Jason Ross

Well, bad luck on Counsell's end. Yeah it was a rough pitch.

Ahh! Well Braiser vs LHP - 29.6% K%, 3.7 BB%, 2.68 xFIP He's crushed lefties too.

Because the top of the Orioles lineup is super lefty heavy. Henderson has a 67 wRC+ against lefties and Thielbar crushes lefties this year to the tune of a .147 wOBA. It's bad luck but it wasn't a bad call. In fact, it was easily the right call. It was just the wrong outcome, which can happen even when you make the right call. Henderson is an MLB hitter and a good one at that. Thielbar is a human. Sometimes the 1 of 100 happens.

Fun inning from Kittredge

You know what...give me a day or so. Because I'm going to be honest and say without a super deep dive...I don't know. Probably something small mechanical however, if I were to guess. His approach and eye is fine so it's not pitch recognition errors. I'll look into it tonight and see if I can find a thing.

You do. Kelly is good. But I'm not sure he's so good I'd have matched the Rangers there. I think there are more than one way to skin a cat. Probably would have gone the BP of Doom route. Bednar, Bird, types.

I'd have passed on Kelly at the package. But I do agree that he needed to pivot somewhere. I'd have gone after those sub-Duran BP arms myself. Just build a badass BP.

Not enough to off set it. Let's just do this, and say you can either sign Kyle Tucker at a $50m (AAV) or sign Michael King ($25m), Bo Bichette ($25m). Kyle Tucker is currently on pace for about 6 fWAR on the year, Michael King for 2.5 and Bo Bichette 3.6, They're about equal. But here's the rub...Kyle Tucker is just one roster spot, meaning if you have another roster spot that is capable of producing 2-3 fWAR you're way ahead the Tucker route. It's not close when all things are factored in. One player will aways beat two.

Maybe. The Rangers didn't get Kelly for free and there are varying views on their package. Some are pretty high on what Arizona got back, and the equivalent from the Cubs may have been quite painful.

Over his career he has been worse against RHP. In 2023 he was much worse, last year split neutral in that he was bad against everyone and this year in SSS worse against RHP.

To temper your fears, I think it's a good thing to remember that 4 months ago, Ryan Gallagher wasn't even on our radar as a thing. He was a mid-round pick coming out of UC-Santa Barbara. Over the last few years the Cubs have had similar pop-up prospects like Sam Armstrong (ironically...also in this trade) and Brody McCullough, both who have fallen off (for various reasons) since. They have also gotten pretty good production from other mid-round pitchers such as Brandon Birdsell and Will Sanders. Gallagher is a cool story and gone from "no one knew him" to "looks like might be a thing" however, the Cubs have shown an ability over the last half decade of consistently finding interesting players beyond the top two or three picks, and we should expect that the 2025 draft will probably have another Ryan Gallagher (I'll go ahead and say Dominic Reid, third round pick is next year's guy). I'm not jazzed we traded him, but I think if we consistently convert 6th round picks into any version of MLB talent (even rentals) that the Cubs will win that conversation far more than they will lose it.

I had been, then saw his horrible July. I think the bad start and July kind of scared teams into thinking he's dead.

I don't think I'm over valuing Cubs prospects when I say that the Cubs should overpay to get what they want. If anything, I think that shows I'm probably valuing them less than fans who defend the process of keeping the prospects, wouldn't you think? Kevin Alcantara probably can show little in 2026 that is going to make anyone more confident about him. He will be 24, and repeating Triple-A for a third time. Any positives from next season will be met with heavy scrutiny; his age is no longer working his direction nor will his data. Sure, if he makes more contact on breaking balls that's not a bad thing, but is it just because he's 24 and doing it for a third time? He's kind of MLB ready by opening day - you either see what he is or isn't, but there probably isn't a good route to that with he and Caissie. Jonathon Long is also likely ready. His batted ball data is extremely good. I've got questions on power potential (as a 1b/Dh at 18-25 home runs the landing strip is narrow) but that's not going to be answered in Iowa by next year. There is no path for him currently that isn't as a short side platoon and his splits skew towards him being better against RHP. And while none of these guys on the bench is a complete waste, it's a misuse of funds. You aren't saving much financially by paying Jonathon Long as your backup 1b - you're saving $3-$5m; it's an easy price to both find and pay bench players. Rookies you feel have starting potential should be starting, as they are saving you more money and thus are a better value prop. By instead taking your prospects and flipping them for useable assets and then just signing a utility player, you make your team better - the Cubs cannot sign an impact SP for $5m. We cannot fear the future so much so that we ignore these holes just because we're afraid we might lose a good player. Lastly, these prospects outside of Alcantara don't lend themselves to a modern MLB bench as is. With the modern DH, you have effectively four bench places for the entire team. The Cubs have two catchers, so what versatility is Ballesteros bringing on the bench? He's LHH and hasn't hit lefties well, so he can't platoon with Busch. He can't play anything other than C/1b, and any one can DH and defensively at catcher is well, well beyond Amaya and Kelly currently. Long is effectively a 1b/Dh who hits RHP better as well - he might moonlight 5-7 games at 3b, but that's it. This cannot be an effective MLB bench. It leads the Cubs to a very difficult position. These prospects are too similar in age, ETA and lack versatility among themselves. They don't fit the current roster nor will they fit it better in 2026. Prospects should be seen as assets first and foremost, and some of those assets need to be rearranged in a better way. The Cubs can't really keep both Caissie and Alcantara. They can't really keep both Long and Ballesteros. Two of these four make sense, all four do not. 2025 will suffer for the Cubs keeping assets that will be unlikely to add much. 2026 will suffer similarly if they further refuse to move off of them. By 2027, the Cubs system will look very different; they have drafted three new OF'ers, they will see more popup prospects as well. What they lose, they should feel confident in recreating shortly.

My guess is that the Cubs plan for Castro is that he will play most every day against LHP, but that it will be a bit of a chess piece they can move around. He can basically play everywhere except 1b and C so I would expect they will be creative with him. Sometimes for Pete, sometimes for Happ, maybe sometimes for Shaw, and if they want to get crazy, he could probably bump Ian Happ or Kyle Tucker to 1b and have him be the Busch guy. I also think he'll play a bunch against RHP doing the same taking some time at LF, 2b, 3b and SS. I don't think he's a great defender at any one spot, but you can mix and match. Imanaga is a good day to get Willi Castro on the infield, Cade Horton is a good day to get him in the OF, for example. But I think he'll play more than any bench hitter we have had all season.

Ah, bummer no Castro. Wonder if they just couldn't get him in until late-last-night based on the time they traded for him. It was a later moment trade, so getting Castro who was presumably in Cleveland at 6pm est to Chicago was probably a bit of a night for him. Coupled with an afternoon game...

Just to add to the last point, the Cubs freshly drafted a college OF'er in the first round, a presumably quick moving college-OF'er in the 2nd round, and had their 2nd highest bonus to a prep-OF'er in the 6th round. It's almost inarguable that the Cubs spent the biggest assets of the 2025 draft class backfilling the OF stock.

Controllable talent is not "immediate jazz", and I cannot understand how you could possibly read the 1,700+ words I wrote in the article, or the subsequent 500 in responses here and come to that conclusion. Prospects are assets, you use some for your roster, and you trade others. Let's do a quick exercise and assume the Cubs don't resign Kyle Tucker for a moment. I'll even go as far as to pretend that it's a Tucker choice and not a Ricketts issue (which, I'll be honest, I don't believe would be the case). This opens up RF or DH, depending on what you do with Suzuki. Where exactly will the Cubs play the following players 1. Owen Caissie - who will at that stage have 1,100 PA's in Triple-A 2. Kevin Alcantara - who will be on his last option year and have 600+ PA's in Triple-A 3. Jonathon Long - who will have 600+ PA's at Triple-A 4. Moises Ballesteros - who will have 800 PA's at Triple-A I am curious as to where you think all four will go at this stage. That is four people for one spot. Now, you might say "put some on the bench!" which, okay, but that's a weird usage of assets. Bench players aren't difficult to find, and are relatively cheap. If you view these players as starting level MLB players (remember, you don't want to trade them for "immediate jazz") then playing them for 200 PA's next year is wasting what they could be. If instead you view them as backups, well then, might as well trade them for immediate jazz, huh? None will improve their stock in Triple-A or have much more to do there, so placing them back in Iowa is not a particularly great idea, either. Either they perform and you go "yeah but he's at 800+ PA's" or they don't and it's red-flag city. Do you expect the trade value of the controlled SP market to come down? This is the same market the Cubs waded into this offseason by engaging with the White Sox, the Mariners and the Marlins and could not find an acceptable price then, with prices being presumably too large. How much more value do you expect Owen Caissie or Kevin Alcantara will have? What if, let's say, Caissie has a mediocre month, or one where he strikes out a bunch again? Then what? This is the issue with passing on the market once again. The Cubs have consistently kicked the can down the road, and by this offseason will start to get into a point of diminishing returns as is. So, if not yesterday, when do the Cubs address their needs?

Man, between this Scrubs analogy and @matto1233's turn of phase about pizza delivery, I feel like my Jed Hoyer analogy game need's work.

Based on all of the trades the Cubs make, and almost all of the signings, one thing I trust is that Jed Hoyer is very good at accurately placing value on baseball players. I have rarely hated any move he's made and even the bad ones are just a few million dollars here, or a sightly prospect quibble there. I trust he's got a pretty fair value on Caissie. I just suspect that Jed Hoyer is very inflexible in how he values things to go beyond what he feels is fair. In similar molds, I suspect Andrew Friedman, and AJ Preller value players well, but they have more (and in the case of Preller, maybe a bit too much) of an ability to know when the right time to go a bit beyond their value to simply ensure they get their guy. Jed has always felt like he's just unflinching in that aspect. Which leads to the Cubs never being hosed in a trade, but probably why the last two years at the deadline, the Cubs were unable to swing a needle shifting move.

I'll give them a C-, but for the purposes of our discussion, I'll go with a C on the poll. On one hand, the team is better than it was on Wednesday when they left Milwaukee. The bench took a big leap forward with Willi Castro, the bullpen is deeper with Rogers and Kittredge and Mike Soroka has good underlying data that the Cubs should be able to exploit. The Cubs didn't acquire any of those players for anything above an overpay, and that's all a nice outcome. The Brewers, as well, didn't really vastly improve their chances, so you can probably say the Cubs added move value. But I cannot help but feel the same issue that has plagued the Cubs for the last two years has cropped up once again - they are one impact player short. They did not get the impact SP they needed, and they were unable to pivot and grab one of the impact relievers that would have helped create a BP of doom. I understand some of the prices were very high, but that's part of the job of Hoyer - to determine which high prices are acceptable, to know his system and to know when to pivot. As well, they have once again punted their MiLB culling down the road and are getting to a point when you're wondering what the plan is. They can't have five people start in the outfield, and they can't realistically put Alcantara and Caissie back in Iowa. What are they going to do with Long? And they can't think the price of controllable SP's is going down by much come this winter - they deemed them too expensive last winter as well. So all of that leads me to a C-. It's better than average, they're better today, but it's just an organization who consistently feels like they cannot bring themselves to make the killing blow by adding that one more piece. It's always too expensive; the contract is too rich, they want too many years, the other team wants one too many prospects. You can't be too afraid to add years, money and prospects in a trade, at some point you have to pick your poison, but the Cubs seem unable to decide which one of these as an organization they will do.

So a few things: You're right, the Cubs might not be a single individual player away from the WS like in 2016, but nothing I advocated here would suggest I wanted the Cubs to overpay for a rental. MacKenzie Gore, Joe Ryan, Edward Cabrera would have been here beyond 2026 - so it's just as much about helping today, but the next year and the the next year. I don't think the Cubs should have jumped for eight starts of Shane Bieber and thrown Jaxon Wiggins in the fire because you're right, we aren't one specific player away right now (though I do think a top-3 SP makes this team far more formidable in the playoffs in the interim and team who you could see ending up in some pretty advantageous spots). Secondly, I refrained from specifics because I was not in the room. Would I have traded a few of Caissie, Wiggins, Rojas and Ballesteros for those arms? You bet your ass I would, Jeff. I'm the prospect guy and I would! Here's the thing; while all of those prospects have cool upsides, we way overrate how likely they are to get there. Most of those names will fall far short of whatever you've convinced yourself they might be. Prospects fail more often than they hit their 80% outcomes and most of those players will probably be "fine" as regulars. Part of the job of the team is to identify those players to the best of their ability who have the best shot at being good, but also which ones won't. Here's how irrational I would have gotten - if it meant keeping multiple top prospects, for the right pitcher, I would have considered using Cade Horton in a trade. I know, I know, it's sacrilege, but hear me out. First, you may not know this, but I was on a pretty small island in 2022 of very happy people with the Horton selection while many believed the Cubs had simply become enamored with him due to a good two starts in CWS - I like him a lot. But especially in an event where the Cubs were likely to shut him down in 2025 or move him to the pen, by trading Horton for, say Gore (as the lead piece) you lose little innings and value immediately. 2026 would see the return of Justin Steele, and you'd have Gore, Steele, Boyd, and Shota. Now, I'll preface this by this trade would have had to have kept Wiggins, and internally you'd had to believe Wiggins was 2026 ready, but then mid-year you have Wiggins do the 2025-Hortont thing. Your rotation is fine. Your depth is still there with Assad, Birdsell, Sanders and Wicks. It's not a deathknell. Would that have sucked a little? You bet'cha! And it's just one idea, though I think it highlights my point here - if you want to make things happen, it hurts almost every time. The Dodgers, the Yankees, the Padres and the Phillies do things every year that hurt, but they are also consistently improving themselves. The Padres have traded away tons of talent and survive. I don't need the Cubs to go full Preller, but a little Preller would probably be good for Jed. The Cubs improve but rarely by magnitudes. I don't need the Cubs to trade every prospect - but they do need to get over this idea that the value has to always be 1:1. Sometimes you trade too much, but as they say "a bird in the hand..." We have been waiting for a controlled SP since last deadline, and yet, nothing. Thus far, there have been no two birds in the bush.

I do think that probably played a role in the Cubs not grabbing an Adrian Hauser type. But I would guess that his pursuit of the biggest fish would have played out in a similar way regardless of those two. Neither Taillon or Assad are good enough they belong written into a playoff rotation in permanent marker, and while I think both are useful MLB arms, neither are overly impactful.

While I can't be 100% sure, as I am not Jed, I am very confident that his extension has no change in his philosophy. I know people like to theorize that the Kyle Tucker trade was made to save his job, but I think the trade was fair value heading in both ways (yes, even with out an extension now, then or in the future, that's just the price of admission). Why do I say that? Look at the rest of the offseason. Did he make any other big play? Not really; he went with Boyd and Rea for the rotation, he wouldn't get into a bidding war with the Dodgers for Scott, and he held out all offseason hoping Bregman would be left with out a dance partner and could sign for a short term contract. It's all straight out of the Jed Hoyer playbook. I'm not even bashing any of those decisions here, generally speaking, in a vacuum, every thing he does is pretty good and logical. But where I eventually have gotten with him is that I wish just every so often, something that he did was just a little more illogical. I'm not asking him to be stupid, but I would like to see him be just a bit more of a cowboy at times where he's willing to overpay to acquire the guy he really wants. Sometimes the best moves you make are the ones you don't, but there comes a point where you can't just not make all of the moves, too. I am a big believer that regardless of his job status, the man does things in his way. He has his values, his principles, and that's just that.

The rotation might be decent the rest of the regular season, but the playoff rotation is an issue. With a great BP, you can survive that. The Cubs improved neither enough. Bednar, Bird...there were lots of relievers the Cubs could have and should have pivoted to. And I am still not entirely convinced one of the SPs couldn't have been had regardless of how Jed thinks. I know none of the controllable SPs were traded, but there is an aspect of chicken/egg we forget here - there really weren't many teams who had need/means to acquire them and the Cubs were among the very few. That there were non-traded is a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy when the Cubs didnt pry one, as well. Regardless, I am not sure Jed will ever find the prices better. They were too high last deadline, they were too high during the winter, and they were too high yesterday again. They won't magically be free in the offseason, either. At some point he needs to get real with himself and understand this is the world you live in. A bird in the hand...

Had they gotten Bieber, they probably would have given up a Jaxon Wiggins type. The prospect who went from Toronto was ranked #80 on FG's big board and has been getting top-100 love and helium across the industry. I do agree the reaction would be different, but not a "good" different. And while I am critical of the team's inability or inaction to either create a significantly better pen or rotation (while I think they're better, they're still one impact pitcher away, and one that isn't coming), I don't think the solution was to trade a Wiggins type for what will likely be around eight or nine starts of Shane Bieber., either.