Jason Ross

Mike Petriello hit on this a bit. Basically, that while there were some good things the Astros got Kikuchi to do, some things like his barrel rate and hard contact stayed the same, but his BABIP dropped .100 points. Probably requires a good defense behind him to make that happen. He's a pretty good pitcher but I'm not overly worried about not signing him. Especially if the Cubs are earmarking that $20m as the "needle-mover" money they can spend...I'm cool with it being some one else. I wouldn't have hated that contract either, only that I think it's kind of "meh, on to the next" spot for me.

In a perfect world? Sure. They'd be baseball fans. Ultimately, we live in a world where to them, this is far more a business venture than a baseball endeavor. Sucks. I wish it wasn't that way. But alas, the world would have to be a very different place to get there.

I saw an interview with Logan Paul once and he equated his bank account to a scoreboard of sorts, essentially explaining that while he had enough money to do basically anything he wanted, money was now a scoreboard to compare himself with others. I can't believe I'm giving him any credit for saying something insightful,. but it helped me understand the process a bit more. There's never enough because the game never stops. You have to run up the score because someone else is doing just that. It's very different from "I work so that I can live" which, most of us do.

Yeah I think all of that is going to be really interesting. Teams like the Dodgers have had a massive bonus with their RSN deal they signed and it's going to be interesting to see where we go from here. Are teams really going to be okay going with a unified system like that?

I've tried to remain optimistic here, but I've had a bit of this concern in the back of my head. With Marquee up for renegotiation and the RSN-apocalypse hitting around a few teams...I've had a worry that the team would respond by lowering their spending. I don't want that to make it sound like I'm panicking, just that it's been something in the back of my mind for a bit and have been hoping that it wasn't going to be the case.

A bit of a bummer. But hopefully it means the SP market is moving quick. The good news is that while Kikuchi offered some interesting notes, I think that mid-tier has a handful of names I'd find interesting. And I still hope that the Cubs shoot higher in a trade for a true player to sit more towards the top.

You entirely missed the point of that. I wasn't calling Stroman a #4 at his height, I was saying that in his prior years of his career, every year he was at *least* considered a top-4 pitcher in a rotation, not that I think he *was* a #4. It was to highlight that, yes, in the past Stroman more than qualified for your "#4" comment but almost assuredly doesn't moving forward. Stroman was good to very good through his career and for much of it was a pitcher you could slot into the top of a rotation. Im well aware.

I'm not sure who you're considering a "#4" but Stroman was really terrible last season. He was bottom 5% fastball velo (down from bottom 15%), his K% was bottom 7% (down from 32%), his whiff was 10% (down from 23%)...his two best skills have been ground ball rate (84% down from 94%) and missing barrels, 70% (down from 88%), so he even declined in what he does best. Stroman, as now, is probably a #4 in name only, in that there was once a pitcher named Marcus Stroman who was at least a #4. Today, he may be no better than Javier Assad, a pitcher we'd probably rather see as a swingman. I understand trying to find a Bellinger trade. But if Stroman is the return...the Cubs are almost assuredly better signing a #4.

Yes. He'd be on the 40.

Just from a Cub perspective, I can't find a single need that would fit. The goal of moving Bellinger is to help the team get better and I'm fairly certainly this would make the Cubs worse (not shooting the messenger, just the message - this type of a swap has been bandied about in Yankees media recently). Stroman was bad last year. Almost everything dropped for him, and many to quite concerning levels. His chase, K%, whiff, and xData are all really terrible. The goal of the Cubs pitching is to add someone to the top of the rotation, and if you go the two-pitcher-route, ensure someone like Assad ends up in the swingman/6th guy role. Stroman is likely no better than Assad at this point and might be worse. And if he makes 140 innings being bad (which, if you're trading for him, you're likely using him) then you get him 2026 guaranteed! Maybe it's a mechanical flaw, but the Yankees develop arms well, so I'm not so inclined to think this is anything but natural decline. Bellinger might be expensive, but is objectively still pretty good. He fits a general need for the Cubs and can play multiple positions. There's a much better chance Bellinger opts out in 2026 too. If you trade him, then you'd need an upgrade and unless the Cubs are pulling a super-secret smokescreen on Soto, none of the other FA OF'ers offer a clear upgrade. They might change the formula; Santander trades HR's for defense, but they're effectively the same kind of top-line value. The Cubs aren't so desperate for money that a Stroman ($18m) and Santander ($18-22m AAV) is better value than just signing Kikuchi ($15-$18m) and keeping Bellinger for a year. They have $50m, and could still use their major prospect depth to trade for another pitcher.

There's some really good things he did in the second half. Like, good things. Massively increased the LA, massively increased the ISO. Like, career best ISO over his 2nd half. He dropped some contact%, but I think it's part of the process change. I'm a Caissie stan, but dropping him to a 45 FV...I'll let Eric stay on an island there. I don't see a power decrease.

Matt Thaiss has been a replacement level player. Just yesterday, the Cubs were willing to DFA Patrick Wisdom who's been above replacement level until last year. Had the Eli Morgan trade happened yesterday, I don't think they were going to tender Wisdom. I'm not sure exactly how likely the Cubs are to tender Thaiss. Maybe because he's a catcher, they will be more willing to do so. But they acquired him for a cash amount likely just above that of what a waiver claim would cost. They just DFA'd another replacement player. I suspect the number is much lower than 50/50 based on recent actions.

It's hard to say. As a hitter? Realistically could be very early in 2025. He started to really turn it on in Iowa in the last month of the season and then managed to crush the AFL, it wouldn't be shocking to say that he'd be ready in mid-May or June if the Cubs needed a DH. As a catcher? That's a harder question to answer. We don't have good publicly available data on his catching skills right now, and many of those are soft-skills we don't have access to (like how does he do with a pitching staff?). Much of what we've heard is that his catching is making progress but isn't there yet. We know MiLB defensive scouting reports are among the most unreliable - they're hard to nail down to begin with. Add in the catching and the body shape...and I don't know if there is a timetable right now there. I'm hoping there is and he's better than advertised. But I wouldn't be surprised if he's at best a guy you play 30-40 games back there and DH him most of the rest of the time, too.

Yeah, ultimately I think the math for a Bellinger trade is even more narrow than a trade for Nico Hoerner, which I think is a really narrow landing strip. Maybe you can double it up? Like you trade Bellinger - for something , then you swap Hoerner for Wilyer Abreu in Boston, and then you do something extra with the money you saved? Feels kind of crazy but maybe there's a path? But I can't see many paths here. I think it'll probably end up with the Cubs realizing that trading Bellinger isn't going to really help the team long term.

It's not *perfect* but it's not a fireable action, either. It's not like the Cubs are stuck with Cody Bellinger for eight more years. It's probably pretty likely that he will opt-out next year, even if he has a similar kind of season. He would receive a $5m buyout, and I think it'd be pretty likely that the difference in what he signs and what he's owed in 2026 ($25m) won't be that different. If he, for example, gets a 4/5 year deal with an AAV of $18m, he'd lose $2m in total in 2026 ($5m buyout + $18m is $23m) but would come with 3-4 years more of guarantees. It's not a horrible contract. It just makes him a little tough to trade right now, because he's not particularly cheap, or amazing surplus value, or young, or controllable.

Good to see. Most of this felt like the likely outcome, but nice to see Sharma and Mooney reiterate it.

Fine with this as long as they view him as a AAA depth guy. If he's the backup...well...less enthused.

This is a type-for-type trade. The Cubs love funky relievers who don't wow you with pure stuff but generate outs regardless. The Guardians love big bodied OFers who who bombs and don't mind if they strikeout.

It's for an A-Ball player. So unless Matt Shaw was demoted to South Bend right before the trade, you've got nothing to worry about there. (also, welcome to NSBB!)

Yeah, I wish we had more of a type of "guys who throw hard and get guys to whiff", but if there's a soft lining it's that the Cubs are developing those in house right now. Assuming Brown comes back healthy, the Cubs have Brown, Little, Hodge and Pearson who can all fit that mold. Morgan is an interesting guy to play off of them as someone who gets a lot of chase and soft contact in a multi-inning role. More of a 6-7th guy, probably in the "losing the game" platoon.

I'd guess it's an error on Spotrac's end. I'd imagine there's no way two sides had already agreed upon a contract.

Just spitballing, but Cleveland has a type and someone like Alfonsin Rosario would fit that type.

Per Rogers "A-Ball" player heads the other way. Name unknown yet

Looking at his Savant page, looks like he really changed as a pitcher. Different mix. Better slider. A bit different fastball