Jason Ross

Also saw a few curveballs. He only threw two, but considering he threw all of 35 all last year, might be a pitch he works on getting in a little extra often this year?

It's spring training. I think we have to remember that everyone is working back into things. I find new mechanics, new pitches, and better statcast as important notes to keep track of, but anything based on things like rust (like batting average, errors, etc) to be just that; rust. Everyone is getting back into it. Rojas has never been a Burl Carroway thrower before, even he's never been gold-glove caliber, either. Chalk it up to Spring Training.

Big difference. Also important that the Cubs don't really tweak a swing for a player until after struggles happen. We can see that with Matt Shaw in 2025, and have seen that with PCA and Amaya in 2024. When players struggle, they go to mechanical fixes, but only then. Rojas had a pretty tough time when he got to Double-A last year. He's very young, so part of that deals with his age-relative-to-level, but I'm guessing that the Cubs wanted to change a little bit of his mechanics to help give him an edge as well. As Matt pointed out, his success this ST has some against players who have seen MLB time, and all have been pitchers who have reached higher levels than Jefferson Rojas, so the success probably isn't nothing even if it's limited.

Beat me by three minutes. Was literally about to post the same thing.

Good catch on the movement under the breakdown as well!

I didn't know either. Lance Brodzowski put out a video like a month ago and talked about it in there that basically they classify the pitches based on how the pitcher's call them, even if they don't always follow suit based on actual shape. A bit of a weird system, but because everything is subjective anyways, it's probably the best they can do.

I like his change in setup. His hands are getting extra separation before he launches into his swing. And he's starting a little more crouched than last year; he was very upright.

Yep! It's why I mentioned the weirdness on the pitch designations. I think they classify everything by the way a pitcher calls it; there's a good chance Ben Brown hasn't told Savant that "hey, I throw a sinker now!" Basically if a pitcher calls something a "slider" Savant just agrees with that guy "yeah, that's a slider" even if it's more of a sweeper or a curveball. They're super generous.

According to statcast everything registered as a fastball or a knuckle curveball, but it gets a little wonky sometimes with pitch designations, so it's possible. Fastball sat at 97mph which was good. Javier Assad was hitting 94mph, which really jumped out at me.

Now that is fine. MiLB deal? Sign me up!

Part of his issue though is defensively he's a mess. And won't help in CF. If he does replace Kevin, there's once again no true backup in CF on the roster. If PCA gets hurt, they can solve that, but who's giving Pete a day off? Matt Shaw? That's a tough task. I think he can handle the corner, but center is a different beast.

Ahhh yeah, I forgot Miller's spot. I thought they had originally just dropped him direct on the 60, but I guess they didn't.

I'm hoping this ends up being a NRI with an opt-out if he doesn't make the team. There doesn't seem to have been a ton of interest and I'm not sure the Cubs have the 40-man spot unless they decide to move Steele to the 60.

Man, what an insane start to the season for their lineup. Jeeze.

Not a particularly great plan, realistically. CF is where xBA goes to die.

@Matthew Trueblood Want to point out as well the vastly different mechanics that Rojas is showing in the Spring. Here is a video from Rojas in July, last summer. He's very upright before he swings. His hands are also much closer to his body. In ST, Rojas has shown a bit more separation of his hands and his body and he's starting more in a crouched, lower stance. It was the first thing that jumped off the page when I saw him get into the batters' box.

Well, so two things: 1. His line from OD was: 4IP, 4 BB, 2K, and 0ER. He didn't give up runs but battled poor control all day. He had an xFIP over 7.00 on the day. 2. I think the velocity and the control go hand in hand. His pitches require a little extra velo to ride up. The tweet-thread from Chis Langin is helpful to understand that; I wish I could take credit for his amazing work, he's a bright-dude. But yeah, I think he'll be much better. I'm thinking the guy over his last 120 IP in 2024 feel do-able; the high 3's ERA/xFIP type of a guy. A good, however, non-dominant, SP.

Are you a sports nutritionalist? I'm not. I'm assuming you're not. Let's leave that aspect to the Cubs who have their own weight goals and experts to determine. The people who actually have sat in a room with Moises Ballesteros and have worked with him over years. What we can assume is that the Cubs don't find his body shape nearly as disqualifying as home fans do. They have not only ensured to not trade him, but are seemingly just fine turning over the keys to the DH position to him in 2025. He's probably going to catch some too this year. I am non-plussed as long as he shows back up in "normal Moises Ballesteros" shape. If he shows up extra large, we can begin to worry, but beyond that; I think it is what it is and we need to stop thinking he's going to have a massive transformation. Getting to Michael Busch levels of shape would be a massive transformation. Busch is listed at 210lbs, and it's likely Ballesteros is something like 30lbs more than that.

Yeah 195 lbs would be very generous for him. Alejandro Kirk is listed at 245lbs and I'd guess Mo is closer to that.

Don't use official MLB listings for players like Ballesteros who have not really established themselves in MLB. They are rarely updated and sit out of date for years. They're especially bad for IFA signings like Ballesteros. I'd guess he was 195lbs three or four years ago. He's well over 200 today, I'd bet my house on it. Example: Jefferson Rojas is listed at 150lbs. There's no chance he's 150lbs any more.

He wasn't any different from 2024 to 2025. There was one or two pictures that initially made him seem in different shape, but this is video from him in April of 2024 and then last year in 2025, also Aprirl. https://www.milb.com/milb/video/moises-ballesteros-third-home-run-of-the-season?t=chicago-cubs-affiliates https://www.milb.com/iowa/video/moises-ballesteros-two-homer-four-hit-game There is no "much better shape" from those videos. Same guy, almost 365 days apart. And while I don't have an image of him from his first day in camp, it's highly unlikely that after being with the team for 2 months playing baseball that he just added the bulk back. It wasn't like he was on vacation between camp and mid-April. This is what we should expect Ballesteros to look like when he gets to camp now and we should probably stop thinking it'll be any different. I also don't think he's lazy like many think he is. Some people carry weight differently than others naturally.

I think people expecting some magical transformation in body are setting themselves up for failure. Some people just have different body types than others. This is likely what you get here. What's important is that to date, at no level had Ballesteros body stopped him from being a highly successful player.

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images The moment Shota Imanaga first took the mound in Chicago, there was an electricity in the air. On a cold night, with the help of the Wrigley wind, against a hapless Colorado Rockies lineup, Imanaga carved up hitters left and right. Through his first 53 innings in Major League Baseball, the left-handed pitcher had a sub 1.00 ERA, and hadn't recorded a loss; a phenom was born, albeit, one that could never live up to that kind of hype. The rest of his debut season was good, but wasn't as good, as over his next 119 innings, Imanaga posted a 3.82 ERA, a 3.78 xFIP, to go along with a 23.9 K%. These are good, nearly very good, numbers, but short of "ace" territory — the kind of pitcher you want in your rotation but probably not good enough to lead your rotation. Heading into 2025, he was probably a bit overrated by the general populace. Then, 2025 happened. The narrative around Imanaga has shifted dramatically as a result. To put it lightly, last year was not a good one for the Cubs' left-handed pitcher. Right away, Imanaga struggled in the Tokyo Dome in front of a raucous crowd and against a tough Dodgers team. On May 4, Imanaga would suffer a hamstring injury that would hamper the rest of his season. The left-hander showed diminished velocity all year long, with a fastball down a few MPH. He never got fully right in 2025, struggling with (potentially) tipping pitches against the lowly White Sox and never really getting back to the guy we saw the year before. It looked like maybe he was bouncing back after the rough start, posted a 3.54 ERA (with a 3.61 xFIP) over his next 54 innings after facing the Pale Hose, but the wheels fell off in his last two regular season starts, then once again in the playoffs. Something was wrong and the Cubs decided to skip over their Opening Day starting pitcher in the do-or-die Game 5 of the NLDS. This led the team to difficult decisions when it came to his contract; eventually, both sides decided that playing out 2026 on the qualifying offer, a one-year, $22.025 million pact, would be best for everyone involved. For the pitcher, this represents a pay-increase over what he was expecting, but a loss of guaranteed years behind; for the team, it's a chance to evaluate the hurler before they commit to more seasons. It's an imperfect solution for both, however, the two probably need each other still and this allows that partnership to continue. Entering the 2026 season, it's hard to figure out what to make of Imanaga, however (and why the team was so hesitant to pick up his three-year option). Is he the 2024 guy, who, even when taking out his amazing start, was the kind of arm you'd slot into a top-three spot in your rotation? Is he the home-run-soft-tosser he looked like in 2025? A lot of this is going to come down to one thing: velocity. The worst part is we probably won't know the answer to that concern until the season truly begins. Chris Langin, a former Driveline instructor, expertly broke down the velocity cliff that Imanaga faced last year. His best pitch is his fastball and it's not particularly close. Because his fastball is so good, it allows his other stuff to play up despite mediocre shapes. But he's also living in a razor-thin land of velocity; at 92-93mph, his fastball has such unique outlier characteristics that allow it to front his arsenal. Hitters have to protect against the fastball, and thus, they swing at the sweeper and the splitter which generate a ton of chase. However, at 90-91mph, the fastball loses much of it's uniqueness, and now instead of protecting against the pitch hitters are hunting the fastball. And this is where he sat last year. It's a no-man's land and Imanaga suffered the consequences. This can be easily seen with a quick glance at Imanaga's Baseball Savant page, as well. He still generated a lot of chases, as outlined in the above tweet-thread by Langin, but his whiff and K% dropped significantly. Hitters made significantly better contact as well. Imanaga's fastball value plummeted, so while hitters still struggled against his off-speed offerings, his fastball was the clear issue. Diving into his individual offerings, the whiff% is also highlighted there. While Imanaga's whiff% on his fastball wasn't significantly lower year over year, the batted ball data against that pitch (especially his expected data) was much worse. But beyond jus the fastball, his whiff% against his split-finger is telling, as hitters simply weren't swinging and missing as much on that pitch or getting put away as often. Imanaga is a primary fastball-splitter guy, and if both pitches aren't getting the same results, it's not shocking that the overall results suffered. So, then, what's the fix? For the Cubs and Imanaga, the hope here is clear: health. Craig Counsell spoke before the Cubs' first spring training game and voiced that he believed that the hamstring injury took velocity out of Imanaga's game in 2025. And it would appear as though his velocity is up, at least from the team. This is all good news. As Langin outlined, if Imanaga gets back to the velocity shown in 2024, there's top-30 starter upside there. The fastball velocity tracking seems to support this to a degree. Before his hamstring injury, Shota was averaging 91.2 mph on his fastball, while after, it dipped to 90.7 mph. And while 91.2 mph is still down from Imanaga's 91.9 mph average in 2024, some of that may be attributed to throwing a bunch in a very cold Wrigley Field early in the season. The other good news is that the fastball velocity isn't the only thing that stands out in his data. Following his injury, his arm angle also dropped significantly. While this could have been designed to give him extra run on his sweeper, it could also be because of the injury to his left hamstring. Because he's left-handed, that hamstring is his anchor and where he's driving from to generate power. Not only could that cause velocity drop, but it could also create those bad mechanics that led to a homer binge at the end of the campaign. If you're following the Cubs this spring, we're in luck: Sloan Park, the home of the Cubs in Mesa, will have Statcast tracking this year for all of their spring training games (as will all spring stadiums)! There will be plenty of fun things to keep an eye on, but maybe none as important as the velocity that Imanaga shows. If he's hitting 92-93mph, there's probably a good reason to believe he's back, at least to some degree, to his 2024 self. The Cubs have done a good job of making sure they're not too invested in his fastball velocity. So, while the team will be significantly better if Imanaga is significantly better, they aren't counting on him in 2026 like they were last year. The team has Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd, Jameson Taillon, and Edward Cabrera slotting in ahead of the lefty in the rotational pecking order, while also rostering a returning Justin Steele. Rookie Jaxon Wiggins is also waiting in the wings, and swing starters such as Colin Rea, Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks and Ben Brown could slot in if Imanaga continues to falter. But the Cubs could also be in a situation in which they have an embarrassment of riches if Imanaga shows 2024-type-velocity on his fastball as well. It's a worthwhile gamble, and heading into this upcoming season, it likely means Shota Imanaga has once again become underrated by the fanbase to a degree, much like he was when he made his first fateful start in Chicago. What do you think about Shota Imanaga as we head into 2026? Do you think he will be an asset to the team? Or was it a mistake to give him a qualifying offer? Let us know in the comments below! View full article