Jason Ross

Yeah that feels about where I'm at. If his forearm was the cause of the issue, you delete the slurve thing, hope the velo is back and he's a solid mid-pen addition. Velo is down and he walks in Mesa

Image courtesy of © Steven Bisig-Imagn Images The MLB Winter Meetings have come and gone with a general whimper for the Chicago Cubs, their only major-league transaction of the week being their recent signing of veteran left-handed reliever Hoby Milner on Thursday. They did, however, complete a minor-league deal signing Collin Snider, formerly of the Seattle Mariners. It's easy to have some cynicism when it comes to contracts like Sniders', especially due to the timing; the Orioles are signing Pete Alonso and the Cubs are throwing pasta at the wall on Collin Snider — the headline writes itself for the most part. But beyond the initial reaction of "who cares?", I think there is a genuinely interesting pitcher in Collin Snider, and one who could find his way into the Cubs' bullpen plans in 2026. First, it's probably important to point out that Snider isn't a particularly new name to those in the Cubs organization. While it's true the reliever has never been a Cub, he's worked with Tread Athletics and Tyler Zombro in the past (we'll come back to this later). So, while it's true that he's yet to wear the royal pinstripes, there's an air of familiarity for what he does well and how to work with him already. ZW5QeUFfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X0FRaFJBVmRRQXdRQVdsQUxWZ0FBQ1FBQUFGa0NWMWtBQndaUVVnWUhWd0FIQmdBRg==.mp4 Beyond just some familiar vibes, Snider has had major-league success in the past, specifically in 2024. Over 40 innings, the right-handed reliever was able to post a 1.94 ERA, 3.41 FIP, 3.52 xFIP and a sparkling 27.8 K%. He was unable to keep up the good times in 2025, though, struggling in just 25 innings with the M's, being unceremoniously designated for assignment mid-summer. Attempting to diagnose what went wrong is key to figuring out how to get him back to his best. The most obvious thing that went off the rails was Snider's fastball. One of the things he did so well in 2024 was couple a low-release point with solid velocity to surprise hitters by attacking them up in the zone. Only 26 pitchers in baseball had a lower release point on their fastball in 2024, which makes his usage of the fastball at the top of the zone a bit of an awkward look for hitters — it has a "rising" action (look at how Luis Robert Jr. swings right through his fastball in the video above). Last year, the velocity on the fastball waned, dropping two full mph, and his shape dropped as well; an issue for someone who throws this pitch one-third of the time. Based on FanGraphs' Stuff+ model, it fell from a pretty excellent 111 Stuff+ to a below-average 97 Stuff+. Getting this pitch back to peak velocity and shape is a key to unlocking the 2024 version of the pitcher. Snider also dabbled with splitting his sweeper into two distinct pitches last year; his traditional one with more horizontal movement, and another with more vertical movement, classified as a slurve. This was a pitch designed to play nicely with his cutter-fastball combination and create a little extra depth in his arsenal. While solid in theory, this pitch was kind of a mess all season — MLB hitters crushed the thing, to a tune of a .351 xwOBA and a slugging percentage well north of .500. After he was DFA'd, he entirely lost feel for the thing, so while his velocity may have been up half a MPH while in Tacoma, this pitch became a real problem for him: It became too close to his actual sweeper much of the time, making it hard to differentiate, while also getting too far away from his cutter and fastball to create a difficult decision point for the hitter. It really might behoove everyone to entirely scrap this thing and go back to the 2024 pitch mix. One of the issues that we can point to when it comes to velocity and shape is that the pitcher spent nearly two months on the shelf for a lower-arm issue. Snider is a supinator and a pretty extreme one at that; he engages his lower arm to create the motion and the shapes of his pitches. This causes stress in that area, meaning that it's both not surprising that he suffered an injury here, but also gives us a place to point as to what went wrong last season. A healthy forearm may fix much of what was ailing the righty all on it's own, meaning less outside intervention required. The vision for Snider is likely something akin to what Tyson Miller was for the Cubs in 2024 (who they also acquired from Seattle). Miller was a slider-fastball pitcher with a low arm slot who the team used, especially, against RHH. When both relievers are going well, they uses a high fastball to play off their slider/sweeper to great effect. To get there, the fastball velocity will have to get back to where it was, and Snider's likely going to scrap the slurve (it's just a bad pitch). These pitches interact with each other very well and create difficult decision points for hitters, but if one of them isn't working, then the others will falter on their own merits. Snider would play really well with Hoby Milner, who's devastating against LHH. While they both may fit in more as "specialists". they can thrive in those defined roles. Bigger picture, I think Collin Snider helps us understand the types of pitchers the Cubs are targeting. While we can't say every pitcher is going to have the exact same profile, there are a lot of things that we can glean from this. Namely, that low arm slot Snider uses to great effect (when healthy). Thus far, the Cubs have signed three pitchers for their 2026 bullpen: Phil Maton, Hoby Milner, and Collin Snider, all three of whom have extremely low arm slots. They use them differently; Maton kills you horizontally, Snider attacks you at the top of the zone and then changes your eye level with a sweeper, and Milner is just funky as hell. I don't think it's an accident that they all have this type of arm slot. Further driving the point home: The Cubs signed Matthew Boyd last year and lowered the arm slot of Colin Rea to great effect, Let's not make a mountain out of a molehill, though. Collin Snider is a dart throw and will likely be one of many the Cubs attempt this offseason as they look to rebuild their bullpen. Given their track record, we should probably give them some runway, but it's very possible that even after reuniting with Tread Athletics and Tyle Zombro, Snider just cannot get back to what he was in 2024. The hope here is that as he gets beyond the forearm issue that clearly hurt his feel last season, he can get back to making his unique profile work. With as many 40-man spots as the Cubs have, there's a real path for the right-hander to make the Cubs out of spring training if he can show he's gotten himself right. While I doubt he's as good as Brad Keller, who they really struck gold with last season, there's probably a good reason to believe that despite the MiLB nature of his deal, the Cubs can at least strike silver with Snider. What do you think of Collin Snider? Do you think the Cubs can extract as much value from him as they did with Tyson Miller? Let us know in the comment section below! View full article

I generally agree with this. That said, it does seem like the vanity of it has some pull in these situations. I don't really care that the Cubs don't use them, and think people upset at them are generally barking up the wrong tree, but I do wish the Cubs were maybe a little more willing to give into the vanity of it all, too.

I'd imagine that's probably the sticking point with the Cubs. There's so much red tape, back-books and hidden financials with the way MLB teams handle these things, that I suspect the reason the Cubs don't do deferred money is in how they handle these things internally. All we can really see is how the team has to handle their AAV for LT. Everything else is really hidden and I think teams, as much as humanly possible cook-the-books in a way to shift how they account for these things. For an owner who is as worried about "now profits" I think the Cubs find a way to account for these things in the most favorable of ways and I think deferred money would mess with that structure in some fashion.

Those are two different ideas. Deferring money lowers your total cost. A $1 today is worth more than a $1 next year because of inflation. Deferring money doesn't do anything except lower the real-world-value of the money. I fully believe the reason the Cubs don't defer money is not due to "long term contract" fear; the Cubs have signed Swanson to a 7-year contract, they offered Ohtani a market value 10+ deal. The sticking point was the deferrals on Ohtani for the Cubs - that would lower the total value of the contract. Look here; it's likely that the Cubs contract was for more actual, present day money than the Dodgers. Yet, they wouldn't defer money - so your argument holds zero water. I believe the reason the Cubs don't like deferred money is an accounting thing with Tom and the Cubs financials. I believe the reason the Cubs generally don't sign contracts that go 7+ years is because Jed Hoyer prefers to keep those contracts for specific types of players and would rather keep a nimble roster format, capable of rolling over. We can see the Cubs aren't completely scared of long deals though; they offered 7 to Swanson, 10 to Ohtani, and were reportedly in on Cease until it hit $200m (that'd have to have been some sort of a 6-or-7 year long offer in and of itself). We also have not seen the Cubs defer money on short term deals like the Dodgers have, for example, on Edwin Diaz or Teoscar Hernandez. If they were simply afraid of extending contracts or whatever, we'd have seen this at this point. Yet...not deferrals on short deals. So ultimately we have seen the Cubs offer long term deals. We have seen them refuse to use the deferral structure. In fact, while we have at least seen one 7 year contract, we have seen zero truly deferred contracts. The closest we get is the "mutual option - buy out" which pushes a $1m or so to the next year.

One of the things we can see now that we have bat tracking data available through Statcast is that bat-speed-bleed tends to begin with hitters around age 32 and then really hit a cliff around 35+. The benefit of power hitters is that generally they have more bat speed; meaning they can bleed more bat speed and still find power. You can also find homes for bat-first players at DH where as a glove-heavy player kind of needs to find a home. At 2b, you're already the general "low-man" defensively on the totem pole. Players transition off of shortstop to second, and not the other way around as they age, ya know?

That is literally not the discussion at hand. The Dodgers deferred money on a three-year contract to Edwin Diaz. The Cubs would not have offered that deferred money on a three-year deal like the Dodgers, I am sure. Three years is not a long term contract. You are moving the goal posts to some other random conversation - I'm confused as to why you are doing that. It does not have to do with the deferred money - deferred money can be used in long term deals but is not required to create a long term contract and as we have seen, is also used in short term deals as well. I disagree with your premise, but I'm not going to move the goalposts here and change the discussion.

The Chicago Cubs had 497 balls that were hit to second base in 2025. The Philadelphia Phillies had 490 balls hit to second base. I don't think that's much of a concern.

No I'm not. In fact, I don't even understand your argument. I'm talking literally deferred money. Not years. Not anything to do with years. You're either moving the goalposts of the conversation away from "The Cubs don't like deferred money" to something about long-term contracts (these are different ideas), misunderstanding the purpose of deferred money or something else, but frankly, I'm entirely unsure of what this conversation has turned into. What exactly does signing Dansby Swanson for some made up contract of 12 years, a contract no one in the league was offering have to do with this?

Ketel Marte signed a 7 year extension headed into 2025 into his age-31 year. He was coming off a 6 win year, but that was kind of an outlier season outside of his 2019 6-win-year. Marte is more bat-first and probably has more safety net as he ages into a DH, but Hoerner has more glove and a better floor to stay at 2b. The wrench here is "what's the financial landscape of MLB in 2027 and beyond?" but for our exercise, let's ignore that wrench and pretend it's just similar to now. So, Marte signed a 7/$116m deal - $16,5m AAV, and this is probably the basis for the Hoerner deal. A little less bat, a little younger. So I think 7 years and $18m-$20m AAV feels around "the right" space. Glove-heavy players (I.E. see Dansby Swanson) generally get a little less love on the market. And being a 2b, I don't think Swanson is a good comp. But ultimately, I think 7/$126 - 7/$140m is the range.

The Cubs have made it pretty clear they have been uninterested in deferred money. I would not expect that to change.

Well, yeah, because no one was going to sign Dansby Swanson until he was in his 40s. That isn't really an argument here.

They paid Dansby Swanson for 7 years, they have never used deferred money, so I'm not sure this has anything to do with that. Long contracts don't require deferred money, either. On top of that, the Cubs offered a ton of money to Shohei Ohtani and the sticking point was not years, but that Ohtani asked the Cubs to present a contract that included deferred money and they refused. We can be cynical and just say "they were just offering lip service and never had real interest" but that feels a conspiracy theory too far for me here; I think they were purely genuine on their offers. It was nearly half a billion, they just refused to structure the deal the way Ohtani wanted (deferred money). And while he probably still signs in LAD regardless, it was the Cubs who put their foot down on the contract before that ever could happen. My assumption on long contracts is that is more of a Jed Hoyer thing and not a deferred money thing - I think Jed prefers to be "nimble" and able to change his roster over every few years. He will only offer long term deals on very special occasions. Where as I feel the deferred money thing is a Tom aspect. For us, it results in both a lack of longer contracts and a lack of deferred money.

My best guess is that the Cubs prefer to be a "cash-in, cash-out" operation. They seem to be very focused on their year-to-year profits (remember, "biblical losses" in 2020, they also have been clear their other streams of revenue do not affect the Cub spending positively, though I think their overall loss in 2020 did effect it negatively) more-so than their franchise valuation. So even while that money may be worth less long-term, they want to avoid spending more money in a specific year down the road (the deferred money+that year's actual payroll), thus, would prefer to pay that cash out now to maintain an easy cash-in, cash-out flow. I don't have any proof of this, but just based on how they act, I just get the feeling this is what it is.

You can defer money, but it only changes the AAV in totality. So you can't really back load anything, it will remain the same yearly AAV. Beyond that, the Cubs seem to be steadfast in not offering deferred money.

You can't back load AAV (annual average value). It's an average. It's just years divided by total price. So they could give all the cash at the back end, but the AAV is the same for LT purposes.

All of this I agree with. It's a wonderful look at him and it made me even more set on my belief that this is kind of the guy to get. I'll admit a biaes on him to begin with, but Langin took anything I liked and amplified it. And did so 100x better than I could.

I wear my hats backwards because Ken Griffey Jr is the coolest human being to ever exist on a baseball field, I teach 7th and 8th grade history, and I think musicals are creepy, but I'm on a Napoleon kick (ADHD and Autism are two sides of the same coin and I got the ADHD version of neurospice) so I'll allow it. You're good man. Welcome. We are glad to have you man. Or at least I'm glad to have you. @Outshined_One was right on it; I'm a big softee. We need more people who care about the intricacies of baseball. It's a tough crowd here at times, but they're the best people. We all love baseball enough to post about it.

Bookmark this, because this directly shows the NPB to MLB correlation and pathway. It's a killer read for a dork. Same guy had a killer Twitter/x feed on Imanaga and his fastball threshold. Former Driveline guy who clearly has a passion for NPB pitching. He's becoming a favorite of mine. And listen, if Eno Saris is in on a guy, you can sign me up. Eno is a *dude*.

I have a leg up, I've known people here for, in some cases, 20 years. Don't let my join date fool you, I've been a regular on Cubs boards for a long time beyond here. It gives me a foundation. There was, however a time, in which I was kind of an annoying, self important, sarcastic jerk face. Just a recommendation from a new friend; tell us less about your education and intelligence and just be friendly. I want to like you. I think we all do, deep down. Relatability is key. I'll be the first to tell you how much I have left to learn now. Ive only just met you and seen you, whether you meant to or not, self-brag. Keep posting. We need more people talking ball.

Switching gears, here is a killer article from Chris Langin on Tatsuya Imai. It's in Japanese, but the page is easily translated. If you want an article that better explains why I'm so sold on this guy, this is the article. Link to article It's highly worthwhile. And I think you'll walk away as convinced as I am; this is the dude.

So the Steele thing was less about "what he's done" but that second sentence of his fastball. I don't really think we've seen that next evolution of what Zombro can do with Steele's fastball. He's been a reliable pop-up getter in bulk, but the idea was really the pitch style. Probably didn't make that clear enough - that's the real golden ticket I think. He's done decently well on getting popups in the past, and I think the Cubs will help get some more out of him with the way he throws that pitch. I also do think it's repeatable with, especially, the ride of fastballs. Fastballs that ride up, ride over barrels. We can think of this way: curveballs correlate to ground balls because of their downward motion. Fastballs that ride up over a barrel corelate with balls in the air. The Cubs had the third most ride on their fastballs last year. The Cubs definitely have a lot of cut (5th most horizontal movement on their fastball group). They also, by far and away, throw the most fastballs. So I'd say that the Cubs certainly use this to their advantage and yes, I do think it's repeatable, much like a ground ball pitcher is repeatable. Lastly, I don't think I've ever once said (and forgive me if I have, maybe I have and you'll show it to me) that the Cubs shouldn't get the best projected players. But if we're talking run prevention, and we're talking the Chicago Cubs, than I think we have to find ways to outkick the coverage when they can. The Cubs aren't going to put forth a budget where they're going to snap up every who's just the best - and especially this year with the rumored $50m they have. Part of that is going to be creating a symbiotic relationship to what they have; a ballpark that does not play nicely right now for hitters, a defense that deletes runs, and by finding any way to create outs that convert at a high rate; which includes that concept of popups. I don't think we'll waltz into the season as a team who projects as a top-5 run prevention team, but I think with a combination of everything, money spent on the right pitchers (and the bulk of that $50m or whatever), internal development on year 2 of Tyler Zombro's integration, and a symbiotic relationship between the other factors...that the Cubs can become that kind of team that prevents runs that outkick the FIP projections. I like FIP, but I think there's some real limitations within (batted balls I think matter more and more as I explore) and looking beyond FIP is the next frontier for our understanding of run prevention, specifically, in general. And to be clear, I'm not alone on the concerns with FIP based projection. I will admit I don't always agree with Jarrett Seidler, and I think he's, at his nicest "overly antagonistic"...but he also is pretty smart: https://bsky.app/profile/seidler.bsky.social/post/3m6it26uqrc2s I do think we are moving to a point where FIP based everything is probably getting a bit outdated. Which also goes back to my beliefs here. I'm not suggesting we entirely throw out pitcher fWAR or xFIP, it's still the best we have, but that we are probably missing swaths of understanding of pitching with FIP as our current foundation and that we should probably keep that in mind. Don't worry about offending me; we're talking baseball, we can disagree. I'd hate if all we did was agree - that's boring. And I think it makes both of us smarter. Iron sharpens iron, and by challenging each other, we dive deeper into the concept. Frankly, I've learned more already because of this conversation, so no offense has been taken at all, more of a "thank you for the challenge, I feel like I understand my point better now because you've forced me to dive deeper into it". And you can't offend me, I've taught middle school children for 15 years now. "Yo, Mr. Ross, your shoes look like bowling shoes" is the meanest thing anyone has ever said to me, and you can't top that. I bought new shoes that night.

I don't see a single Tim Robinson reference in here...I'd need to see more Tim Robinson.

There's a lot to respond here. I'm going to do my best to respond to the most I can. On the pop-up thing, I really think you're not understanding the pop-up thing and my argument here. I don't think the Cubs are only targeting pop-ups. if I haven't been clear there, than forgive me. So I'll say this as clearly as I can to ensure we don't have this misunderstanding as we go forward: I do not think the Chicago Cubs are only targeting pitchers who induce pop-ups. Instead, let me reframe my article/point and what I'm saying I think the Chicago Cubs (and especially Tyler Zombro) teach/target a style of pitching that helps result in more pop-ups. Pop-ups, are an under valued guaranteed out, and can further help in run prevention in a way we don't traditionally think of. The cut-ride fastball that is preferred under Tyler Zombro tends to result in more pop-ups. I don't think the Cubs signed Matthew Boyd, for example because he gets popups, but because he has a fastball shape the Cubs like to work within. I won't tell you why Zombro prefers this pitch, never met the guy! I will insinuate this; if I'm picking up whiffs of this, I think people far smarter than me are definitely picking up whiffs of this, and I think Zombro is way smarter than me! On the Justin Steele thing, I feel like you're doing me a disservice; I'm pretty clear here he's no where near Boyd in this - I pointed out he's useful in this area. It's true; he is. He gets a decent amount of pop-ups, he wasn't there last year, and he'll likely help. I think Zombro will continue to develop his pitches and he might even be a bit better! I think you're cherry picking that one a little in an...unfair manner. In terms of Jameson Taillon, I think he's a great example of what Zombro does. Here, look at the fastball both in horizontal movement but also usage rate. His fastball has more horizontal break in 2025 over 2024. And well before he ever came to the Cubs in general, he was far less of a cutter on the fastball (not a cutter, but a cut-ride-fastball). We can visualize his jump in general with the Cubs here (I don't think Zombro is the only person who likes this pitch. The Red Sox like horizontal movement too, and that's Breslow. I think it's been happening for a while, but Zombro likes more of the flat arm angle). It feels like Zombro is an evolution from what we saw under Craig Breslow. I don't think it's a plan to outsmart the market - I think it's baked into what the Cubs like. But I also think it's a cheap way to add some guaranteed outs, and while I don't think the Cubs are like, Moneyball'ing the world on poip-ups, as I said, if I'm catching on to this stuff, I 100% don't think it's gone past the Cubs and Zombro. I think they recognize that by cutting fastballs more, you can create better batted ball data in your favor. One way that occurs naturally, is in increased IFFB. By looking at pitchers who use cut-ride fastballs, and thus, pitchers who get more IFFB's, we can also better look at profiles of pitchers the Cubs may target. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk (I recognize this is a lot).