Jason Ross

With the amount of pieces needed in the rotation and the offense (LF, RF, DH), I've come to an uneasy conclusion that the bullpen is probably the least of the concerns and that any improvement will have to be mostly internal. Palencia, Webb, Zeferjahn and Rollison give you a decent foundation. Brown, Cabrera, Maton, Martin, Assad, Rea all give you some real questions but possible fillers with upside (though it differs from pitcher to pitcher what that upside is). Add in some waiver/DFA fodder and you're probably set. That's going to require some development from the team and some stabilization on these guys, as well. And that's the uneasy part. But this is probably a real "make it or break it" season for the Cubs' FO and developmental team and if they can't take "proof of concept" and turn it into "actual results" this year, it's probably time to consider a new direction regardless.

Can you explain how you have come to this conclusion? I'd be curious as to why you think that.

I realize that makes him seem less useful, but for most players, if we take 10-15 game samples out, we can do these kinds of things. I'll just pick someone like Brayan Rocchio of the Cleveland Guardians. He had a pretty solid year: around a league average hitter, solid fielder, ~3.5 wins. In his best 8 games: 1-3, HR, RBI 2-5, HR, 2 RBI 2-4, 2 HR, 5 RBI 3-4, 2 HR, 3 RBI 2-4, HR, 2 RBI 2-4, 2b, 2 RBI 2-4, 1 HR, 2 RBI 4-4, 2B, 2 R In those eight random games, he hit 8 of his 18 home runs and hit .562. This is what happens when we split samples up from "the best a guy does" and "the worst a guy does". Dansby Swanson is much more than eight game samples. He's a pretty elite defender. And realistically, his trade value probably isn't particularly good. There's almost no scenario in which the Cubs are coming out a winner where they move Swanson, I feel. His trade value is likely less to the Cubs than his actual on field value.

50% of his offensive production did not come in eight games this year. Can you provide that statistic? My guess is that it's something that brings his offensive year down to one, very specific pedantic number and it came across eight games.

I think that's fair. I'm probably on Team Zombro, but not because of anything other than I think the Cubs probably owe it to themselves to see that through. They promoted him last year to keep other organizations away, they gave him a lot of power in the draft. I think they've invested enough that it's probably worth it to see if it works and if that requires a move to "bring in his guy" at the MLB level, I can get behind it. Will it work? I think that the jury is a long way's out there. No idea!

I would guess if the team moved on from Hottovy it would not be because of the home run rates or anything. I do trust the organization to not be short sighted like that. Nor do I think it's because the team thinks Hottovy is a bad pitching coach. I'd guess it'd be a combination of something like: 1. Matt had mentioned to me a bit ago in a comment on one of this articles, that while Hottovy and Zombro have some overlapping ideals in how they view pitching, it's an imperfect matchup. With how much authority he was seemingly given with the draft, him having a voice in terms of who implements the pitching at the MLB level feels very plausible. We can certainly debate whether that's a good or a bad thing (too many cooks in the kitchen vs having differing perspectives to attack the same problem from more than one angle, as an example) but if they differ enough, it could be a reason. 2. I do think there's a point when you've had the same voices in the same positions for long enough that change can be a good thing. Hottovy has been around the organization for a very long time; dating back to 2014. He's been the team's pitching coach since 2018. Theo Epstein believed in the ten-year rule, and whether it's ten years or whatever, I do think there are positives for adding new voices; specifically outside of the organization. With Hoyer not going anywhere, the team already bringing in Zombro two years ago...the chances to new voices in positions high enough to make those changes are pretty slim. The GM position that Carter Hawkins occupies could open up as well if a team is interested and I know there are definitely some very bright people who aren't very sold on his voice in the room, so that could be another place. I'm not even advocating for it. There was some real bad luck and bad variance this year to which I have a hard time blaming anyone. I can see where some things didn't work well beyond the bad luck this year and I think a lot of people share some blame for that too; Jed, Zomrbo and Hottovy in some fashion, though without being in the room, I can't even begin to decide who's feet that blame lays upon. Between those three, the easiest change is Hottovy so I can see the organization making that change. Will it happen? No clue. Matt certainly seems to think it will, but if that's opinion or source, your guess is once again as good as mine. I have no issue with him returning. I can fully understand the arguments for why you might make a change, too. But I do agree that the answer can't be "because of the home runs" (thankfully, as I said, I think the organization will have better reasoning than that, too).

I think some of this is on coaching, sure. Whether it's a disconnect between Hottovy and Zombro, or what, I'm unsure. I do think some changes will be made on that front (not Zombro, too new). I think we can be skeptical of whether or not Zombro is the truth, but it's also too quick to pull that plug. He's only just had his first influential draft...needs time to sort that one out. As well, some of the bad last year probably wasn't coaching. Cabrera was a bummer all year, but Holmes came over post-IL stint and how much of that was "Cubs changes not working" and "Clay Holmes just wasn't right" is questionable, as an example. Ryan Zeferjahn struggled when he came over but stabilized much more by the end: why? We could blame coaching, could blame the changes, but he was always a live arm who had control issues, too. But it isn't like it's been all bad, either. Ben Brown made big jumps this year. Cade Horton made big jumps last year. Jaxon Wiggins made big jumps last year. They squeezed another year out of Taillon. There are some good things...it's just not been nearly enough (spending, development or picking the right guys). So I don't disagree; they should probably fix something on the coaching end. But they also need to put real improvement into the players. The Cubs have no rotation to speak of right now; and no real way to fill it internally. So it'll have to be a combination.

Trevor Rogers feels like a decent option. If there's a hesitation I'd have it's that he's another guy who has fine stuff, and fine whiff% but isn't generating a lot of strikeouts and isn't overpowering. The Orioles aren't the best team on the planet when it comes to pitching, so maybe you think "yeah there's juice to squeeze there" but it isn't like the Cubs have proven that's a specific talent they have had year-over-year. The positives are seemingly that the velocity ticked up and stayed up (was down in April and was his highest at the end of the year), he's younger and the injury history is solid. He limited home runs really well but gave up a good amount of flyballs last year, so that's a little iffy. Flip side he's been really good for 260 IP, so maybe that just straight up doesn't matter. Not shitting on him by any means, but I'm not entirely sure he's my favorite-favorite guy out there. But I very well could be underselling him on a first glance.

I think the same things can be said for most of the big money teams. Like the Yankees are currently losing to the Rays in the same fashion the Cubs are being beaten by the Brewers, the Red Sox won just as many playoff games this year as the Cubs..The Dodgers are their own thing, but remember, their owner is in massive legal trouble; who knows where that goes... Not trying to cope here but I think we're being far too negative about the Chicago Cubs. We have a player who just had a top-30 season all time...he's 24 and signed long term. We had a second player in the top-10 of positional fWAR. Literally the best offensive unit in baseball last year despite losing Tucker (more losses incoming but also more additions would be incoming to, so how good 2027 is is "wait and see"). It's Chicago, not some podunk city in Kansas...I don't think it's a particularly hard sell. All of those teams can make similar arguments, so I don't want to make it seem like the Cubs have some advantage, either...just that I think we're really discounting the Cubs with statements like that. Money is going to be the deciding factor regardless. If the Cubs sit down with Boras and Skubal they won't do so to waste their time. The Cubs have a pretty good working relationship with Boras. They may never sit down with him. I can't say they will win a bidding war if they do, I wouldn't expect him to sign him, but I also think it's probably a little more likely than some people give them (which is to say it's above "impossible" and "never going to happen" and more like "very unlikely")

I'm going to preface this with this: Ricketts sucks, can't stand him on just about any level you can imagine. But I'm also not entirely sure the issue here is with Ricketts. For Tom I think his issue is year-over-year cash flow ("biblical losses" in Covid but ignores long term franchise equity growth, for example). Ricketts' isn't paying $400m up front, he's paying $40m a year for 10 years which is factored into the budget. That isn't to absolve him here, either. But too often it's a grenade hurled at Ricketts and for once, it might be a misplaced grenade. There is a full front office in there and how much it's a Jed/Carter thing versus simply a Tom thing is just impossible to know from where we sit. As it pertains to Skubal, I'm not going to go into this offseason thinking the Cubs will be signing Skubal but I do think there will be real discussions internally and they know the price. If they sit down with Boras and talk Skubal, it won't be simply due diligence or thinking they're getting a discount. It would be with the idea of actually paying the market value there.

Well, whether or not you're trying to do that, I think you're in the wrong place with this question and what you're looking for. You're using it as a 1:1 predictive data point and trying to figure how the Cubs were supposed to average 89 wins and averaged instead, around 87. Variance. It's baked in. It's an imperfect statistic. I like WAR but its not designed to do this. I just don't think you're using it correctly. The question shouldn't be "How can the Cubs come up 2 games short?" but "How can the Cubs make sure that variance isn't as big of a deal?" and that answer is: build a better team. Part of that is on Jed. Part of that is on Tom. As an organization, they've proven they can win games. They've proven they can build an elite side of baseball. They've proven they can make the playoffs. I'd argue they've mostly proven to build a consistent winner. Now it's time to prove you can do more.

I wouldn't use WAR this way. It's a great value number, but people like to play the gotcha-game on them. They built an 89 win team (on average) and have landed around that value (rounding gets you to 87). Variance is well within a few wins. There isn't really a discrepancy. The issue is that they keep building ~90 win teams and they have gotten some weird bad luck. They got some late injuries last year that hurt them in the playoffs. They had a lot of injuries this year. Even with positive variance there's only so much you can expect. It's a good way to build consistent playoff teams, but we're seeing there is some limitations in that build. The fix is simple. Build a 95 win team and when you have some variance you're looking at the 98-92 win range versus the 93-87 win range.

I also didn't imply Skubal.

I'd recommend listening. Go back to last year at this time. The talk was "strikeouts" and to the Cubs' credit they added Cabrera (who struck out 25.8% of hitters the year before and had big stuff) and Phil Maton who was top of the chart whiff% and chase% the year before. The Cubs don't leak information a lot but they generally do what they say they will do. Jed was also pretty transparent about the leadup to acquiring Tucker and then how things went down as well. We can certainly point to the fact that neither Maton nor Cabrera worked out in 2026. Choose who you want to blame there; plenty to pass around. But I think when Jed speaks, he's generally tells you what he's going to do. He said today that they need to do better pitching, mentioned, again, that they were too reliant on the defense and that it likely wouldn't be the bullpen they put the money into. We'll see how much money, though. The debate is less "will they do what Jed said" but more "how far will they go to accomplish it?"

Sato would be really fun. Yes, please.

That said he was away for personal reasons (and may not want to coach). He's also been a high ranking pitching dev guy in orgs, and with Zombro, that won't be the case here. So hard to tell if there's a fit.

Ooops. Not Seiya. I meant Stroman and wrote Semien!

I think the entire "no one gets the good NPB guys" doesn't work when you realize Okamota, Shota, and Seiya aren't on the Dodgers. Imai went to Houston (hasn't worked out). Lee went to the SFG (from Korea). Yes, the Dodgers do have guys like Yamamoto, Ohtani and Sasaki. But Sasaki was a raw prospect who hasn't hit yet, Yamamoto and Ohtani were guys who make a billion dollars, essentially. One of them, almost literally. They can't and always won't win them, however. The Cubs have invested heavily into NPB scouting. Heavily. They hired a guy of Japanese decent as a high ranking scout. The Cubs can/will continue to invest in the NPB and not without an eye of signing guys. If there's one thing I'm confident in it's that the Cubs are very unlikely to enter the 2027 season without a Japanese player on the roster. Which one? Your guess is as good as mine (I think maybe Taira might be up their alley, though).

It'll be tricky. I think a lot of us had the same questions last year "How do you replicate 2025 with the loss of Kyle Tucker?" and the Cubs did a great job on the offensive front. And they did, at least on paper, throughout the offseason and 2026 put more resources into the pitching side. They did a multi-year FA deal for a RP. They traded for a young, controlled SP. More could have been used (and obviously with hindsight, was needed - a failure on the Cubs part here) but they did an admirable job last offseason to get better. A healthier pitching staff and we'd have seen more of it. The good news is that the pitching was so bad that improvement there shouldn't be that hard. Like, don't have the worst staff in baseball and you can likely find any wins you lose from PCA going from "historically good" to just "Very very good" or something. Corner OF will be a tricky answer but one I think you can find ways around; it isn't like we're needing a SS. Add in the CBA conundrum and the offseason should be interesting in spurts. And good reminder Jed jumped the market for Semien las CBA. With NPB teams posting players, usually in November, there should be a little rush to get those guys in before Dec 1st as well. I'm not sure how a lack of a CBA will be factored into that. Everything is doable. It's tricky. But I don't think they'll fall apart as a team - they should still be good. Jed does have work to do, though to take the next step and that's needed this offseason. Can't be flawed like this any more.

Same here. They're great dudes.

The Cubs are clearly altruistic and want to let others keep playing. It's selfish to not let others play...

That sucked.

Well, my general point remains: his velo isn't what it was in the first. He's much more hittable now. That doesn't mean a hit will have landed. The Cubs haven't hit well. That's a separate thing.

horsefeathers this horsefeathers.