored to get a good chunk of information from Scott Boras...who represents both. My guess is that while the Cubs would be willing to get creative (as Sharma suggests) to get Bregman in, that a good deal of this is being fueled by Boras trying to get his client a home.

Ahh. Good ol' mystery team.

It would be likely in that scenario that Brown, Assad, and Wicks would probably all end up in Iowa barring a ST injury (though we could probably assume one or two of those as well). Rea would be in the rotation as he's on a MLB contract.

Yeah, can see it going either way. If Pressley comes in at, say $9m or so, and Robertson probably, what $10m? That's right around where Scott on his own (aav) would have been. Ship Thompson/Canario out (one trade, one DFA) and you've got two-40-man-spots open up as well. Gives you more flexibility to let Pearson really explore starting as an option, too.

Coupled with the Pressley thing, it kinds of makes me wonder if: 1. The Cubs are willing to go with Robertson and Pressley 2. Or if this is a one or the other thing. as this also feels a bit like "Hey, Ryan/Houston (whomever is more of the hold up) please make this happen or we'll sign Robertson instead"

If Pressley is basically a salary dump, that's pretty cool by me. He's declining but worth a one year shot as long as the stuff doesn't entirely fall off.

So, there's two issues with this: 1. This is as clear of a "goal post move" as there is. The point I was responding to, very clearly, was game flow WAR - OP was discussing some idea that defensive WAR doesn't matter if you're not winning. That is very specifically what I was discussing - you've entirely changed the conversation here. I'm not saying that to be a jerk, only pointing out that we're having a different discussion than the one I brought up and wanted to note that. 2. You are correct, an 8 win defensive player wouldn't be making as much, as long, as Soto. But a lot of that also has to deal with aging and how players are expected to age. Defense is much more tied to athleticism which falls off at a much younger age. Secondly, offensive players, in their twilight, can move to DH much more easily than say, an amazing shortstop may be incapable of becoming a 1b (due to size or their bat just not playing up there). There's a reasonable expectation that Juan Soto will remain a viable, and fairly good DH into his mid-30's. It's less likely that defensive players retain value with age. Teams are more willing to go years for a player like Soto. I do agree. It however, does not change the idea that a player, who would be capable of accruing enough defensive and positional value fWAR to equal that of Juan Soto in any given year, would be as equally as valuable during that individual season.

I think it's important to note that Bertz is talking about park adjusted offense, and for the Cubs this is probably an important factor. Wrigley Field suppressed offense all season, regardless of team and leaned incredibly like a pitcher's park. The Cubs didn't have a top-20 SLG on the season, sure, but their ISO was 10th on the road last year compared to their home ISO which was 27th. Teams generally hit better at home to begin with, so this is a stark difference and very much something to keep in mind. Unless you're under the impression that Wrigley Field is going to turn into a hardcore pitcher's park, some of this is going to occur naturally. While I think the Cubs could use to add a little power to the bench, with Tucker, the field regressing to the mean, and some progression from youth, the Cubs are probably on pace to be a much better team offensively than their 2024 suggests. (I'll also say I think defensive WAR matters just as much as offensive WAR in terms of game flow, but I'll leave that for someone else)

Matt Thaiss was traded, he's not even a Chicago Cub. Matt Festa, Caleb Thielbar, and Cody Poteet all have interesting underlying pitch data (and two of the three have worked directly with Tyler Zombro, who was hired this winter to oversee pitching development and runs a very good pitchlab/pitcch developmental program), and have made the MLB already. Gavin Hollwell has some big stuff himself - and has similar issues to Arias (control issues) but has made his MLB debut and far more likely to make an impact at the MLB level in 2025, as well. Greg Workman isn't even a pitcher, so their roster spots aren't even close to interchangeable. The Cubs need position players too, they can't keep every pitcher. He's also one of the best defensive players in the minor league side of baseball with some interesting power. If you want to say that none of these players are singularly good - yeah, not sure I disagree. On the surface, none are particularly amazing with out some tweaks, fixes, and changes. All of them,. and I mean all of them (even including the guy who's not on the Cubs any more) are far, far, more likely than Arias to make an MLB impact as of today. They're probably all more likely to make MLB impacts in the future as well - Arias is that much of a project as it stands. The Cubs, the team who knows Arias the best decided these guys were more interesting. That should probably tell you what you need to know. The Cubs are likely confident they can find a new Arias (RHP reliever with stuff but control issues grow on trees) while using the 40-man space for a player they think might make an impact on the MLB roster at some point, especially with some fixups.

Michael Arias walked over 17% of hitters across Double-A and Triple-A last year. This is essentially, double that of what an average MLB reliever walks (around 9%). Hitters only get better and better at not chasing and offering at pitches off the plate as levels increase. Considering the Yankees are among the favorites to come out of the AL next season, Arias' age (23), that he is likely to at least need a prove it stint back in Double-A at the start of 2025 and his immense control issues, I would put the likelihood he debuts in 2025 as "incredibly unlikely outside of extreme emergency situations" and his likelihood as being a useful MLB reliever in 2025 even more unlikely than that. It might happen! But...it's almost assuredly not going to. Everyone would love to have a funky RHP who has good stuff in their BP. The flip side to the Arias coin is that no one wants a pitcher who walks one out of every five hitters. I'm wishing Arias the best out there. No ill will, seems like a hard working dude. But there's such an uphill battle with him that it's not worth worrying about, either.

I don't think you have to digress. I get it - part of the problem is that I don't think the team (and whether you want to point to Jed, Tom, whatever) has really earned benefits of the doubt. The Cubs don't spend like they need to, and regardless of whether you feel like another tear down was warranted, or in how they've gone about it, not going to the playoffs in a full-season since 2018, with the only playoff appearance between a quick-out in the Covid shortened year...the team hasn't won enough either. To go back to your other response - I do think and believe the Cubs will earnestly try to sign Kyle Tucker. I think Jed's words were very calculated when he talked about why they didn't go after Soto, and I think it was entirely about Kyle Tucker (before we knew they were going after it). I'm not sure they'll get it done, it's hard to do those things, but I do think they traded for him with the intent to use the 10 month window as a very strong push (though one more slowly than I think a lot of fans wish it was). I do agree on point two that I'm not in love with the plan on the rotation. BP wise...Tanner Scott on paper is really good, but like all relievers, he comes with a pretty major "but" - and it's that two short years ago he was a highly flawed pitcher and that RP's are volatile. I won't give "we tried" points, but I also wonder if there was an ere of inevitability with Scott to the Dodgers. At $18m AAV, were the Cubs ever going to be able to match that under PRT? Conversely, was that the ceiling for LAD, or would they have just bumped it to $20m? Scott would have been pretty cool, but I'm not entirely convinced they can't get pretty close to repeating that with a RP that they can tweak that "but" a little (whatever "but" they come with) for a lot less.

Well, I guess I have two questions for you: 1. Other than your own personal pessimism, what exactly has Jed said or done to make us think he won't put forth an earnest attempt at signing Tucker? Jed made some quotes directly suggesting how he sees a long term contracts, and I don't think they jibe with the idea they won't try. I get that he hasn't signed a $400m contract before, but then again, so has almost no other team in baseball. With that logic, he'll only sign with the Dodgers or the Mets. I also think it's important to remember that Hoyer is not someone whos played hard and fast with prospects. It's easy to say he's just trying to save his job as a dismiss of that, but considering the rest of the offseason, Im not sure there's much to suggest that he's just going ham to save himself. 2. Given the payroll restrictions from Ricketts, what would you suggest a more aggressive offseason to have looked like? Like I said, I'm not here to bang on a drum for Jed and say his offseason is amazing. I have some gripes. But it also feels a bit like you're coming from an overly pessimistic space on it, too, especially on Tucker. It's cool to be pessimistic, and respec that not every has to be peaches and cream. I'll give you I didn't like Mancini and Barnhart, but both were also low level gambles and probably haven't done any real damage. But I also think it's important to realize when we go a bit down the dark path without much to support the doom and the gloom, too, ya know?

Colin Rea is going to start with the Cubs and play on the MLB roster. He's not a star, but he's undoubtedly going to provide MLB value. Michael Arias was almost assuredly not going to provide that in 2025 (and if they needed him, we were likely in a world of hurt). Secondly, you say there are 7-8 players on the 40-man (I'll be honest, I can't find that many myself) who will likely never provide the team any value...as if Arias isn't in that exact group. Listen, Arias has some upside, yes. But the hand wringing over losing a player like Arias is super unneeded. These guys pop up every year. Just wait, the Cubs will have another guy or two do the same thing in 2025. There will be some new version of Michael Arias - guy with stuff who can't throw enough strikes. All things being equal, it'd have been better to have Arias in our system than someone else's, but we don't live in a world where all things are equal. It's more likely than anything that we look back in two or three years and realize Michael Arias still hasn't made his MLB debut and is bouncing around some random team's system than it is that he's established himself as a guy.

This feels more in line where I'd put both Hope and Smith based on age/production. I think they're both prospects with upwards arrows, but neither had production above A-ball and Hope is a baby.

On paper, yes. Which I guess could be used to defend two different arguments. If you want to say that injuries are more likely to happen during ramp up, having a more deep and defined staff for the beginning of the year (and when other teams may also be experiencing ramp up or injuries) could be a good thing. Or that you'll be less likely to have to rely on rookies in the early part of the season. It could also be argued that starting the season off with the most impact is best as you play the hardest part of your schedule.

I don't want to stump fully for Hoyer (I got my gripes), but I think adding an MLB arm, while DFA'ing a raw, 22-year old reliever who really struggles to control the baseball does feel like an "all-in" move, no? I think Arias has a potential future as a member of an MLB bullpen, but he's pretty far away yet. Mechanical inconsistencies and good not elite stuff+ has him in a pretty risk-heavy category right now.

Welcome to NSBB! And yes, good call. The Dodgers have seen multiple starters drop due to injury and really haven't done a great job developing arms recently either - Bobby Miller has the look of a monster and yet the Dodgers can't seem to figure out a way to help get him to that finished product. Ultimately, it feels like maybe geography played a stronger role here than maybe he or Wolfe made it seem originally.

This all goes hand in hand with my biggest gripe on the offseason, and it's just that I feel like the Cubs took the "depth" mandate a bit too far? It almost feels like in lieu of a bigger, more substantiative addition on the pitching side, the Cubs have been more than content with a "more the merrier" approach instead. Which, IMO, isn't the same impact. The hope is that the Cubs can ride out the first half and more easily target a more impactful player at the deadline, but it also feels a bit risky to go into an unknown market hoping there's something there you want at a better price than you could have gotten in, say, January. Does feel like a little extra is riding on the Horton/Brown/Wicks/Birdsell group than I'd have wanted. And hell, I'm the prospect guy!

It kind of feels like the bullpen doesn't lack depth. Even if Thompson is a placeholder (and I kind of think he is, myself) there's...kind of a breaking point in terms of numbers and it feels like the Cubs are there. But what do I know? Would really hope that the team works on culling that a bit if they're going to keep adding.

It feels contradictory to worry about the ~10m or so that we got dinged on the LT for Barnhart/Mancini and then be upset that the team traded a recent draftee for a top-10 position player in baseball, doesn't it? On one hand, we're upset that the team doesn't put forth the effort and resources to bring in transformative talents, instead, playing on the fringes for a "raise the floor" type of addition, while on the other, being upset when the Cubs do just that. To TT's point, it feels a bit "damned if Jed does, damned if he doesn't", no? Secondly, as has been discussed, the LT overage played almost 0 role in this offseason. The Cubs haven shown while they'll toe the LT line, there's no blowing past it. Meaning that the overall spending is likely the exact same. Per Ricketts (who, yeah, I know), per Sharma, per Mooney, per Trueblood, it's been reported and said that the team can spend more than they are right now and payroll won't be significantly reduced (~$10m or so max). That $10m isn't changing the offseason, and the Cubs aren't shying away from Nick Pivetta because it'd cost a wee bit of IFA money and an extra 5th round pick. They just weren't going to spend on a QO player to begin with. Don't get me wrong, I've got qualms with the offseason. You'll have to let me put aside my disdain for Ricketts here - sadly I've come to accept his vision for the Cubs spending as the truth here, so while I think he sucks, he won't factor into this. Where I do find some faults are in places like the rotation. Mathew Boyd and Colin Rea as the rotational additions is too much risk for me and think the team has, to date, missed an opportunity to really upgrade there. Generally speaking, I think it's been a good offseason. There's more to be done, they still need a bench bat and an RP. I won't swear off any chance of signing Tucker - in fact, they probably are the betting favorite if we're being honest, though, with the caveat of "we'll see". The team feels deeper, the lineup feels stronger, and at the worst, the Cubs have the young pitching depth to fill in if need be, or at least until the deadline when the team can make another splash play.

I'm not sure if you caught my comparison between Shaw and Smith, and how much I really think the recent BP rankings are bad, Shaw and Smith have a lot in common; both NCAA picks, drafted 13/14th respectively and as of right now, play the same position with some questions as to whether or not they will be 3b long term. Shaw outhit Smith on wRC+ at each level, and posted a 144+ wRC+ in his first full-go at Double-A and Triple-A (which I think is like a 90-95% outcome for Smith next year. It's up there). Yet, Shaw, who was #21 on their last last year, sits four spots lower than Smith. Regardless, I think people are getting way over their head as of now on Cam Smith. He's a good prospect! But the way some are acting, they're acting as if he's an uber prospect...when he's really on a path similar to that of Matt Shaw. And Shaw is good...really good! But Smith hasn't even accomplished that much yet.

Sign me up for Finnegan. With some tweaks, there's a guy there.

Nevermind. Signed with LAD.

Scott trains at Tread (Tyler Zombro). Might also be a bit of a reason the Cubs are breaking their normal RP protocol here.