Jason Ross

I haven't been able to be around as much; state testing, some real-life things (nothing bad!) and others have had a bit of a hold on me recently. But it's nice to see we are in the "complain about Ian Happ" part of the season and that the more things change the more they stay the same.

Brethowr was my pet project last year and Southisene is mine this year. There is nearly a foot difference in the two's heights. I love baseball, man.

Jaxon WigginsJefferson RojasKevin AlcantaraJonathon LongEthan ConradKane KepleyPedro RamirezJosiah HartshornJames TriantosCole MathisAngel CepedaJuan CabadaBrooks CapleOwen AyersDominick ReidJostin FlorentinoKaleb WingTy SouthiseneBrandon BirdsellWill Sanders

Jaxon WigginsJefferson RojasKevin AlcantaraJonathon LongEthan ConradKane KepleyPedro RamirezJosiah HartshornJames TriantosCole MathisAngel CepedaJuan CabadaBrooks CapleOwen AyersDominick ReidJostin FlorentinoKaleb WingTy SouthiseneBrandon BirdsellWill Sanders

Breggy.

The thing I am most excited about for this draft is the influence that Tyler Zombro will have on the process. Generally speaking, I think Kantrovitz and team have done a pretty good job in the draft. They have found value in the first almost every year (Jordan Wicks may be the one miss I blame them for? The 2020 draft feels like a harsh thing to pin on any org with the limited funds and scouting and sample size. And Wicks isn't dead yet, but he seems to be teetering into "didn't work out" territory more and more - and there were moments I saw what they did, so I'm not immune here). They have done well to identify value outside of the first round as well, even deep-cut picks. At the same time, I'm interested to see what Zombro adds to the draft room and what kinds of arms he's interested in. And I think that's going to be the biggest wrench in "what do the Cubs do?" this year. They clearly need a haul of pitching to infuse into the system, so right off the bat we should get a good idea there. How the Cubs picked in the past will change at least a bit and how much of that changes will be something I'm going to be following.

I love Hartshorn.

You can add a third category of "entirely insufferable" for very specific players, but Koppech has none of that from what I can tell.

The same exact reasons when you asked the same question a week or so ago. Either: 1. His demands are far too high 2. He's hurt and still rehabbing Teams don't just ignore players whole sale for no reason. Especially with the injury epidemic in pitchers right now. Considering he's a RP and his demands aren't likely to be insane for that season, it's almost assuredly number 2.

Edwards and Chafin suck. That's the issue. Edwards fastball sits at 92.5mph. He isn't showing any wildly different offering, He hasn't pitched more than a few MLB innings each year since 2023. David Sterns is a smart mind. I know he had some whiffs in 6 IP this year, but he looks like he probably sucks over any extended time. He was also awful in Triple-A over 17 IP this year; a 5.29 ERA, an 18.1 K% and a 15.9 BB%. Andrew Chafin got released from the Reds who have the third worst fWAR of any bullpen and the worst xFIP. He had a 5.06 xFIP In Triple-A, had walked six in nine innings and only eight strikeouts. He was good in 33 IP last year but his average FB dipped below 90mph. I'm not sure that was sustainable. These two are toast. They're former Cubs who were good with the team a handful of years ago, but these guys are done. The team is likely more familiar with guys like Trent Thorton who came through Tread Athletics over the offseason than they are with Andrew Chafin who hasn't been with the organization for 3+ years. And Tyler Ferguson has been a Stuff+ guy in the past and throws 95mph. I doubt he's very good or anything, but he's got something at least. I just think the other two are nostalgia.

So, to be fair, I never said I was out on Mathis. What I said was "I'm not super enthralled by the super-passivity" and then explained why, then showed when asked where there was any reason to believe he was super passive. There's a lot of ground between "out" and "I think the best version of this player is elsewhere" and Mathis' data is probably hiding that issue to a decent degree. It's that I think as he graduates level over level that this passivity will be more easily exploited but at High-A I don't trust pitchers that much to really exploit these things consistently. For example, I'm going to go back to the hitter I also brought up, which is Pete Crow-Armstrong. At South Bend and Knoxville, Pete kept his K% under 25%: that's a good thing. By Double-A he kept the K% the same, doubled his walk rate, and kept an ISO of .238. But what was hiding under that the entire time was the hyper aggressivity. Even last year Pete kept an 82% zone-contact rate; But eventually, pitchers get better and take your hyper aggressive ability and help you get yourself out. Cole Mathis isn't hyper aggressive. And you're right, today, the K% seems to be the one thing suffering. But the passivity he shows is something I very much think will be something that better pitchers (and pitchers more capable than High-A arms) will use against him. And I think that's a point of polish for Cole Mathis, especially considering he isn't likely to make his mark on an MLB team in very many (if any) ways outside of the bat. And clearly I'm not the only who who thinks that, as Eric Logenhagen pointed out the same thing. While I won't put words in your mouth, you may be of the "well it's not a problem today so I'm not sure I'm going to worry about it" mantra, and that's fine, it may be a concern about nothing. But the counter to that is being pro-active and finding a polish and working on it before it becomes a problem, as well. And I'm going to fit into the latter ground myself. It's also fair to point out the argument against that to that is "maybe you fix what isn't broke" (my argument to that would be he's running elevated K% at both South Bend and Myrtle this year and while it's just May 8th, I do believe that's an early warning sign - but I'll refrain from having a fictional back and forth here). Honestly, I've been fairly high on Mathis dating back to the draft day. I like Mathis today. I think I can both like Mathis and point out a point of polish going forward for him. As we see today, when Pete Crow-Armstrong is the best version of himself at the plate, his hyper aggressive attitude seems to melt away for a bit and the guy we all wish he could be every day comes out. Much like that, I'd like to see Mathis trend a bit more in the other way; not because right now he's necessarily struggling at South Bend but as I feared with Pete in the same way; the concern is that better pitchers will be able to exploit this more often. And better pitchers did eventually exploit Pete Crow-Armstrong's hyper aggressivity and the solution has been "be more controlled". While different, I think Mathis probably needs to come back to the goldilocks zone to find the best version of himself at higher level, too. As it pertains to Kepley; I've mostly stayed out of Kepley Mania. I'd rank him higher than Cole simply because I think his path to MLB relevancy is easier with position. defense and speed in his favor, but I'm lower on him than many on the board. Not really all that important but did want to address that point that I think was more "to the world" and less "to me" but wanted to be as clear as possible, too.

From Fangraphs' Eric Logengagen's recent report on Mathis: Source

I have seen it. Once. It was during an adult league game. Here's the thing: if you're doing the things I have seen in an adult league game, but you're an MLB player? That's...uh....that's not good.

This is about where I am at. I'm not super enthralled by the super passivity; there's a middle ground between being hyper aggressive and uber passive. Swinging at pitcher's strikes isn't good just like watching good pitches in hopes of the perfect pitch is bad. We can see this just looking at the difference between count leverage at the MLB level. When hitters get behind, especially with two strike counts, bad things happen far more than good ones. It's something I think you can learn, but I'd like to see him be a little less passive in the same ways I had hoped for years Pete Crow-Armstrong would be a little less aggressive. When Pete lets the game come to him he's just a better hitter and I think if Cole can take the bull by the horns a bit more, we'll see the best version of himself.

Hollowell.

I wouldn't hate the idea of a bad pitcher. I think with Cabrera, Rea, Shota, Assad, Brown, Taillon that they probably are fine in the interim in terms of "guys who you could start" as long as you're confident Thielbar and Harvey are very close to returning to fill out the BP. But someone like the aforementioned Bailey Ober should be effectively free and if you wanted to add him, as another length option in the bullpen, I'm cool with that, too. With the way the rotation has gone, it's probably safe to assume one with catch ebola, another will be in a freak freight train accident and a third will vanish off the face of the Earth right now and having an extra human who you could coax through 4 innings wouldn't be the worst thing.

No. With all Cubs MiLB injuries, expect the team to be less than forthcoming. As with Conrad, and others, expect them to just be randomly added to an ACL roster one day, or pop back up in pictures. Before then, the Cubs won't really be very open. From a fan perspective, it'd be cool to know more, but the Cubs don't really gain a lot by being super open with MiLB injury timelines.

Wicks has been bad this year when he's been healthy. Wiggins hasn't pitched in a month in a game. Neither are options nor will be for a bit.

Wild. Every pitcher keeps dying and the Cubs can't lose.

I've seen enough. Martin goes before Thorton.

I do not like Corban Martin

The Mets aren't going to spend what they did and sell in May.

Even if we want to choose his xERA, an xERA of 4.20 is better than league average for SPs. Your original quote was that we would have to "pray for offense" outside of Shota and yet even by that metric, Cabrera has been a tick above league average. He's above league average in FIP (4.02 compared to 4.18) and xFIP (3.85 compared to 4.12) as well. There's plenty of space between "slightly better than league average" in most spots and "pray for offense", no? He hasn't been a bang-on ace, but you're acting like the Cubs aren't getting production from him or that the only way they'll win with him is if you have to pray for runs. And there are some real signs of positivity there too. All of a sudden the ground ball rate is jumping up and the K's are too over his last 3 starts. He's done enough to be trusted. Just not enough to be trusted as like "bang on ace" status.

Cabrera has a 3.27 ERA and a 3.85 xFIP. That's an xFIP around Joe Ryan, George Kirby and Freddy Peralta. He's been pretty good and the K% is trending in the right direction.

I'd love the Cubs to get someone good, but the names the Cubs can probably get now are the names that Jon Morosi mentioned: Bailey Ober. And the best thing I can say about Bailey Ober and his 88mph fastball is that I guess he has no torn meniscuses right now. It's almost assuredly a "wait until teams actually want to sell" situation for a bit.