Jason Ross

In their defense, Rojas wasn't MLB ready. He was in Knoxville. He wasn't going to solve this issue.

Has he been? don't think many were saying since Day 1 that he was just simply a bad pitcher. Yesterday was not a good start. I will say this about yesterday though; I understand where he came from yesterday. He's missed time and he tried to tough it out. We celebrate that stuff in sports when it goes well. But he also needs to have to have selflessness in that moment. He was wrong, but one I will understand from a competitors' standpoint. To your broader point: all year has been a struggle but this idea that you and only you saw through the fools gold ignores context. He was great last year. He was a top prospect as well by every industry ranking. He has gnarly stuff. In fact, he had gnarly stuff yesterday. Let's chill on that. He isn't the first SP to struggle with a new organization. He's had injury and I'm not entirely sure he's taking to the new direction. Most of the concerns heading into this year was not surrounding his talent but his ability to stay healthy. And while he has had a few knocks, none of them were the injury concerns people had; specifically that he would blow out his elbow. I think most people would have assumed given that his elbow is seemingly healthy and that the stuff is there, his season would have been much better than it's been. It's been a bit of a weird one. ZiPS had Cabrera pinned as a sub 4.00 FIP and a 3.88 ERA. Modeling agreed that the concern was the health and less the dude. It's been just a weird year for him. And a massive bummer. Two things can be true at the same time: 2026 has not been his best year or what the Cubs envisioned. It's probably not the worst case scenario (TJS) but it's been probably been the next worse thing. I understand everyone's frustrations with him as much as I understand his attempt to battle through a blister. It's been frustrating. The trade was fine value at the time. In fact, based on Caissie's season, it appears fine value today. Neither has been good. Hopefully the rest of the year goes better than yesterday and an off-season reset gets him to be more like the 2025 version. Because that was a very good pitcher.

So...Cabrera got three whiffs in five swings against the harder slider. If we ignore literally everything else about yesterday (Swanson, Cabrera not telling about the blister, Cabrera imploding, having Carson Kelly pitch...)...

Hey good news is that his slider is still much harder. Nailed that. The rest of everything was terrible when the wheels fell off. So...there's that too.

Cabrera will start Sunday it seems

Good to see Brown is throwing. We've had a chance to see Cabrera throw in the minors but we like seeing guys get back to it.

Welcome to NSBB. Shaw has excelled at every other previous baseball level, but to be fair, so has Pedro Ramirez. Ramirez hasn't been as ballyhooed, and I'll admit, I probably slept on him a little more than I should have myself, but Pedro Ramirez has been very good. His worst full-season data came from High-A as a 20 year old where he was still 12% better than average despite being well below average age-wise. Shaw does have an advantage in terms of sprint speed, so making an argument over who's more athletic, you can point to that. Defensively? It's a lot harder to pinpoint yet. Minor league defensive metrics are essentially non-existent for public consumption. The eye test is wildly wrong most of the time, but Ramirez did win an MiLB gold glove at 3b. So do with that information as you please. Shaw was great at 3b last year and so far in very small samples, Ramirez has been too. I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer to that one yet.

Me checking ESPN after forgetting it was a day game.

I'm not sure what to entirely make of it. It hasn't been getting amazing results yet. But my theory is that he isn't giving everything away, either. Like if I can see Statcast, MLB teams can and are. If I have TJStats, MLB teams have something better. So a bit of gamesmanship could be in order. I could also be insane.

The other thing about Cabrera is that he's actually has some great underlying data against RHP. 29.2 K% vs RHP, 3.26 xFIP. The HR's are high so his FIP is high, but I think the xFIP and the K% are trying to tell us that it's likely that comes down. He's getting crunched on lefties. K% way down. xFIP way up. That's why that new slider thing he's throwing has interested me so much. And why I'm bummed he was in Knoxville away from Statcast data because I think that the new "slider" is an attempt at solving that issue.

Someone listened to Levine's interview (I'm back at work again) and I used their tweet. However others have gone back and listened and the original sourcing was nonsense and Levine never said that. He said he'd be back to start and would likely skip some starts while allowing others to also skip a start. So a hybrid 6-man type thing. Nothing about a bullpen.

It's a month. And I think it will be in swing before then. It also means Spring Training. When I say it'll be in full swing by May 1st, it means they will be playing MLB games before then. They'll still need weeks of ST. So when he could have been in Iowa, he'll be in camp with the Cubs. It also means if the Cubs are bringing him up in September that it's with an eye on him winning a job on the MLB roster to begin 2027 with. It's not enough time to even care about. I think we can surmise that if the Cubs call him up in September, they certainly won't care about that time. And if the Cubs were showing again and again they can't promote young players, or that they don't have an aptitude with working with catchers, maybe we worry about it. But that the Cubs have a pretty strong recent track record with those things, it's probably just not worth fretting about that time from our standpoint.

Actually, looks like faulty information. Not from Levine (shocking!) but from the twitter account who was summarizing his quotes. Looks like he'll be used to take a start and give people rests. He said nothing of the bullpen. Forgive me for trusting the internet.

I joke when I say I wouldn't believe Levine, but I also think he's probably on point here.

I think Assad to Iowa is a very likely outcome. Yes. Also looks like Cabrera will return for the bullpen per Levine.

The opposite. Hitters who outperform their xwOBA tend to pull the baseball. xwOBA does not factor in directional hitting. Pullside hits have better results thant going center or right. Isaac Parades consistently out performs weak xwOBA because he pulls such a heavy amount of baseballs (specifically in the air).

Brewers held a 15 minute team meeting today too. It's that kind of pressure that can build on a team. Frankly, I'm just excited to see the gap close. And I'm a little excited that a reverse 2018 could happen.

So...'bout that Bregman contract...

Bregman can stay.

I would be shocked if the league isn't in full swing by May 1st.

That's more of my guess on it, as well. I highly doubt they would waltz into next year with the idea of Shaw/Ramirez as the only guys there. I do think they would bring in some sort of competition for them to clear, and someone to support them. However, I do think Pedro Ramirez, in some form, will be part of a chunk of their plans. Sharma's article points to it. The way the team shot down most of the trade talk around him points to it. His playing time points to it. It probably won't be as the "LF and only the LF" but I'm expecting that the team sees him as a 400 PA guy next year in some way shape or form.

Most of these, I'll be honest and say "I have no idea". Truly. And to be even more frank; I'm not even sure I'd be able to find out! I do think most of the facilities are closed down, but I'd have to imagine the organization has a way to be involved. But I'm guessing. I'll reiterate: I don't think we need to be worried about losing the 2027 season. The owners have too much vested in that. They have streaming rights that end at the end of 2027. Nothing says "bad bargaining power" than "we just didn't play a game". We're probably going to lose a few games. I think that's reasonable to expect. But I think any fear that 2027 won't happen is going to end up being wasted worrying. While there is a slim possibility that we lose the full year, I think that's a pretty low outcome and I'd rather the Cubs do what they think is best for Owen regardless of that low-percentage outcome. As it comes to Ayers, he's definitely more of a work defensively, but that's a lot of just "catchers as a whole". He wasn't always a catcher in college so this is a position he doesn't have as many reps at and he's been in the system only for 2 years. Catching is a tough gig. I can tell you there are some teams in the league who don't believe in his receiving and have him graded as a 1b. I can also tell you the Chicago Cubs believe they have amazing catching coaching and don't find it an issue. We'll see who's right, but the team has done a wonderful job working with Miguel Amaya, I think they made real progress with Ballesteros (though they did not believe he was ever going to get there) and have worked well with Kelly to maximize him. They also identified players like Ariel Armas who still crush it defensively (his bat is just so bad).

I can tell you this: the behind the scenes chatter on Ayers very much is in the vein of what Sharma said. This team adores Owen Ayers. Sharma also wouldn't say the Cubs were considering it if they weren't. Maybe they won't. Maybe they will. I cannot tell you one way or another. But I think the lockout thing is absolutely not going to be their reasoning. The chances we have no baseball are incredibly overblown. I think that's like a 5% outcome.