.jpg.900f6d1bc80a5a156f3ba09ea0e4b3d7.jpg)
Jason Ross
-
Posts
7,870 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
68
Content Type
Profiles
Joomla Posts 1
Chicago Cubs Videos
Chicago Cubs Free Agent & Trade Rumors, Notes, & Tidbits
2026 Chicago Cubs Top Prospects Ranking
News
2023 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
Guides & Resources
2024 Chicago Cubs Draft Picks
The Chicago Cubs Players Project
2025 Chicago Cubs Draft Pick Tracker
2026 Chicago Cubs Draft Tracker: Picks & Bonuses
Blogs
Events
Forums
Store
Gallery
Everything posted by Jason Ross
-
He's a 34-year old player who in 420 games has been worth .7 fWAR. He's kind of the definition of "replacement player". If a catcher gets hurt, and you need a backup guy for a few weeks you can do worse. When that catcher returns and you need to DFA someone? He's also an easy guy to jettison as he neither has age nor track record behind him. As an example, last year, he was 34% worse than league average as a hitter. Over his career he is 29% below average. He just can't cut it at the highest level for very long. He's like Reese McGuire last year. They can be useful in small doses and in a pinch but organizations will not prioritize him. And the Cubs don't need to do that, either. As of now he's useful organizational depth.
-
Yeah, quick mental rankings would be like: Rojas, Hartshorn | Wiggins, Conrad, Townsend, Kepley, Ayers | Long, Triantos, McGwire, Bailey, Sanders With the breaks between tiers. I think you can mostly move the names around in almost any order within those tiers. I'd almost have Wiggins above one, but the injury has me bumping him back a bit. Also forgive me if I forgot a blatant name, quick napkin rankings off my head.
-
If you're not super big on the MLB draft a rule of thumb is: no one taken in an MLB draft should be counted on to help immediately. It's incredibly rare for a player to contribute a year after the draft (unless you're the Angels who have a tendency to promote all of their top picks to the MLB nearly immediately - they're also a mess of an organization, so there's that, too) let alone this year. Very rare times you might see a special reliever fly through a system, but that's very, very rare. Most of these picks won't be on the MLB radar for two+ years. Some of them won't be on the radar for seven years. Justin Steele was a prep pick in 2015 and debuted at 26.
-
I just got done typing up my writeup of the full thing so I won't spoil it, but I'm probably closer to this than over the moon, myself. But I also don't want that to sound like a negative; I dig the draft overall and get it.
-
I'm hopeful too. He's had a really windy path to being a Cub's mainstay he probably deserves a playoff moment as much as anyone on the roster. For years he was one of the very few reasons to watch and then to miss all of last year had to sting. I think it shapes up perfectly, though. The Cubs probably aren't going to enter the playoffs with more than three guys you feel really comfortable with starting a playoff game. Between Cabrera, Shota, Boyd and someone traded for, one will likely struggle down the stretch or be hurt. The Cubs will need a strong BP behind the group, and it's kind of hard to get much more stable than seven outs of Justin Steele to lock down a few innings building up to the end of the game.
-
It's just going to be too late to build him up and the Cubs probably won't jeopardize building him up poorly. He just started throwing again and won't be off a mound until after the ASB. He probably isn't with an affiliate before August. 6 weeks would be a traditional Spring Training (2nd week of February to April) and the Cubs cannot count on him coming back to pitch in a rotation with two-weeks to go as that would probably put him on pace to come back in the rotation come the second or third week in September. Instead, it's likely he gets 3-4 weeks and returns as a multi-inning guy as rosters expand. But if he does that, there's not going to be time to get him from 2-3 innings to 4-5 innings, which they'll want to take slowly considering the injury. In the playoffs, you need bulk innings guys. And he can do that. There's a role for him. He can be a "super-opener" or an elite piggyback.
-
Just posted that Saver was reporting that in the MLB draft thread! He's a long time friend of mine. He's the best at this.
-
Not surprising but a few updates I've got from my guy Savermetrics. - Blomker will sign - Meyers will sign - Emmanuel Hernandez has changed all social medias over to Cubs stuff and belief is he will sign (If it's on socials, Savermetrics finds it. Yags is a savant).
-
This draft is clearly a Tyler Zombro draft. And I'm here for that.
-
Another thing: while Happ has certainly struck out a lot, I believe we are playing a handful more games before the break than ever before. The league has pushed up OD by a magnitude of a few weeks the last couple of years, That has to play a role too.
-
With Brown it isn't that he wouldn't be capable. It's "is there enough time"? He's not throwing. We don't have a timeline. Whether or not he can build back up and get into a rotation is going to be hard. We don't even know if he's coming back this year. As it pertains to Maton, he's shown nothing in his stuff to suggest the arm is cooked. Maybe the knee is. But he was an excellent reliever last year, has been good multiple years in his career...I get he's been bad so far, but he's got potential to be very useful if he's 100% healthy.
-
Re: Titsworth:
-
I had brought it up elsewhere, earlier, but the way I see it is that the Cubs have a lot of names who *could* comeback, but how they'll be back, and where they'll be back is up for debate. Between Cabrera, Brown, Steele, you probably hope one is in the rotation, one is in the pen in September, and if you get all three in any capacity, it's a major win. Between Palencia and Maton, you hope one of them gets back to being a mainstay at the end of a bullpen. Both have different questions as to whether or not they do. Between Peterson, Rea, Assad, and Taillon you probably need one to eat innings in the rotation, and one to be a long-man. Wiggins is a wildcard. Could end up anywhere. Rollison, Webb, and Ferguson look like bullpen keepers. You hope or or two of the Thielbar, Thornton, Pomeranz, Hollowell cast of arms can stabilize and force you to keep them. In the end, you're probably left needing: 1 playoff starter 1 reliever you put in the 7/8/9 mix immediately and keep him there. 1 reliever in the 6th inning mix that you buy fairly cheaply and if he ends up off a playoff roster, so be it.
-
There's a handful of Philly Bros who are just waiting with abated breath for this guy to get called up. And a shirsey with the name "Titsworth" that will be $20 and hanging at some sort of sketchy near-stadium vendor ready for those bros to buy.
-
His swing has been tilting upwards for a while. I do think he is getting back to a good place.
-
Rumors of Bregman's demise may have been overstated.
-
Meyers is probably my favorite pick. Not because he's the best, but I just love this kind of pick. Kid gets tossed off WVU for hard-to-understand circumstances (a program who has a history of doing this recently), but offers big stuff out of the bullpen. Cheap cost of entry in the 9th and has leverage upside.
-
Chase Meyer is interesting. I don't have the full story but it appears as though he was removed from the WVU program this spring.
-
See a report or two where he can run it to 98mph.
-
Looks like Williams sits mid 90's with a low-slot release. Was supposed to be a starter, got moved to the pen where he pitched much better. Definitely a reliever, but you can see a pathway to a middle innings guy.
-
Should have gone 1.1, of course.
-
Tryba is a cool little find. He's not going to close ever, but he's got a funky slot, good spin, decent enough velo for a lefty. You can see a reliver here.
-
Vandy commits are about the hardest to buy out of. So yeah, that's my guess.
