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Jason Ross
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Everything posted by Jason Ross
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Frustrating Bregman didn't hustle. I can forgive a guy going through it at the plate; that's baseball. And I'm not one of these "you have to run out a popfly to 2b" types. But that's a bad look for a guy who isn't ingratiating himself to the team offensively.
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Ugh. That's just how today has gone so far. Woodruff has 6 whiffs. The Cubs have the 3-6th hardest hit balls in the game with only one hit to show for it and the SS boots it but it bounces right up into his throwing hand.
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Wilson has been good. Wicks is here to eat innings but if Wilson is eating innings, then you don't need Wicks to as well.
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It would certainly help. But a good reminder: both have been pretty terrible lately and the Cubs have managed to win 10 of 14 games and have gone toe-to-toe with Milwaukee this weekend through their three best SPs. They're competing with a playoff team right now without them. The best version of the Cubs has both of them hitting well. But even with them being not good, the Cubs are still in there.
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In their defense, their catchers challenge seemingly everything so they're used to it. (I do agree the Cubs hitters probably need more latitude however)
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Ah. Damn. Hit it hard.
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That was a solid back to back for Wilson. Maybe the Cubs can find a middle reliever out of him.
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Okay Bryse. Nice three pitch combo to Chourio.
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Outside guess is that he's in a mentally bad place at the moment and just guessing. I'm not sure he knows what he's looking for either. I'm not usually a "change the lineup" guy, and I'm definitely not a "guy hits better in one spot in the order" guy, but dropping him and letting him work through things might help. If mentally he's horsefeathered right now, hitting 7th night help him take the edge off for a bit.
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Milwaukee sucks at challenges. Yeesh.
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Woodruff throws a lot of strikes and rarely walks hitter. It's probably not a winning proposition to take a lot. That said I would like it if they chased the high fastball less.
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Damn.
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That's an excellent first. Great job.
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Damn. Almost a really great play by Bregman.
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If there's a positive? Brandon Woodruff isn't *that* good anymore. He's fine, his xFIP is in the low 4s but the velo is down below 93mph, his K% is down from "great" to "a little better than average". He throws a lot of fastballs and gives up a lot of fly balls. On top of that, his HR/FB% feels suspiciously low. He is much more of a "pretty good" pitcher than an elite one. That isn't to say the Cubs will explode for five in the first, but that Woodruff isn't an impossible pitcher to get to, I think he's got some regression coming his way, and the Cubs' strong suit is clearly their offense.
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Velazquez DFA. Wicks up.
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So to recap: Instead of the Cubs trading their MLB-ready prospects who are blocked in July, they should wait, trade one of their few young SP's, and then turn around and trade those same prospects in January to re-acquire more young pitching? That makes very little sense. You have to see that. These players are going to be blocked in July and January. This is just adding steps to solve the same problem.
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I understand being a little uneasy considering that the first time they seemed to struggle to diagnose it correctly, but I think a few things: 1. They claim the imaging was difficult. They saw what they thought was a benign tumor made of bone (what an osteoma is) when the reality was it was a bone stress fracture. I'm not a doctor, but the little reading I've done makes it seem like that's not a wild miss. 2. The Cubs and Ben Brown clearly are focused on the long term outlook versus the short term. Just look at how Brown speaks about it in the article I linked 3. This isn't the first time a team has missed a diagnosis. They do happen. 2024, for example, saw the Houston Astros miss Kyle Tucker's leg fracture. The easy place to jump is that the Cubs are morons, have terrible doctors and that this will be a reoccurring forever issue, but if the Cubs have better diagnosed what appears to be a tricky diagnosis, appear to have a long term plan in place to fix it, than I do think there is comfort there. I'd feel a lot worse if the team was saying this is the exact same thing as 2024 and Ben Brown was talking about coming back in three weeks to help the team, frankly.
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But if the Angels prefer MLB ready talent why would they want a SP who isn't even going to pitch in 2026? It just doesn't make sense. Beyond that, a third time, I'm going to refrain from names. We can use whatever combination of names to continue to twist ourselves into a pretzel into a scenario where the Cubs are considering trading Ben Brown for Reid Detmers. Logically it makes next to no sense for a team who needs controller Ps to trade a controller, 26 year old P. That's all the logic we need.
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So the only situation it makes sense is that: 1. You think Ben Brown's basically red-flagged as a starting pitcher for the rest of his career and won't really make it as one 2. The Angels would miss this The Cubs have seemingly better identified the neck injury and are properly fixing it this time so I have a hard time believing this is even a possibility. I'll give you that the Angels are the one organization in baseball that might miss that, but beyond that, I think you're just clinging to a poor position here.
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Right. But again, when 2027 rolls around you still have to: 1. Fill two SP slots 2. Still have Matt Shaw, Jefferson Rojas, and Pedro Ramirez filling the same single spot 3. Fill two OF spots unless So then you'd likely have to trade for another controlled SP from your prospect pool. You'd end up in the same exact place and for what? To get 2-3 months extra of Shaw or Ramirez? And is the next controlled SP going to have 4+ years of control like Ben Brown? Will they have had as good of a 2026 as Ben Brown? There's no guarantee you'd need to trade ether of Shaw or Ramirez anyways. It just doesn't make sense. The only exception is that you think the Angels would ignore massive injury red-flags like they did with Grayson Rodriguez and in that scenario the Cubs would have had to basically red-flagged Brown's entire career.
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Yes. I'm fine trading from the young position player pool to get a controlled SP. Shaw, Rojas, Ramirez, Alcantara, Ballesteros, Kepley...this is a pool of players the Cubs can thin and still have young players you're excited about (doesn't even include Hartshorn and Conrad) behind them to solve the biggest organizational need. Many of those players overlap in how the team would use them. Maybe it's not the Angels, maybe it's someone else, but I do think the Cubs are in a place to go get another controlled SP. It would mean you're looking at something around Brown, Steele, new SP, Cabrera, Rea/Assad next year (assuming health) with Wiggins in the wings for 2027, as well.
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Of course. But you haven't given any reason other than "Ben Brown might not pitch in 2026" as a justification why they would trade him. He's controlled util 2031, he's 26, he's been their best pitcher this year, and it doesn't solve a single issue post-2026 by trading Ben Brown versus moving someone from your pile of MLB-ready prospects that don't have clear pathways to their best utilization. It just doesn't make sense. I think it's pretty safe to take the idea of "would the Cubs trade Ben Brown for a SP?" and put it in the "incredibly unlikely" bucket. "Never say never" in baseball, but it's almost assuredly not going to happen.
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It's fruitless to worry about specific names. I said that in my initial post. I'm not really interested in that. I gave you some names that, in theory, should interest a team who prefers near-MLB ready talent. If you want Detmers it's going to hurt. You should be prepared to see the list of names in the event they make that trade an go "ouch, that's a lot". No the Cubs aren't trading from their thin MLB pitching depth. They will trade from their position player prospect depth. It's not that deep. To put it another way: do you see how you're trying to turn this into a trade that doesn't hurt the Cubs as much? That's not going to be how this would go down. And while it's true that Shaw is playing often right now, Pedro Ramirez and Matt Shaw are occupying the same general spot. They're primary infielders, with primary infield bats who are capable of playing corner OF. They don't need both to function. Whether it's a trade in July or a trade in the winter, the Cubs cannot just keep taking guys who really aren't corner OF'ers and stick them out there; they can pick one of them but they don't need two of those. Especially with Rojas who's likely nearing a trip to Iowa and will be another player in the same situation, bringing you number to three. It's entirely more likely that the Cubs cash in on that depth than trading a pitcher.
