Jason Ross

Cade HortonMatt ShawOwen CaissieKevin AlcantaraMoises BallesterosJames TriantosCam SmithJefferson RojasJaxon WigginsCristian HernandezBrandon BirdsellWill SandersAlexander CanarioJack NeelyJonathon LongAlfonsin RosarioDerniche ValdezFernando CruzCole MathisBrody McCullough

Not a ton. With that said, Michael King did so at 29 and Reynoldo Lopez did so at 33 this season, so it's not like we don't have very recent data points (and we can be pedantic and say "Michael King is 29 so he doesn't count" but I think we're better then being that pedantic). While it's fair to ask how many pitchers at that age make the transition, it's just as fair to ask how many SP at the age of 30 have a five-pitch-mix like Griffin Jax? Because the reality is the answer is "not very many". So there aren't a lot of pitchers who fit either category. Again...if you want to point out the risk I find that fair. Simplistic statements like "if he were a starter than he'd be a starter" ignores two very recent pitchers who did very much that. And were very good in 2024.

That's spurious at best logic. Michael King entered 2024 with 30 more MLB innings than Griffin Jax did. Just five more career starts (19 to 14). In his year 29 season, he was a >3.00 ERA SP worth 3.9 fWAR, and a 3.50 xFIP. He spent most of his career prior to this season as a reliever. I think it's fair to point out the risk of taking a RP and just making him into a SP. It's fair to wonder about load management. But I don't think it's as simple as "well if he was a starter he'd be starting". Michael King proved that isn't so simple.

I've been thinking the Cubs and the Twins could match up with a trade myself. And I think this is a creative solution for both teams. I'd be a little hesitant to think the Cubs would be willing to go the RP to SP conversion route, however, simply because I think Hoyer's job is riding on 2025. While Jax could be a gamble that paid off handsomely, I'd be worried about work-load-management in year-1 and there's always the question of "how will this go?" regardless of how well it is set up for on paper (which, I might add, Jax looks like he'd be a prime candidate). Someone should absolutely move Jax to the rotation and give it a try! I'm just not sure the Cubs are in a position to be that...risky.

To clarify, he's not the head of the player development, for the Rockies but he has he's been working as a special advisor to the director - who was previous Zach Wilson and has been Chris Forbes since 2021. I'd assume Weinstein is coming to Chicago in a similar role. There's smoke that the Cubs are set to lose some people in scouting and development and an experienced person like Weinstein, even for a year or two, is probably someone who's an easy plug-and-play guy. He's got a ton of experience coaching at the Cape - and the smoke is that the Cubs are set to lose national cross checkers - guys who do advanced scouting pre-draft. The Cubs have been heavy on Cape Code success recently, another reason why Weinstein probably makes sense.

This practice feels like a repeat of the Christopher Morel one we had just last offseason where we're trying to round-peg-square-hole a guy to a position. It's a little different in that the Cubs and the Dodgers are two different organizations, but I think it speaks volumes that the Dodgers didn't really envision him as a long-term 2b option based on how they were willing to move him/not give him 2b at any point at the MLB level, and the Cubs didn't play him at 3b. I think we have to more-or-less accept he's a 1b who might be able to moonlight a few games at 2b here or there.

I didn't put you in any camp. I used "we" as in the collective fanbase. Not "you" as an individual. I would also expect that the Cubs would not trade for a 1-year contract in the vein of Tucker or Vlad (they'd trade for other 1 year deals that cost less, however) without some sort of indication that the player would be open to discussing a long term extension. I would stop short of expecting an extension, however, as you can never know how that will go. But I'd go into the trade with the assumption that the Cubs understand their market value, that they couldn't get a sweetheart deal and would have to offer that market value contract, and that the player was not dead-set to hit the market regardless of offer.

If it happens. please show the last time it happened. It shouldn't be hard since it does happen, according to you. Show me the last time a player signed a contract of 8+ years and that contract was agreed pre-trade in the MLB. I really don't mean to sound aggressive, but it's not really thing and I think you're thinking about sports in general. These are things that happen, especially, in the NBA, but do not occur in the MLB. It's cool that you don't have a log of these transactions! I don't either. It's just good to look these things up before we create the narrative. What happens, almost exclusively is that: 1. A player plays out his one year and hits the FA market. I.E. Juan Soto 2. A player eventually signs a contract later. I.E. Mookie Betts and Francisco Lindor. The closest that it's happened was Sean Murphy in 2022. He was traded and then two weeks later signed a 6+ year extension worth under $75m. Which was a pretty big deal, but far short of the mega deals we're talking here. Tucker and Vlad are looking at hundreds of millions and 10+ years, possibly worth three times that of the Murphy extension. No one I can find has signed a contract like that within two weeks of a trade. It takes months. If the Cubs were to trade for a player on a one year contract, it won't come with the mega extension in place. Your best bet is that before OD, the two sides get it done. Or in the summer. But it won't come in January, regardless.

Did you even bother to look at the link I provided? Thaw, it didn't happen that way. I'm not trying to sound rude, but I provided that link for a reason and it's because it explains what happened during negotiations. You have invented a completely non-substantiated narrative here. We can't just invent things. It's entirely clear from the reporting on the matter by people who actually have sources and connections with teams that the two sides did not have an agreement and just...waited three months.

You think the New York Mets waited three months to sign a player they had an agreement with? They traded for him January 7th and signed him March 31st, the day before Opening Day. That's not what happened. https://www.mlb.com/news/francisco-lindor-mets-deal It didn't look like the two sides were going to agree pre-season until the Mets upped their offer right before Opening Day.

I think that's a really poor reason to not want to trade for Tucker and Vlad. The reality is their trade value is only tied to one year regardless of whether or not you extend him. The extension has nothing to do with their trade value, they're two entirely separate transactions. As well, I don't think anyone is going to know an extension would be done. Again, Lindor signed March 31st - three full months after his trade. Mookie Betts? Six months. I would expect the best you'd get from Vlad or Tucker (or anyone) would be "yeah, I could be interested.". Unless they're just100% dead set on the market (like Juan Soto seemingly was), the Cubs are a team I would expect most players would at least be open to signing a market value deal with - they're a pretty good team in a division without a true hegemonic power with the money to offer that kind of a deal. I'd also say this: the rest of that post is unimportant. If you don't think Jed Hoyer was going to extend Tucker or Vlad a few months after the trade, than he wasn't going to trade for him and have that extension in place to begin with, either, because he'd never offer that deal. But I also don't think Hoyer would trade for one of those players without interest in signing them to a market value contract, either. So I think that concern is just...unneeded. If they do trade for a 1-year player I fully expect that player to at least indicate interest in discussing long term and the Cubs to be interested and knowledgeable of offering a market value deal. I know we're conditioned to believe that Jed Hoyer's a big baby bitch who will never sign an 8+ year contract, but I don't share the same level of doom and gloom there. From all reports, he offered a ton of money to Ohtani. There are exceptions. I don't think Juan Soto is likely, but I could see a world where Vlad or Tucker would fit into exceptions. That's not me saying that's going to happen, just that I think Hoyer's following the Dodger's playbook in the mid-2010's under Friedman and until Friedman signed Betts, he wasn't signing 8+ year deals either.

The Rojas hype is based on projection. He's a young kid, who's really, mainly, missing the power stroke currently. Approach wise he's beyond his years. He's got the body size that 15-20 home run power is real, and if you get that, average defense at SS and the approach, you've got a really good player. Sure, the numbers aren't super pretty, but evaluation goes beyond numbers. It's context, and frankly, it's all guessing any ways. So it's cool if Rojas isn't your guy right now (I'd not place him in the top-100, personally). But I think understanding why some people are high on him is pretty easy to see, as well.

No one wants to trade for a rental. But there's no way you're going to get a 10+ year contract extension already signed and delivered on trade day and we need to stop acting like that's a barrier to entry in trading for a Vlad or a Tucker. You trade for them and your best hope is that the team is prepared to work with their new acquisition over the following 2-4 months in locking them down and offering them market value. You hope that the player is interested in signing a market value deal before the market. That's best case scenario.

When was the last time a player was traded with an extension already in place? They don't happen. That has no whiff of changing any time soon. Lindor and Betts both were traded and then signed months after. That's the best case scenario. It's probably better to say "I would hope that the team was committed to offering them a market value deal upon trading for them" because if they are, chances are they can extend a Kyle Tucker or a Vlad later. But it's not happening on trade day. If that's your hard limit you'd never trade for a player who's on his last year.

Well, the point I was making was that there was no evidence they were overworked. Their total innings would show a lot of that. Their break downs show it as well. All of that is readily available for people. I'm all for looking for reasons, but too often we (and I say that in the greater version, not at anyone) create a narrative that can so easily be disputed. It feels like we create the narrative and then hope the data backs it up too often. And sure there's some nuance about multiple day usage and etc, but these guys were roughly averaging an inning per outing. And even if they went 3 days in a row here or there, they were getting like 12 innings or so per month. That leaves a lot of off days. I don't think there's anything to support David Ross beating up these guys. And yeah! I think the injury history of Alzolay could predict UCL issues. Super agree! But David Ross over using him or his IP doesn't predict that. Which has been something I've seen people use.

Cool, let's look at their workload then. Because once again, doesn't hold water. Mark Leiter IP per month: 10, 12, 11, 11, 12, 7 Julien Merryweather IP per month: 11, 10, 12, 11. 14, 12 Adbert Alolzay IP per month: 14, 13, 7, 12, 14, 3 None of these players were abused. None of them had massive peaks on IP at the end of the season (which is generally where people pretend these players were over used). The biggest jump in IP is basically 2 or 3 innings. I don't mean this specifically towards you, but people create narratives that statistics can easily disprove. These are not pitchers who saw extensive use at the end of the season. They were not used extensively compared to other MLB relievers (Julien Merryweather was the 17th most used RP in baseball and he was the high water mark for all three. Also the high water mark for appearances as the 26th most used RP in 2023). It sucks that two of these three basically missed 2024. But anyone who predicted Merryweather was going to have a stress fracture or Alzolay was going to need TJS based on 2023 is just being silly. Is it shocking Alzolay got hurt? Not particularly, he's been hurt plenty of times. But I don't think it was the 2023 season that did it. He missed real time in 2022, and as a prospect as well.

These pitchers didn't pitch nearly as much as people think they did. None of those players even hit career inning limits. Alzolay pitched 125 innings in 2021, Merryiweather had thrown 70+ innings three times in his MiLB career, and Mark Lieter Jr threw three less innings in 2023 compared to 2022. This idea that David Ross abused these guys doesn't really hold water.

I think it's fair to point out Neris was going to regress. But nothing suggested he was going to faceplant off a cliff. He had that crazy low-ERA, but I think the whole league knew that wouldn't keep up and why he was around for what he was. I mean, if we all thought the <2.00 ERA was going to continue he'd have gotten more and quicker. I don't think Neris was horrible, either. He had some really notably bad outings that were magnified because he probably shouldn't have been closing and was (due to a combination of necessity and no one else really separating themselves). Probably was worse than his ERA suggested (his xFIP is 4.576 and his FIP was 4.10), but a lot of that was a terrible April. Past April he had a 4.10 xFIP with the Cubs. Closer worthy? No. Not even what we paid him worthy. But like...okay. Regardless I don't think it was a terrible idea to sign Neris. I just wish they would have also added another arm to really lengthen the BP out a bit.

I don't think their bullpen strategy isn't working though. This year, they were banking on Julien Merriweather, Adbert Alzolay Mark Leiter, and Hector Neris as the back end. Two of the four of them essentially missed 90% of the season hurt. And while Neris was bad as a "closer", the stabilized most of the year as a "fine" arm most of the time. They also lost Yency Almonte right away after he was looking like a useful weapon . Now, if you want to argue the Cubs should have done a little more, I'm not sure I'd fully disagree there (the rest of the BP opening day was a mish mash). but I think the Cubs were also hoping Ben Brown (thrust into the rotation due to injury) and Cade Horton (who got hurt and never had a chance to help) were going to add to the BP throughout the year. The BP took what feels like a heavy amount of damage early on and the Cubs suffered for it. June 1st on the Cubs had a top-5 BP ERA and the 13th best FIP. They over performed a bit via ERA, but it was a "fine" bullpen once they were able to get it to settle in. Part of the issue with BP building is that it's incredibly variable to begin with. With smaller samples come larger fluctuations in performance and it's super regular to see a good reliever have a bad year and vice-versa. Pinpointing who that is going to be can sometimes be a guessing game. You'll likely find a little more of that variance going the DFA'd guy route, but you can find bummers like Matt Moore. Chris Stratton and Joe Kelly in that mid-range as well. The top-top of the market is a little more stable (Stephenson, Hader, Lopez and Jimenez,. for example) so I think you can say "the Cubs should have probably shot a bit higher than Neris all things considered" but I'm not even sure one other BP arm was going to solve 2 months of players dropping like flies.

Probably not a lot of trade value unless the Cubs are eating contract. If Bellinger thought his market value was above his current contract, he would opt out and sign a new contract via FA. If he opts in, it's because he believes his current deal is below what the market would offer him (or right at market value).

That second pick is the 5th round selection. Yes.

I don't even think that's a major deterrent. A 5th round pick is an extreme lottery ticket. This is a player whom almost every team has passed on four times, some have passed on them five, six or seven times depending on comp picks. They're not nothing but the likelihood any team is getting anything out of that pick is extremely low. Here are the last few selections in the 5th: 2023: Michael Carico 2022: Brandon Birdsell 2021: Liam Spence 2020: Koen Moreno 2019: Josh Burgmann As well, $500K in IFA is nice, but projecting out 16 year olds is...damn impossible. It's as much if not more of a lottery ticket than the draft many times. I think any team who says this is a deterrent is using it as an excuse, or is simply wrong in how much prospect clutching they're doing. It's not that I want to give those picks or players away...but give me an established MLB player over Liam Spence any day.

So I think we should be careful. I didn't say a star, I said stacking WAR in single player positions. I avoided that language on purpose. I did use Juan Soto as an example, but because he's a stackable WAR piece on the FA market. But past him, I also avoided names for a reason, too. I just used him as an example, but I think there are plenty of players who the common person wouldn't call a "star" but fit into my answer as well. What I'm suggesting is that the Cubs build vertically, not horizontally. That we're coming to a point where multiple 2 win players are probably going to do less than one four win player at the right spot. I also was very careful to add at the end that it's easier said than done. Will it be more costly? Yes. There's more cost benefit for a four win player over two two-win guys and teams and free agents know this. But I also think the Cubs are kind of at a point where this is the best way forward.

I'm going to answer this question in a slightly different way and I know this is kind of cheating but whatever, I do what I want. I think the best thing the Cubs can do is stack WAR at singular player-roster spots. What I'd say remains the strength of the Cubs is that there are a lot of pretty good players all over the lineup, in the rotation and the BP. There are interesting prospects right on the cusp of the team who should be pretty good (one of the common complaints is that there isn't a star-type but they're all pretty good, you can feel how you want about that, I'm using it more for effect). But there comes a bit of a point where stacking good players has some limitations and the only way to build is to build up. How the Cubs want to answer this conundrum has a few ways. Obviously, there's the Juan Soto route. We can discuss how likely/unlikely they are, or he is, to be interested in this, but he's the type of stacked-WAR I'm talking about...part of Soto's value is that he's a 5+ win player and he takes up but a single roster spot. Soto isn't the only player the Cubs could target in this vein, though, once we get beyond Soto it's more likely to have to happen via a trade (which they have the ammo to complete). That could be a pitcher. It could be a bat. Overall, I do think the Cubs need to think vertical instead of horizontal, if that makes sense. I feel like they have a good foundation. They shouldn't be entirely ignorant of some smaller additions (a BP arm, or a decent catcher to share duties with Amaya) but that the priority for the team should be to not only identify, but then actually acquire players in that mold. Easier said than done, certainly. But it's my biggest priority,

Yeah I mean, like I've said twice before...their careers will likely be no different. With that said, I think there's benefits for getting a jump start, even if it's mental for the offseason and the start of 2025.