Jason Ross

PCA's defense and position make him a near must play. He affects the games in a way Busch cannot, even if not hitting. His position in the lineup is due is more for later in the game to split up lefties to avoid punching them up and encouraging a LHP form entering later and neutralizing him.

Probably an attempt to give him a little extra leeway to check growth while also being a little less than enamored with the results Turner has given. If Turner was crushing LHP, you'd probably give less time to Busch, but coupled together Busch has gotten more chances.

The Cubs and Counsell like to rotate R/L to force managers into tougher late inning choices. Lastly, if Busch ever earns the right to face a Crochet, we should be so lucky. Reality is most LHH league wide shouldnt face him. It's likely he never comes that close.

They have played him more frequently against LHP. But sitting him against one of the 10 or so best LHP in the game is not keeping training wheels on, either. This is an incredibly hard matchup for any LHH in baseball. His .216 wOBA against LHH is likely even hiding how good he's been; the only lefties who hit against him to begin with are the best LHH in the game and he crushes them. This is a bad matchup for Busch. Or any lefty.

Selfishly I'd like to see Horton get a chance to go at Boston, so I've got my hopes that the rain stays away and we get a killer pitching matchup today. Though realistically, it's probably more likely to help us today for rain to hit. Anecdotally, I am posting this from the Blue Line currently and while its overcast, it's dry downtown.

Crochet is a great pitcher who is even more brutal against LHH. He is top-10 or 15 as a LHP vs LHH of almost any data point you can image for any LHP with 10+IP against LHH. Much like @squally1313 put it yesterday when explaining (far more succincntly than myself could or did) sitting Matt Shaw for Vidal Brujan, if you aren't going to sit Michael Busch today, then when are you going to do so? Turner will likely have a rough go, as Crochet is just good against anyone, but Busch is probably a slightly worse bet than even Turner given the splits Crochet has.

Im going to work on a Soroka article over the next few days, so I'll see what I parse out. But my initial looks have me very high on the prospects of getting him outside of Washington. I think Cade Horton is a stud and likely the best pitching prospect the Cubs have had on paper since Mark Prior. His ability to have a plus fastball and plus, bordering plus plus sweeper with a plus changeup puts his ceiling among the top-20 best SP in baseball. His RPM mirror Dylan Cease except he doesnt have the walk issues. If he can clean up I zone command on his fastball, I think he is a monster. Matt Shaw's ceiling is that of a 115(or better) wRC+ 3b with plus glove skills. Now we have to see it more. His recent mechanical changes are getting me more and more hopeful. This is ceiling. Will either get there? Hard to tell. And frankly, probably not. Ceiling is hard to reach!

Yes, though what constitutes fan aggression and Jed aggression may be different. I'm sure fans will look at a Gallen/Suarez deal as very aggressive, especially based on name value, but there are other names that could better fit the roster and could also constitute an aggressive swing, it just might be less name-value wise. What I do think the Cubs will do is acquire at least one controlled player beyond 2025 and add one SP, likely one RP and one player capable of playing 3b (though suspect it will not be a Suarez starting type and more of a useful utility type capable of multi-position versatility). They might even add a second SP, but I think 3+ players will be headed to Chicago by the 31st. The Cubs are a little heavy on Iowa prospects with no clear route to MLB positions and will have to move some of them to better utilize their assets. Those prospects are too good to just go for three rentals. But what we may see as unexiting at first may have a lot of great under hood qualities. Think how unexicitng Boyd's signing was in December and how excited we are to see him take a mound now.

I doubt that the Cubs will target, say, a fixer upper. It is difficult to implement major changes mid-season and on the fly, harder given the time frame. The Cubs have plenty of room under the LT currently for 2025 and have a real shot to be a force. Jose Cuas is a good example of what can occur when you target mid-season changes. I don't hate the idea, but he needed time in Iowa to acclimate to a new mix. With the Cubs he really struggled to control his changes and it didn't work. That is a plan for a player you sign with a Spring Training to tinker and toy. Not a mid-year acquisition. Now, if you want an under the radar type who will be unimpressive on top line, but is actually pretty good, look at Washington's Mike Soroka. All of the peripherals scream breakout, including velocity increase, but his ERA sucks. This is almost assuredly based on pitching in front of the league's most atrocious defense leading to an unsustainable low left-on-base%. You probably don't need to tinker with him, just get him in front of a good defense and he has the look of a playoff caliber SP. I could see the Cubs going *that* route. He is a rental and should come cheaply. As an aside, he would be among the arms I could see the Cubs being interest in during the offseason as well. Age is on his side and his arrow appears to be pointing up.

I think he's a somewhat interesting reliever who could carve out a role somewhere if things broke for him. He is huge, at 6'7 and because of that struggles to control that much human. He had some cool arm slots and has some good movement on his stuff. Probably profiles more as "righty who gets out righties" more than anything, but that has value. He saw a few innings with the Cubs early when the pen was shaking out and it looked like he *might* stick at a point or two, but because he had an option year was someone the Cubs could move down and up without losing him where as others, like Chris Flexen did not. I wouldn't be shocked to see him find a spot on a team (maybe the Cubs?) next year. With the right injuries at the right time it could conceivably be this year! Though with Hodge hopefully coming back this year, and Brown and Horton who couldn't transition there and the deadline, it feels unlikely at this stage.

That guy again.

Hey, look at that guy.

Imanaga doesn't throw ground balls. Defense at 3b probably isnt a big factor. The Cubs chose a LHH to negate Bello versus the better glove (that isnt likely needed) who struggles against Bello's two most frequent pitches. It makes perfect sense. If vintage Kyle Hendricks was on the mound, a defensive 3b may have tipped the scales the other way.

Imanaga is one of the lowest GB% pitchers in baseball.

There is this odd thing that Cubs fans do. They will on one hand complain that the Cubs don't do everything to win, will handwring over every lineup decision. Then when the Cubs make a data based decision that they "don't like" will complain about that, too. Yeah, Brujan sucks. Shaw is bad against sinkers and Bello is bad against LHH. Its fine. This is coming from the #1 Matt Shaw Fan Club guy. Its okay he isnt starting today.

It's almost as if that Bryan Bello guy isn't so good against LHH, or something.

Instead of that, I would like to focus in on Ian Happ. Can we talk about him?

Except that Bello has huge R/L splits and Shaw has yet to show aptitude against sinkers, Bello's most frequent pitch. There is clear reason that is beyond a trade.

Bryan Bello has significant splits against LHH. He walks LHH 2x more than RHH (114% vs 5.6%) and has a 4.71 xFIP against LHH where as RHH, he has a 3.67 xFIP. This checks out as his two most used pitches are his sinker and his sweeper and these pitches have significant splits against opposite-handed hitters Matt Shaw hasn't hit well enough on the year to be penciled in against a pitcher with heavy splits. It is why Reese McGuire is drawing in on a night game after a day game. Carson Kelly could handle this one, but they went with a LHH heavy lineup. The Cubs are forcing Bello off his two best pitches, or, are forcing him to use them in incredibly disadvantageous situations. As well, Imanaga is a heavy FB% pitcher. 3b defense less needed. So Shaw is a good defender and RHH. Best to sit him, even if Brujan sucks. It's more than just Shaw, it's that one of them is lefty and they're playing the numbers.

Was just about to come here and say that. With his arm slot being where it is, his fastball siting at 90-92 probably has significant movement to it. It looks like it's more of a traditional "two-seam" fastball with glove side run. With the movement on his sweeper, my guess, especially at MB, is that his fastball's shape is solid and creates a really hard decision point for young players because the two pitches are breaking away from each other; one down-and-away from a RHH and the other looks like it should sweep away from them due to how he has a low slot (like the sweeper) but has a bump back into them the other way late enough that they can't adjust. When I look at the swing decisions from the highlight video, specially from the RHH'ers, they are looking off the plate, each time convinced that fastball is outside. My guess is they read "sweeper" based on arm-slot and the pitch ran back to the outside of the plate and surprised them. I really like where he's throwing that fastball. His sweeper placement on a strikeout to a LHH was...I think very much the result of Low-A. Upper level hitters should bang that pitch (2nd strikeout). If he can't add a few MPH to the fastball, RHH middle reliever might be the ultimate route. Get the fastball up to 92-94 and his two-seam is probably just enough to run away from LHH in a pinch, but that Jose Cuas comp stylistically matches up with his current profile!

Yeah, I mean, this is the reason why someone like Isaac Parades is built specifically for Tropicana and Daikon Park (formerly Minute Maid. Apparently, he's got...the juice at these parks. Heh. Heh...I'll see my way out). He has pretty weak EV but extremely high pull rate and flyball rate. Cody Bellinger is similar. Pulling the ball can hide weak contact. It's why teams try to get kids to pull the ball more. Now, I don't think that's a reason to ignore xData in any way shape or form; there are statistical outliers among any data, it's knowing the data. Kyle Hendricks was a FIP-beater; if you don't walk hitters and get a lot of ground balls, you can have a better ERA than your xERA or xFIP. It's why we don't use data as silver bullets and instead, use a lot of data to explain a hitter. I like the idea of adding direction to xData, it's a good thing, but I also think when we discuss hitters, it's important to bring up lots of data points regardless, which helps to limit the concept of xData beaters. Much like we can find the Kyle Hendricks of the world, and have for the better part of a decade been able to identify a skillset of pitchers who typically keep their ERA above their xFIP, we can do the same with hitters (and to behonest, have been for a bit). When it pertains to Matt Shaw, notice where his footing is today versus where it was, say, a week ago. I noticed it yesterday. I mentioned back on Friday as the lineup was shown for Yankees series that I suspected we would see two things: 1. Matt Shaw would sit the entire Yankees series 2. We would see him pop back up in the lineup directly after the ASB with something new to diagnose. Not to pat myself on the back too hard, but outside of a PH attempt on Sunday, kind of nailed both. It was a hunch but based on how the Cubs like to do these things, had a pretty good feeling on that hunch. I'll leave the updates to Shaw below in a spoiler so if you want to challenge yourself to notice what I did, you can play along! Or if you already noticed it/just want to discuss it, peep it below:

Not at Knoxville. Id expect he plays plenty at SS. Part of why he played 2b or non-SS in SB was because Hernandez is there too and they split the time.

I've wondered that, if deep down, he feels a little cheated by that. But as well, you have as rough of a start as he had to the year at times, it wasn't like it wasn't without cause. From an outsider perspective.

Dude, the baseball world is so huge now a days, there's no shame. Dorks like me know who Lance is because when I'm bored I want to learn about the difference between observed movement and induced movement.

I 'm not sure if it was posted back in the draft thread, but if not, Hartshorn was intereviewed after the draft. When asked about the Cubs and the process, he basically said that "he had a number" and it was the Cubs who called and gave him his number. Had teams in higher rounds but they wouldn't meet it. (Which, an aside, dig how candid he was! Great attitude in general) I'd guess he's getting a good number, yes.