Jason Ross

NSBB (and the larger DiamondCentric group) currently hooked us up with a trial subscription to TruMedia to help us write articles. Basically it's like Savant and FG had a baby. And that baby was on steroids. Between this, my article on Mervis and an upcoming one on a reliever...you'll tell I'm kind of having fun with it. Here's a fun fact: the Cubs were among the absolute *best* in baseball in wOBA against sliders and sweepers! We were squarely in the top-10 in wOBA (7th with a wOBA of .309) against them. If you're surprised...don't worry, me too. I expected bad numbers against them. Curveballs less so (23rd). But also among the ten worst against fastballs (22nd), which again...surprising. Now the good news is that Busch was still pounding hanging sliders (an OPS north of 1.000). It was the contact rate that drops below 70% on both pitches. So he's not hapless but we should expect more whiffs there. The power is strong so I also expect he will smash the mistakes regardless of pitch type. Overall? The Cubs really *could* use a guy who cranks on fastballs like Busch was in 2023.

"Sometimes that comes in the form of a right hander as well". Interesting addition. Entirely unneeded, really. Yet... So who's a RH who hits RH really well?

Catching quotes from Hoyers "meet the press" on Twitter. Much less cool; I'm on my couch in Kentucky haha

Jed Hoyer: We're in the 4th or 5th inning of our offseason.

Jed Hoyer: "He's gonna play" when asked about Busch. Thinks 1b is his best position but that Counsell would make the choice. Busch trade won't stop Cubs from getting a 1b. Focusing on bats. Specifically mentioned ones who hit RHP.

Oh, my bad, Squally! Yeah I kind of agree on Morel.

Shota seems like he's another guy with a good personality and fairly goofy. I knew a lot about Seiya's personality before coming over but didn't know a lot about Imanaga's. Good to see he will likely fit in. Likely helps with the transition in some way.

Probably. Though I do think it's important to mention that we really don't know what kind of a defender he is. Defensive scouting reports are notoriously off: Albert Almora was supposed to be a plus defender in CF, while Javier Baez was suggested to have to move off of short. With no OAA/DRS for Triple-A and only a 90 inning sample in the majors, we just don't have data, only the scouting report. As well, there are some reports that he's worked hard at second and made himself decent at second base: - per MLB Pipeline His biggest knock is his arm. The Cubs get credit for taking a similarly "noodly" arm player in Nick Madrigal and making him a viable defensive third baseman. That doesn't mean they have the magic touch to do it for everyone, but it wouldn't be shocking to see a passable second baseman become a passable third baseman with a team who's shown the ability to squeeze juice out of that fruit before. Ultimately, I expect him to be a first baseman with the Cubs. I don't want to suggest he's likely to end up elsewhere, only that, I'd stop short of saying "never".

I'll assume nothing major. Maybe like a "we think Cade Horton is capable of starting in Iowa" or a "Pete Crow-Armstrong will be given a chance to make the MLB roster" thing, but I have a feeling the Cubs have enough shopping left to do that a lot of the fluidity will remain.

Well... 1. Marcus Stroman is shorter than Greg Maddux. He was a first round draft pick. He's gotten multiple large contracts as a free agent. That was nearly ten years ago. Height is quickly becoming a non-factor for SP's and Stroman is just the first guy off the top of my head. There are are plenty of short-king SP's now a days. 2. The Cubs just signed Shota Imanaga to a $53m (upwards of $80m) contract and he has "average" fastball velocity (~92mph). He's also only listed at 5"10 himself! I don't think anyone thinks he's a not-even-a-Double-A pitcher. Velocity is certainly important, but there are plenty of examples (Hendricks, Steele, if you want two other recent Cub examples) of teams overlooking that. I don't believe at any time that people would have looked at Greg Maddux as a barely-Double-A starter. And I want to be very clear: I'm not calling Stroman or Imanaga Maddux. In fact, that's really important here. You don't have to be a generational talent to get by with less than traditionally-thought-of-as-being-ideal height or velocity. Even today in the era of data. 3. I would argue that contact% and swing% very different "statistics" than "height", as well. There are times when maybe we get a little too attached to specific statistics and become single-issue-voters, so I think there is always a "too much of a good thing" with data analysis, but I don't believe those data points that were brought up hit that level. Contact% is one of the highest correlating numbers from AAA to MLB. It's very important. If we're trying to project a player at the next level, it's an important part of the recipe. 4. I agree that Kyle Schwarber's release was poor. Though I do highly believe that had more to do with money than anything else. None of this goes back to the idea that my analysis of Matt Mervis was headed down a wrong path or belongs in financial analysis, however.

In my defense, I said "beginning to show signs" and not that he was a Quadruple-A player (and that he wasn't a dead prospect yet) already. I agree, I don' think he really belongs in Triple-A at this stage...he's capable of still posting 130 wRC+'s in this level with declining contact rates. But the contact rate decline is real, and over the course of three months (a few hundred PA's) which is also...a real concern. Fixable but real right now. I'd like to see him get an MLB chance somewhere. I think he's done enough at Triple-A to get a real shot. But he's going to have to improve his contact rates again to that mid-70's spot if I'm going to believe in his ability to have success too. He just doesn't hit the ball in the air enough to carry a bottom-10 contact rate (what a 66% rate would be) either.

It's an interesting twist, for sure. He's essentially a two pitch pitcher. He throws 98% of his pitches as some variation of a fastball (or a sinker) and a sweeper. We've seen Spencer Strider be useful as a two-pitch pitcher (though he has added the changeup to the arsenal now) and Justin Steele is essentially, a two-pitch pitcher (though I think you can make an argument that Steele really throws "three" pitches between the fastball, slider and a cutter, but that the cutter gets misinterpreted). Worst case you have a good back end reliever at $11m, which isn't an insane price for elite relievers.

Hicks to SFG 4/$44m. Per Passan. He will start.

I do not believe a position player is allowed to move into the DH role as the designated hitter must be "designated" before the game. They can be replaced with other hitters on the bench, or enter the game defensively (and lose the DH) but position players are not allowed to then become the DH.

Oh yeah. It's less why he was here, just kind of funny to think he was essentially living in Chicago and the surrounding areas for weeks and no one was like "Yep, was at the store today, ran into Shota Imanaga!" Understand Americans likely wouldn't recognize him off the beat, but it'd be next to impossible for Matt Chapman to basically be shopping in SF for 3 weeks and go unnoticed himself. Like I said, benefit of living in a foreign country.

Same here. Kind of crazy. I know he's only guaranteed $53m (unless he opts out) so he's not the biggest free agent on the planet but imagine if Sonny Gray was essentially living in Chicago doing this (someone in that same kind of tier of SP, IMO). Or if Marcus Stroman was living in New York just going to the Publix, or whatever they have in NY. Benefit of being in a foreign land, I guess.

Apparently Shota Imanaga: - Was at Conor Bedard's first home game in November - Bought a Michael Jordan jersey - Has been shopping at a Japanese market place in Arlington Heights multiple times - Working out at a gym near O'Hare

I find this to be an odd statement. Which "statistic" would have proven that Greg Maddux wasn't even a AA pitcher? What statistics did I use that would have me traveling down the wrong path on analyzing Mervis? I'm always up for some debate; not infallible, but I'm not sure anything I used to analyze issues under the Mervis hood (such as falling contact% and increased swing%) are necessarily the wrong things to be looking at, either. Let me ask you this as well: what do you think Andrew Friedman (President of Baseball Ops for LAD and arguably the best president of baseball ops league wide) did before he ran the Dodgers?

From everything I see, you cannot move a position player to the DH position mid-game. Once a player is inserted on defense, they cannot move to the DH. The only way a DH can be replaced is by pinch hitting them, or by moving them into the field, which would lose the DH and insert the pitcher back in the lineup.

With adding Almonte, I'd assume the Cubs are going to be a bit tapped out on the "reclamation project" reliever market. If their shopping list was one SP, and two RPs, they're done with two of the three. That last reliver is likely going to be one you can very much project in the 8th and 9th innings immediately with little/no fixes. Your Stephenson, Robertson, maybe even a Hader (though I still find that highly unlikely).

In a shocking trade, the Cubs dealt top-10 prospect Jackson Ferris and 2023 draft pick Zyhir Hope to the Dodgers for Yency Almonte and Michael Busch. On the surface, Busch struggled in his first attempt at the major leagues. With a deep dive, however, how much should you worry about the long-term future of the Cubs' newly-acquired hitter? Image courtesy of © Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports Michael Busch has long been rumored to be on the move from Los Angeles, going back a few years. With players ahead of him at any position he could conceivably play (Mookie Betts at second, Max Muncy at third, Freddie Freeman at first and new arrival Shohei Ohtani at designated hitter), finding a home for Busch was near impossible out in Chavez Ravine. Enter the Chicago Cubs--a team who could use a left-handed hitter at first, third, or designated hitter. It would be easy to look at his first 80 or so plate appearances as a major-league hitter and conclude that there are holes in Busch's game, but with a deeper dive, there seems to be quite a good hitter bubbling just under the surface. The best place to start, in my opinion, is to look at Michael Busch's progression from 2022 to 2023 in Triple A. In 2022, Busch put up an uninspiring 102 wRC+ in his first 504 plate appearances in Triple A. In 2023, he put up a whopping 150 wRC+, and almost every possible secondary and supplementary metric got better. He struck out less, walked more, hit for much more power, made more hard contact, hit the ball harder... you get the picture. Trying to figure out how and why is very important. The easy answer would be to suggest the Dodgers introduced some new mechanics into his game, but after looking into the video, I just don't think there was one. You can see for yourself: compare a home run Busch hit in June of 2022 to one he hit in August of 2023. Both are on hanging curveballs, and both seem very similar swing-wise. Ultimately, I think it's safe to rule out a swing path or mechanical change as to why he made the huge jump year-to-year. Digging deeper, I think the answer is that Busch improved his pitch recognition from 2022 to 2023. In 2022, during his time in Triple A, the left-handed hitter made contact on roughly 79% of his swings against fastbals, good for an OPS of .897. He struggled against, fir instance, cutters, with a mere 62% contact rate on a pitch type not usually engineered to generate whiffs. The power was there, but the whiff percentages were high. More concerning was his issue against higher velocity (as pointed out by Mike Petriello). Busch saw his whiff% on 97+ mph fastballs, jump to 38%. In 2023, he showed major pitch-recognition improvements. Busch's contact rate on fastballs jumped 9%; his contact rate on cutters jumped almost 13%. While Petriello did a good job highlighting his issues against velocity, those numbers were combined from 2022 to 2023, likely to make a sample size large enough to avoid error (and included MLB action). With that said, his numbers (in small sample sizes) in 2023 against velocity at Triple-A were much improved. His contact rate against pitches over 94 mph topped 82%, and his in-zone whiff% against 97-100 mph in Triple-A was 14.3%, a marked improvement. With the improvement in his ability to recognize pitch types came an improvement on pitches inside. Below you will see his batting average heat map at the Triple-A level in 2023 (left) compared to his 2022 (right) season. Notice how much better he was in getting to pitches inside. With no apparent mechanical change, an improvement in pitch recognition would explain why he would improve on getting around on pitches on the inside, as well. Compare these heat maps, then, to his time with the Dodgers over the last few weeks of the MLB season. Notice that Busch struggled heavily on pitches inside and middle, but found success on the outer portions of the plate? Busch had a lot of issues with contact with pitches over 94 mph, making contact on these pitches under 67 percent of the time. Overall, on fastballs, he sat at 70%. His ability to hit pitches between 91-94 mph was much better (at least in making contact), as his contact rate was almost 85% on these pitches. So, what would cause him to be able to hit pitches outside but struggle in? Well... pitch recognition. If you're struggling on seeing the ball and recognizing it, you'll obviously be just a hair late. Shocker: many (arguably, even, most) of the well hit balls Busch had went the opposite way while in MLB (see; hit chart). This was not the case for Busch in Triple-A. If there are some other places to look into his Triple-A data to find some cause for concern, it's that he struggles to make consistent contact even in Triple A (despite the previous two home runs highlighted) on sliders and curveballs, and with pitches on the upper third (especially out). While he still displays power, these are not his "happy zones". The first can likely be attributed to him just not being particularly good at hitting breaking balls. That's not the worst thing ever, especially if he can work his way through MLB fastballs. The second issue likely has to do with his swing. His swing is geared toward lift (a launch angle over 16 on fastballs), and that swing path just simply struggles with pitches up. Where does this leave us with Busch? I think there's a lot of really positive things under the hood. He didn't display major platoon splits at Triple-A. He has shown that, given time, his pitch recognition improves, and improves greatly. I don't think he's necessarily going to be able to fix things like getting to the ball up, and he's probably never going to be an elite breaking ball hitter, even if he's got the power to pound mistakes. But he's someone who, when that pitch recognition does come (and I think it'll come) projects to hit MLB pitching quite well. His average Triple-A exit velocity was 91.5mph, which is on par with what Randy Arozarena (27th in MLB) put up last year. He hits the ball hard, and when he hits it, it's going to be in the air. That's a good combination, and if he can combine those skills at the MLB level, this is the kind of hitter you can reasonably project as a 120 wRC+ guy. He's not without risk, but unlike Matt Mervis, who I have fears of being a Quadruple-A player, I don't have those same concerns with Busch. Instead, I think Busch is a player who, given time, is going to pay off as a savvy pickup, and one I'm pretty excited to see hit a few home runs off of the scoreboard that Kyle Schwarber made famous in right field. What do you think about Busch? Do you see a 120 wRC+ hitter? Or do you see someone you think belongs back in Triple A? View full article

Thanks! Just you wait for Michael Busch. I fear I'm just doing some shiny new toy syndrome stuff, but I was really encouraged with his progression from 2022 to 2023.

I actually think the two are quite different once you get beyond the surface. Did a deep dive on Mervis in Triple-A the other day and just got done with an article that should post shortly on Busch. Conclusions: I fear Mervis is a Quaruple-A player due to his recent downturn in contact%, especially at the Triple-A level. I don't see the same concerns with Busch.

I think very much Matt Mervis is dealt. I wrote the other day about his contact issues in AAA, but I think the Cubs don't love Merv based on that data and how they treated him at the end of the season,