Jason Ross

Yeah, when it comes to Ohtani, the same argument of "X team has never given out a contract worth..." is going to come up with almost any and all. Why? Ohtani is unprecedented. We've never seen a player we know is this good at both hitting and pitching hitting the free market. I mean, Ohtani has been a free agent before, but we only had guesses then and there were some restrictions in place. There's no precedent for this. He's going to break records. Secondly, I just refuse to believe the Chicago Cubs are seemingly this serious about Shohei Ohtani while also being that clueless. I'm a pretty regular person, but I can ballpark what Ohtani is going to cost...and it's not going to be $150m over 6 years, or whatever. If I'm smart enough to know it'll either take a mega contract approaching $400m+ over a decade or a shorter super high AAV deal...well I can only imagine that the Chicago Cubs with a full analytical team has surmised this all on their own. And yet, the Cubs are seemingly sitting down at the big boy table regardless. I think that tells you both that the Cubs understand what it will take, and have a budgetary plan this offseason and into the future that reaches beyond that of the Underpants Gnomes (Ohtani + ??? = Profit!). This isn't a situation where some sort of creative contract is in play. It's horsefeathers Shohei Ohtani, you only win this if you are serious, and if you're not serious, you don't play the game to begin with. I can't tell you if the Cubs will get Ohtani. I am at least confident that the Cubs are being earnest here.

Good for Banner.

Another year and I'd be really into Kyle Gibson. I like that gamble infinitely more than Lance Lynn. But I'll live without him on the Cubs with what they need right now.

Yeah, I'm a real Wicks-stan and I don't see it. There's not much projection with the body. There's been nothing really over 2 years that suggests there's more velocity coming here. I think we have to accept Wicks is going to sit in this range of 91-94mph with his fastball. And that's okay, you can be that kind of a guy and be useful. But I think velocity wise, this is it with Wicks. If there's going to be progression it's likely pitch mix (more curveballs!) and continuing to refine mechanics and command.

Yeah, the tweet in general was just weird. Like, it's really random to be just a random tweet. It also doesn't make any sense the Jays would be interested in moving Bichette to be real. Ultimately I agree with you, it's likely the first; just a really random thought.

Couldn't tell you. I wouldn't touch a shoulder injury like his on a 6 year deal right now.

Yeah, you can count me pretty "out" on Brandon Woodruff. There's a world where he returns, but there's plenty of worlds where he's toasted, or just decent. If the Cubs want to get creative, there feels like ample opportunities that exist, and I'd be worried about tying up that money in 2024.

I would guess Woodruff is not interested in that kind of a deal. That makes him a free agent again at 34 and that's not really a time to cash in for many. He's probably more interested in a 2 year deal that gets him a rehab year + 1 year to rebuild value to get a 5-6 year deal on the backend. While that kind of a contract obviously gives him more guarantees, a successful return to form would put Woodruff as a high priority free agent. These players are confident in themselves.

Seems to have a podcast with Sports Mockery, not my favorite of all possible platforms. Doesn't seem to be breaking a lot of news on his twitter. Impressive followers list though. Lots of Chicago media (the BN crew, Zumach, NSB) but also a few national guys like Jim Passon, Tim Stebbins, and MLB Pipeline. Hard to tell.

I bet more of a stab in the dark signing than anything. I'm always good with taking stabs at the dark on lefties with weird deliveries.

I think we have to accept we don't have a lot of data on Wiggins, but there's something there the Cubs like. Wiggins, as @Transmogrified Tigerpointed out, was following typical SEC pathways. Wiggins, as well, had pre-season first round pick hype. He's certainly a risky pick in that there's little data on him. But the same scout who recommended Horton, was in on Wiggins, and many people (and I'm sure, many posters here, though I wasn't involved in this site then) probably felt the Cubs took a pretty big leap on him, too. Horton so far has been better than I expected, and I'm someone who was a fan of his draft day, if that's saying something. Nichols was also the scout who recommended Jordan Wicks, so he's got history with Wiggins-upside types in Horton, but also safer picks like Wicks. That's a good track record. I'll see if I can find it again, but there was some good news coming out of Arkansas on Wiggins from the fall-season before he went down, but I'm not sure I'll 100% be able to track that one down, so please don't hold that against me (though feel free to take that all with a grain of salt because I can't source it). The Cubs have earned my benefit of the doubt on Wiggins. I like the swing, personally. In a draft light on upside college arms, the Cubs grabbed one with big upside as they bet on their ability to smooth things out. Maybe it works, it probably won't (that's the MLB draft, y'all!), but I respect the confidence and the swing on Wiggins.

I don't think the Jays are trading players like Bichette and Vlad.

Especially odd on the timing, too. There just doesn't seem a lot going on under the hood of a 37-year-old Lance Lynn that makes you say "This guy on a one year deal, that's the ticket!" enough to jump the line. There's plenty of interesting, upside-y, or sneakily decent SP's on the market, and likely enough that within a few weeks, you can still find 2-3 on good deals that jumping the queue to secure Lance Lynn doesn't feel comforting.

I would disagree with Tom here on the idea of Horton vs Brown. Horton's command/control is a standard deviation better than Brown's IMO. If there is a concern I have with Horton it has much less to do with command, but I do think he needs to learn he can't just pipe fastballs (it's his worst habit). What Horton does on the mound is just dominate hitters, and he does so by saying "this is my fastball, you can't hit it". Professional hitters at higher levels will not allow him to get away with that, but I don't think that's a command issue, I just think it's a mentality thing. It also allows him to throw his breaking stuff a bit earlier in the count and then try to battle back by piping fastballs. I also don't think it's really much of a long term thing, either. Horton is just too good for the hitters he's seen so far. So much so, that people like Bryan Smith, who's really good when it comes to Cub evaluations, think's he's MLB ready today. I'd like to see him in Iowa for a bit before I agree with that, but I don't think Horton is far off. I also don't see a vulnerability in Horton's HR-rate. Of the 7 home runs he surrendered, three came in a single game: his first start in South Bend. He gave up three his final 70 innings across multiple levels. I'll be more detailed in my prospect review later, but I think Cade Horton is a very, very talented pitcher. I like Brown. I like Wicks. I love Cade Horton.

Yeah, Lance Lynn looks toasted. He's getting hit harder, leaving more things in the sweet spot, seeing less swings and misses, more contact against, and the quality of contact is through the roof. He's been kind of a fun guy to watch on the mound, and I know the PN dudes love him as a guy, but 37 year old Lance Lynn wouldn't fill me with hope.

Yeah, I think we'll just have to expect that the K rates will be on the lower side. I'm okay with that if he can be someone who gets 47% ground ball rates, keeps the baseball in the ballpark, and doesn't walk hitters. His strikeout rate can't be scary bad, but if he can sit in the 7's per 9, even the low 7's, you've probably got a pretty useful FIP-beater.

Now, everything we're talking about Savant data wise, we have to plug in the "...it was a small sample size" asterisk, so keep that in mind with everything after this but what interests me in his savant data is that the whiff% was small, but the chase rate was not. So hitters are willing to offer at his pitches that aren't in the zone. He does a pretty solid job of getting the curveball on that outter corner, opposite of his changeup which he runs in on RHP. I wonder if the Cubs add more curveballs to the mix; it was his second highest whifif% pitch and it has pretty good vertical movement. He throws so many fastballs in on the hands, and changeups in on the knees that developing that pitch that goes where those pitches don't could be something the Cubs could use to unlock a few more swings and misses. Adding to that, he used the curveball generally when ahead in the count, with two strikes. So I think Wicks knows it's a strikeout pitch for him. He goes to fastball-changeup, almost exclusively when he's behind, but ahead, it's more curveball. Getting a few more curveballs, even in early counts, might be a good way to then use that changeup to generate better action later, too.

Especially if the Cubs snag Ohtani, this seems like a good way to fill out the roster. Players like Matt Mervis, Alexander Canario, Javier Asad, may not be "huge" Cubs young players/prospects who will greatly impact the 2024 roster, but very well may have real value to teams who are 2-3 years way from success and need to start filling out their roster with capable starting types. The Cubs should be able to these types (either solo or in conjunction with each other) to get pieces they are far more likely to use and rely on in 2024.

Yeah, I waver myself on how I feel about trading or not trading Wicks. I had brought this up in the forums in response to someone, and it's why I can't tell where I sit (and am thankful this isn't a question being asked of me), but that I think it's a lot easier today to want to trade Ben Brown over Jordan Wicks for much of what you said. The reality is, Jordan Wicks is far more likely to impact the 2024 Cubs than Ben Brown. The "wavering" is that on November 20th, 2024, we could be singing a very different tune. If Ben Brown gets his fastball under control Brown's going to be the better pitcher. If Jordan Wicks can't get the whiffs he needs, he could be a relatively uninteresting pitcher. I say this as a pretty big Jordan Wicks fan. I think the best version of Jordan Wicks is a "Kyle Hendricks-Lite" type of a groundball heavy change up master who FIP-beats his way to mid-rotation value. But I also know that Brown's upside is much higher, and Wicks could settle in as a low-whiff #5.

Huge Aram Leighton fan. Please give him some ups from me if you get the chance. He's been a must follow for me on twitter for a bit.

Jordan Wicks was promoted during the Cubs' stretch run during the 2023 season and showed some solid positives but a few areas of polish. Where should the crafty lefty start off his 2024 campaign, and just what kind of upside is there in his profile? Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-USA TODAY Sports 2023 Season Review In 2019, the Cubs switched from Jason McLeod to Dan Kantrovitz to lead the organization's draft and scouting strategy. Despite 2021 not being his first draft, the 2020 draft was so weird, awkward, and out of the norm that it would be fair to call the 2021 draft, in which Jordan Wicks was selected, his first "real" draft. The left-handed hurler came by way of Kansas State with a plus changeup and the profile, at least on draft day, as a low upside but solid starter. Carving his way through the minors to date, Wicks surprised with a bit higher than expected strikeout rates and an impressive number of ground balls. 2023 saw Wicks start where he left off in 2022 in Tennessee. As discussed before, and will be again with other prospects who spent time in the Southern League, the first half of the season saw the league experiment with a pre-tacked ball, so all data comes with a caveat. Tennessee was a mixed bag for Wicks; his strikeout rates remained strong, as did his walk rates, but his home runs seemed to tick up as well, serving up nine in his half of a season at the level. Another interesting thing happened; he stopped getting ground balls, dropping his ground ball rate from roughly 47% to 40%. Despite this, he got off to a wonderful start, but the crafty lefty struggled a bit midseason before regaining his footing and ending up earning a promotion to Iowa; his overall numbers were impressive, however, as in 58 innings on the mound, Wicks struck out over ten per nine innings, with a pretty good 3.84 FIP. With the oddities of Wicks's time in Tennessee being fairly glaring, it was unsurprising to hear from Jordan's father that his son "hated" the baseball used in the Southern League. As he returned to a regular baseball, it might be hard to see that in his Iowa numbers. Wicks saw his walk rate climb and his strikeout rate drop, but it's in the batted ball data that we can see where Wicks went back to normal. Dropping his home run rate back down to under 10% of his fly balls, resulting in home runs, and seeing his ground ball rate climb back to the 47% range, the K-State grad began rounding back out into what we were used to seeing. After just 30 odd innings in Iowa, the Cubs called Jordan Wicks up to the major league roster on August 26th. It's hard to make a better impression in your first start than Wicks did, as he went five innings, striking out nine hitters over those five innings and giving up only a lone run. Proving it was not just a fluke, Wicks put together an excellent first 22 innings as a Cub, with a sub 2,00 ERA, a 48.5% ground ball rate, and limiting the hard hits. The only thing he could have done better was getting strikeouts, however, as his K/9 dipped to below 6 strikeouts per 9 innings thrown. Whether it was fatigue, the lack of strikeouts, or a combination, Wicks would struggle in his last few stints, not even making it out of the second inning against the Brewers in his final start of 2023. Regardless, there was plenty of good in his game during this time, and he helped keep a banged-up rotation afloat during most of September, 2024 Season Outlook and ETA Jordan Wicks will likely be on an MLB rotation come Opening Day. I hesitate to say the Cubs rotation because I think, ultimately, Jordan WIcks' name will come up in trade talks this offseason. With the Cubs interested in Juan Soto and Pete Alonso, plenty of teams will look at the young left-handed pitcher as a possible return. Jon Heyman reported the Cubs to be a team looking for "multiple" starters in the offseason, so it would suggest that the Cubs keep this possibility open themselves. Regardless of the team, Wicks will have some things to improve on. Looking at his Baseball Savant data page, Wicks did an admirable job limiting barrels, hard hits, getting ground balls, and even getting solid chase numbers in his first go at the highest level. With that said, what Wicks did not do was get a long swing and miss. With a fastball that sits just below 92mph, he can't expect to blow hitters away with velocity, so getting hitters to chase his plus changeup and solid curveball will be necessary. Wicks struggled in his fastball command in his last two starts, giving up four home runs. While the velocity stayed up, Wicks was overthrowing to overcompensate, being tired at the end of a long year. There's a bit of variation in the 2021 first round pick ceiling. Mentality and temperament-wise, it's hard not to see a Jon Lester at times, and with his strong control and a change-up lead repertoire, you can squint and see some Kyle Hendricks. There's a lot of "FIP-Beater" in his profile; he limits hard contact and keeps the ball on the ground. Then again, Kyle Freeland, another lefty, does many of the same things, and he's a borderline starting pitcher most years. Making sure he generates a few more swings and misses in 2024 will probably be the difference between Jordan Wicks, the underrated and unheralded mid-rotation guy, and Jordan Wicks, the borderline back-end-of-the-rotation guy. View full article

Eh, I tend to believe there's something to the idea that the Ohtani camp wants this quiet. How much he'l "hold it against" a team is hard to figure out. With that said, these ads seem like they're just put on by the MLB and have nothing to do with the Cubs or a city trying to sign Ohtani. I think what Ohtani wants to avoid is the media circus. He did that the last time with the Angels largely (no one really saw the Angels as a front runner) and I think that's the kind of courting he's looking for again. Quiet, out of the limelight until it happens.

Under what many predicted on a seven year deal.

Event then, give me Hoskins over Turner. Turner is going to be 39 and is trending down. His 114 wRC+ was the lowest he's posted since 2013. His barrel % was down, LA was down, sweet spot was down, and his walks are down. He's going to be 39 years old in days. MLB average 1b hit 108 wRC+, so he's already moving to that direction. Hoskins is coming off a missed season, but a knee injury for a 1b isn't the end of the world, and Hoskins has a higher upside than Turner, who at his age, is at "fall of a cliff at any moment" territory. JD Martinez is interesting as a DH, but it seems like the Cubs are aiming at the highest of the high DH's as of today, so I think we can circle back to him and that would still leave 1b anyways. But if it comes to Hoskins vs Turner, I'll take the former. Turner isn't the worst fall back option, but I'd rather shoot a bit higher.