Jason Ross

I'm really a big fan of his. If you're ever bored, his Youtube Channel will make you feel really smart by the end. I've learned a lot about the real data behind pitching; movement profiles, spin and seam-shifted wake. It's awesome stuff.

xBA of .520, .520 and .310 with two swings over 97mph. New mechanics. Changed his front foot placement.

Caleb. My guy.

Nope! You can be awarded a hit on a catchers interference as the hitter gets the choice of either 1b or the result of the PA. If the batter instead choices 1b, it does not count as a PA or impact OBP.

Probably one of the absolute best baseball minds around. He works with Marquee and does MLB.com Pipeline stuff. His YouTube channel might be next to Foolish Bailey as the two best baseball channels. Period. He focuses a lot on prospects but mainly pitching and pitching development. A team will one day hire him and they will be better for it. Lance is the horsefeathers.

Pete. Pete. Pete. Pete.

New mechanics. Front foot is slightly open instead of closed off. Hands seemed a bit higher.

I think the Cubs are going to move OF'ers but I don't think the Ethan Conrad selection has anything to do with it. He won't make a debut in the system until 2026 due to his shoulder injury and likely isn't going to have an ETA until deep in 2027 if everything goes really fast. He won't likely replace any talent in Iowa and the Cubs still have somewhat interesting OF prospects around. He was just the best on the board. Things shift greatly in MiLB terms, so the Cubs wouldn't be shortsighted enough to draft for need in such a defined way.

The Cubs are likely to use Horton in the BP and have roster cliffs after 2026. Horton, even if not in the "rotation" will likely play an important role. Teams don't usually trade from their MLB roster, and Horton is probably among the least likely to be traded in the entire organization who's trade likelihood is above 0. I wouldn't even overly concern myself with the thought. If we saw exhaustion in a pitcher, we would expect to see some combination of loss of velo, loss of mechanics (either because they're tired and getting involuntarily "lazy" or to overthrow to compensate for lack of velo), loss of control, loss of pitch shape. I'm sure the Cubs are monitoring those things between now and end of 2026. Is he any more or less likely to regress? That's the rub, ain't it. But here's the thing that is counterintuitive to our understanding of pitchers and their fear of TJS or arm injury; pitchers, not hitters are aging more gracefully league wide. There are more pitchers aged 35+ having success than hitters. You always have the "one pitch away" fear with an arm, and Boyd has not been the picture of health. That said, if the TJS was the root cause. and that's taken care of, he may be less likely to regress as the rate of recidivism on TJS usually jumps around 6+ years out, so there's reason both way to believe he could be risky and reasons to believe he wouldn't be. Would I expect the Cubs to extend a 35+ year old Matthew Boyd post-2026? No, I wouldn't. The Cubs under Hoyer tend to target mid-rotation arms that don't pop on paper or excitement and like to get an undervalued arm based on the rest of the league. Boyd, if he repeats or comes close to repeating 2024, would be anything but; max-value Boyd. The Cubs are more likely to try to find the next Boyd than to resign the Boyd, if that makes sense.

I would guess that while anything is "non-zero" Cade Horton being in a trade feels extremely unlikely. Teams who are in the middle of pennant races rarely trade from their MLB roster as it is taking one step backwards to gain two. I would suspect Ben Brown (who is in Triple-A) or Jaxon Wiggins (who I feel is already an unlikely addition but might go in a big-type trade) are much more likely.

Yeah, his profile isn't my favorite either. I think what it comes down to is that it's just hard to dream on those guys. Like if Kepley was Kepley but was, 6"1? You could dream on something. But his size and age just means this is who he is, and you've got to really believe in it to love it. I made some comments prior about how Nico Hoerner on draft day wasn't overly exciting and wasn't my favorite pick, too. Over half a decade later, and it's clear he's a major win and among the best picks in the entire draft. Kepley kind of has that ability, too. Less likely to get there; if he was, he'd have been drafted higher, ranked higher, and given more slot than he'll get, but there's a not-so-crazy world in three years where Kepley is starting in CF for someone, has a 95 wRC+ and is a plus-defender in CF and on the bases and everyone goes "man, he's pretty damn good!" (either that or whatever team he's starting for is trying to trade him every offseason like they do Hoerner. Nothing in between)

This is a feature, and not a bug. Many times we associate not striking out with contact in the zone, but the top three players least likely to strike out swing at a very high% of pitches out of the zone compared to league average. Why? Because a great way to avoid strikeouts is to be able to make a load of contact on chase pitches. Most hitters, when chasing out of the zone swing and miss. These guys, make contact. Easy way to not strike out is to hit the ball in play (though far easier said than done). Beyond that Hoerner is an above average hitter (by 2% this year, and 1% over his career) and well above average for his position. His BA with RISP and his base running don't factor into that. He's just a better hitter than people realize.

The Kansas City Royals, who have an 11% chance to make the playoffs just bought Adam "replacement player" Frazier with the belief he could help them win. They gave up an overager who doesn't look like much of a prospect at age 28, but he's crushing Triple-A, and wasn't nothing either. As much as we might think these teams should sell, the slim prospect of making the playoffs or having a strong two weeks is still enticing to teams.

I will never grow sick of questions. Keep asking, my guy. Baseball is a community. Consider this "passing it on". I only learned because I asked questions and people two decades ago gave me a crash course. So, think of WAR as our best single-all-encompassing number, but don't think of it in absolutes. WAR in general is a great approximation, taking in tons of data points (offense, defense, ballpark, neutralizing for era, pitching, etc) and dumping it into an easy-to-digest number, like...four. On the surface, that's kind of insane. Sincerely, it's a revolutionary concept for a sport so inundated in different numbers to boil something down to a number (in almost every case) under 10, with just a single decimal point and it mean something. Like, when you think it of it, it's kind of insane. But because of that, it's prone to being somewhat inaccurate in terms of absolution. Anecdotally, Kyle Tucker has been worth 3.8 fWAR and Francisco Lindor, 3.6. Should we really concern ourselves over fractional aspects of a win? Nah, they're virtually the same value. Maybe your team needs a RF over a SS or whatever, but value-proposition wise? The same, essentially. No use debating it. When it comes to fWAR and run differential, etc, lots of things go into that. Strength of schedule can play a part (of which fWAR does not account for, because over the a 162 grind it's not really a factor in it) especially in partial seasons, sequencing plays a part of it, and a full-team aspect plays apart in it. For example, we can't just add all of the fWAR up on a team and say "well, their fWAR and their win totals are different so something here is fishy!" It's a cool way to project things out, but they have enough variabilities that they don't entirely equate. That said, they usually are close; for example, having the best run differential and the 3rd best fWAR makes sense. We rarely see a team leading in fWAR and then, say, 22nd in RD. That would raise some weird flags.

DRS and OAA are our two biggest defensive metrics today. OAA uses MLB Statcast inputs to determine everything; EV, defensive positioning, closure rate, attack angle...you name it. DRS has human input in which using the Fielding Bible and historical defensive metrics and defensive results and they assign difficulty ratings, meaning it does have a human element to it. DRS is good and OAA is a bit better, though both are behind offensive metrics in reliability and age. I find both can get wonky on even a year-to-year basis with odd outliers here or there and there are times the two do not agree; Ian Happ a great example. DRS loves him. OAA feels hes kind of "meh". None of this wonkiness is enough to ignore or go elsewhere, just important to note when discussing them if we are to be comprehensive.

Yes. At least. Even if a college kid makes his professional debut in 2 years, we can expect that they will struggle upon initial callup for a significant sample. Then, you probably don't want to make a decision on a player's entire career after one or two years of data; plenty of players have a good year and then never repeat it. Prep player's will take 4 years to realistically make a debut at age 22, and five to make a debut at 23. They factor into this as well. And thats if they arent a pitcher and dont have TJS and miss 1.5 years in the middle. We are only really able to start to look at the 2020 draft class and make determinations. If you looked in 2024, I doubt we would all say "yeah, Pete Crow Armstrong might be the best OFer in the entire draft!' A year later and its shaking out that way, but that is now five years on and as much as I love PCA, if he slides backwards on something (not the craziest concept) that could change again. Max Meyer looks pretty good, but is he better than, say, Jared Jones? I don't think we have enough data there. Best practice is that with more years we can make a more definitive assessment of what happened with development and asset usage. Today all we can say is "yeah, the draft felt different" but the fruits of it will continue to bared for years to come. I can squint and see the plan for someone like Dominick Reid but who knows what happens there. Or Hartshorn. Or Wing. Lots to go to see if this switch up is a positive one or not.

Image courtesy of © Brett Davis-Imagn Images Here's the thing about the MLB Draft: teams generally have a profile that you can bank on. The Los Angeles Angels will usually select someone who they feel will join their MLB roster within a year of the ink drying on their contract, and Tyler Bremner could be their next guy to do that. The Cleveland Guardians adore their high-strikeout, big-power outfielders, and lo-and-behold when Texas A&M product Jace Laviolette fell to them late in the first, they were the team to jump. The Cubs have some tendencies of their own under Dan Kantrovitz, they like college hitters who have Cape League experience at the top, and in taking Ethan Conrad, I thought they were well on their way to keeping up with norms as Conrad fits a typical Cub profile. By the second round, however, things felt a little different. Overall, this draft feels a bit different than how the Cubs operated prior. But therein lies a question: is change inherently negative? I won bury the lede here—I don't think different has to equate to bad. Sometimes, different is just, well, different. In other words, it's change. The 2025 draft, on the surface, was shaping up like a different year; NIL is a real thing for college hitters, the covid-bonus-years are running out, and the top talent of this draft felt like it was lagging behind in star power of the last few classes. Regardless, the Cubs definitely zigged where they had been zagging. For example, the Cubs have been pretty consistent in how they handle their second-round pick, taking a bit of a swing on prep players, or players with perceived high ceilings. Instead, this year they went with UNC outfielder Kane Kepley. Kepley, a very speedy, great baserunning, 70-grade defender in CF lacks game power to a point where it's safe to say he's got a very high likelihood to make an MLB roster some day, but probably doesn't provide enough value to start for a contending team. Between their recent second-round picks where the Cubs gambled on upside like Jaxon Wiggins (coming off Tommy John surgery) or Cole Mathis (also a TJS under his belt) Kepley feels like a departure in that regards. I don't dislike Kepley per se, but I do find him as a bit of a different pick from their normal second round type. Moving forward, a hallmark of Dan Kantrovitz drafts has been the high-upside 11th-round pick. For those who are a little confused at the structure of the MLB draft, the 11th round changes the game for teams in that in any round past the 10th, a team is not penalized from their draft pool allotment if they cannot secure a signature, which allows teams to take a larger swing because you can survive a miss. In past years the Cubs have selected prep hitters such as Zyhir Hope and Eli Lovich in this spot, upside kids who you can dream on. This year, the Cubs picked a pitcher who hasn't pitched in two years. Elijah Jerzembeck was a pretty highly regarded recruit to South Carolina a few years ago, but we haven't seen him take a mound for quite some time. Jaxon Wiggins hadn't pitched in a bit, himself, so there is recent history with injured arms, but this feels a bit different. Again, maybe not "bad", but it sticks out. Jerzembeck still has upside, but feels like quite the risk. There is a lot to like about his curveball and a fastball that was hitting 95mph at age-19, but it's been a while. Speaking of Jerzembeck and his injuries, a litany of Cubs 2025 draft picks are coming off of injury. First round pick Ethan Conrad (who I like a bunch!) missed most of the year with a shoulder injury, previously mentioned Elijah Jerzembeck hasn't thrown in two years, Kaemyn Franklin (Kohl's younger brother) just had his own TJS, and sixth round Josiah Hartshorn was rarely healthy over the last period of time, forcing the switch hitter to hit either hit just right or left handed (depending on his ailment) for stretches of time. On one hand, it's probably better if these kids rehab their injuries with an MLB organization and all of the resources they have, but it is a bit of an eyebrow raiser with the amount of players who are hurt. Perhaps this is a way to get in on the ground-floor of someone others are too afraid to pick, or maybe they will not pan out; only time will tell. I don't want to be a negative Nancy, however, as there are plenty of positives to find. First, I really like Ethan Conrad. In a draft that feels like it was lacking big-time talent, getting someone who could hit 20 home runs from the left side, has a real shot to stick in CF, and had some top-10 helium as recent as April already felt like a win. Add in that he's likely to sign under-slot? Huge win. Dominic Reid has a dominant change up that profiles similar to second-overall-pick Tyler Bremner, so if you believe in the Zombro-system, he could become an under-slot poor-mans version of a top-pick. The Cubs fourth and sixth-round picks of Kaleb Wing and Josiah Hartshorn have big time upside, with the former being someone who could legitimately top the upper-90's with some work and Hartshorn is a beast of a human at his age already. Even deep in the draft, 16th-round pick Riely Hunsaker, a pitcher from Lamar University, has history with Tread Athletics (Tyler Zombro's pitching developmental team), so you have to feel like the Cubs have some inside information. I really like all of these picks in a vacuum, so I'd caution all of us not to be too down on this draft. In the end, I can't quite help feeling like the Cubs went in a very different direction than we're used to seeing. Coming from a team that has had a lot of success drafting from 2021-2024, finding standouts at the top of the draft and later rounds, it feels like an odd departure. The pessimist in me would say something along the lines that perhaps their shift in scouting has affected things and that it feels quite bold to go away from what worked recently. That's only one view, as I would think that the optimist would say that best time to change your process isn't after it stops working, but before. Anecdotally, we've likely all seen the person who doesn't know when to stop gambling. "I can't stop when I'm ahead," they grumble, right before they lose it all on black. The best time to change, or to get out, isn't after you lose, it's before. With a shifting draft landscape, changing your style can pay dividends. You may feel differently than I do, and that's fair. Funny thing about the MLB draft is that none of us will know if we're right or wrong for over a half-decade, long enough that whatever we disagree on today will be long forgotten. I'm trying to balance the different feel of the 2025 draft with my belief in Dan Kantrovitz and his previous drafts. He's turned into one of the better minds in baseball when it comes to the amateur draft and him losing the plot entirely feels unlikely. In the end, despite it being an appeal to authority, the Cubs and Kantrovitz have earned more than enough good will from me to say "I know it feels weird today, but..." and to give this new strategy a chance. Initial reactions from fans on Cade Horton and Jaxon Wiggins were, at best, split (and at worst, much more accusatory than that) and I doubt you'd find anyone willing to move either in a trade short of highway robbery. These things take time, so even if you're feeling that negativity creep in, I think we're in good hands. In Dan I trust. Do you? What do you think of the 2025 Cubs draft? Who was your favorite pick? Who did you dislike? Let us know in the comment section below! View full article

I'd have Conrad behind Caissie, Rojas, Ballesteros, Wiggins and Alcantara currently. I'd probably have him behind Long as well (the injury and lack of MiLB outweighs his positional upside). Kepley is probably among my back half of the top-20 somewhere. The floor is really solid, but I'm a little less sold on the ceiling. If you have him at 10+ home runs in the MLB, than there's Steve-Kwan-lite upside and he's probably closer to the 10-15 range, but I'm a little bearish. Reid sits in that "Honorable Mentions" portion of the top-20 where even if he sounds like an interesting arm, I'd like to see the changes before I jump him up. His draft-profile is probably "not-one-of-the-100 best prospects on paper" in a not-great draft, so I think he's intriguing, but I need to see it before I boost him that much. Both of those guys will likely get bumps when we lose 3-5 of the top-20, however.

The Cubs so far have put together a roster that has performed in the top of the league this year. His "bad" years (if we cut out the first two in which he was mandated a rebuild post-Covid) were 83 wins and his good year is "96 win pace at the break". That's a pretty good outcome spread if you believe he's capable of delivering good years fairly regularly. The reality of baseball organizations these days is that the homogenization of ideas and concepts is pretty real. As long as your team places data and analytics as a top priority (read another way, isn't the Colorado Rockies) than the differences between two Baseball Ops are hard to determine. Hoyer is probably just as good as the next guy if we are being honest. The Cubs have a pretty good talent evaluation system going on, they are developing players well, they draft well, and they have upgraded their pitching department in recent years and more so with Zombro. A fresh reset of all of those things just because a 93 win team has a bad playoff series is probably not worthwhile at that point. Extending Hoyer now is just doing the inevitable unless for whatever reason you think: 1. an extension will make Jed Hoyer so content that he would essentially pack-it-in because he doesn't care (which neither has any evidence to suggest, and Hoyer has been active and aggressive in both of the last two deadlines with the 83 win teams) 2. the Cubs are really a not very good team and will regress to that talent level (and I just don't see any reason to believe that will occur). It's pretty safe to assume that Hoyer will be active over the next few weeks regardless of his status and that the Cubs, who may have injuries derail them yet (that's something that most of the time cannot be prepped for. Backup plans to PCA and Tucker dying for the rest of the year are not available. At least not at their 8+ win level) have put together the type of roster that you feel comfortable with remaining good on paper for the remainder of 2025 (especially with a few deadline additions) and 2026.

McGuire has been good, but its a good reminder that he was basically free bait for the entire league three months ago and was only able to get an MiLB deal in Chicago. His bat isn't good and having three zero-versatility players in a day and age where teams are carrying less bench bats to begin with is an almost non-starter. McGuire has been a cool story and better than expected but also not so good you tank your bench with three people for two jobs. Amaya and Kelly were a top-MLB pairing for a few months and Amaya's bat progression has been long enough since July that while its probably been a bit too good, he and Kelly should remain a very good 1a/1b tandem. McGuire will be a casualty of the numbers game in one way or another.

I think its important to remember this as well; the elite recruits arent headed up to the Big 10 to snow country, theyre headed to the south to play the warmer weather. More baseball. The kids that are easier to buy out of a commitment to, say, Minnesota aren't generally the top guys. The expensive buyouts are also the kids getting decent NIL money to go to Vandy. And even if the contract is more up front money, if you get three years of SEC NIL, plus you can renter the draft and get 2nd or 3rd slot as a junior, you come out way ahead as a financial package. Kentucky's SS Tyler Ball snubbed the Rays 2nd round money to play SEC ball, which kind of shows what SEC money has the power to do. And while UK is a more up and coming SEC program, its not a traditional powerhouse, either.

Oh they are. The one thing about baseball is that it really plays into the advanced metrics. Team sports have to filter out so much noise. Like a WR not getting yards could be because: 1. He sucks 2. The QB sucks 3. The OL sucks 4. The RB sucks 5. The play calling sucks But the hitter-pitcher faceoff creates such an easy vacuum that filters out so many other human beings that finding data within is...easy! And I know advanced stuff can really scare some folks off, it changes how we see the game and that can go against our held beliefs. But I guess I like the sport so much that I enjoy being challenged that way and I appreciate when others at least hear it out. There's still some noise in there, and we can always find more stable data, but I really think the nuts and bolts of it all eventually make sense. If you're ever bored and need a cool baseball discovery hole to go down, there is a YouTube Channel called Secret Base and they did an amazing look back using storytelling and some advanced stuff (but the right amount) to tell a four part, four+ hour story on Dave Stieb from the 1980's that is both fascinating, heartfelt and one of the most eye opening baseball documentaries I have ever seen. I think if you like baseball, it's must-see viewing. Hell, it looks like I'll be stuck in airport limbo again today, so I might have to download it and give it a watch while I bounce around.

ZiPS is taking in every input data you could probably imagine, though the pure formula isn't public. Shaw has a few less PA's in that sample size, but likely nothing to cause more than a fraction in either direction - it's like under 10 games based on different systems. If there is a projection system I would trust, it's ZiPs from Dan S. He's the best and his system is the best. It's not a pure guarantee, though, but just based on what has happened both in real world results, but also xData and the like. It also takes in historical data and weighs recent data. So while there isn't a guarantee Suarez will regress this year (it doesn't always work that way) or Shaw will regress to the mean himself in a positive fashion, it means that it's likely to go that way.

fWAR is more than offense, it's offense and defense. You claimed Suarez would "add .2 runs" and I parsed out the data based on that. "Adding .2 runs" is offense only. You're shifting goalposts. If you meant fWAR say fWAR. If you mean "runs" (because you've been throwing a fit about offense) then say runs. Frankly, at this point I'm not even sure what data you're using here. You talk about "batted runs" but this isn't a common way of debating value added. So let's pull it back. Let's use ZiPS, the best projection system we have and determine their value moving forward for the rest of the season. ZiPS has Suarez finishing the year at 1.4 more fWAR, with a 117 wRC+. Now, before you jump to "but he has a 142 wRC+ on the year!" his career wRC+ is 114, meaning ZiPS projects him better than career average. As well, his wOBA is much higher than his xWOBA (.375 compared to .348). His career wOBA is inline with his xWOBA on the year, with a .340. ZiPS is probably picking up on regression coming. Looking at Matt Shaw, ZiPS has him adding .7 fWAR the rest of the year with a 94 wRC+. In fact, almost every projection system out there has him in the 94-100 wRC+ range, and every projection system has Suarez in the 114-120 wRC+ range. League 3b have a 96 wRC+, so a 94 wRC+ puts him right there at about league average for the position, a purely fine hitting 3b for a top-3 offense in baseball to have. And to cut off this at the pass, STEAMER (if you prefer it), has the rest of the season projection of Suarez at 1.2 fWAR and Shaw at .7, closing the gap minimally in Matt Shaw's favor. ZiPS isn't on an island. You can pretty much cherry pick any projection system out there and the difference is under 1 win the rest of the way. I'll give you one out here and it's that you could argue that that fractional wins count more as we approach and eclipse the 90 win mark. And that's a fair observation! But the Shaw to Suarez way of getting those fractional wins is not the only way the Cubs can achieve those fractional wins. Once again, it's likely a greater win total would be added by focusing on pitching and versatility over a standard 3b. So again, the difference here is...less than a win. At some point you've got to understand that you are making the difference between Suarez and Shaw to be chasm the size of an ocean, when the reality is far, far closer.