Transmogrified Tiger
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Cubs 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Brandon Glick's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
You don't make offseason decisions only with one year in mind(otherwise you'd trade all the prospects all the time), but you also can't solve next year's problems before they get here. Maybe Matt Shaw is the 130 wRC+/30 HR pace he was after the all star break, maybe they sign Alonso, maybe Amaya is healthy and goes nuts, maybe there isn't a season at all with the CBA expiring. -
Cubs 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Brandon Glick's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I actually think the more I look into it, the less likely it is that Shota gets offered the QO if it comes down to it. It wouldn’t shock me for multiple reasons, and I’d expect the Cubs to try to retain him either way, but the takeaway is that players like Shota do not get paid well in FA and the slope to them being paid like long relievers is very steep. -
Cubs 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Brandon Glick's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I'll preface this by saying I like Shota, especially relative to the current sentiment that probably overweights how his 2024 ended(he had a 3.08 ERA into the 2nd week of September!). That said, the FA market is not particularly kind to 30-something pitchers who sit 90, and they especially won't be kind if they have a QO attached. The only pitcher with an average fastball under 92 who was guaranteed more than 10 million total last year was Trevor Williams, who got 2/14 after putting up a 2.03 ERA/2.79 WHIP/2.0 fWAR in 13 starts. So from Shota's perspective you have to think of it this way: * I can guarantee myself 30 million, with an opt out after next year if I end up pitching phenomenally. The Cubs can void that opt out and bring things full circle to getting roughly 3/55 as if this decision was never his. * If I turn that down, the odds are pretty decent I'm going to get a qualifying offer, at which point I have to choose between less guaranteed money than the option or whatever deal I get with a QO attached, which is very possibly a lower guarantee than my option. It's not a slam dunk, and athletes like to bet on themselves, but the rational decision is probably to pick up his option. -
Cubs 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Brandon Glick's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I've seen this shared a bunch of times and the Cubs revenue number has never passed the sniff test for me. As one point of comparison, the Phillies have a TV deal that pays them 25 million more per year, they outdrew the Cubs that year by 350k, had playoff revenue, and are a consistently successful team with stars in a similar market(assuming a lopsided 2:1 Cubs:Sox split of Chicago). For these to be true there's a gap of ~100 million the Cubs are making that the Phillies are not and I have no idea what something of that magnitude can be when the biggest blocks(TV + attendance) are already considered -
Webb has a very good reputation so I wouldn't be surprised to see him take that one over Boyd. I figured there would be a similar situation for Happ in LF, but Kyle Stowers got nominated and that man is a danger to himself in the outfield so I guess it's a really weak position.
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Cubs 2025 Season Review/Offseason Preview Thread
Transmogrified Tiger replied to Brandon Glick's topic in Chicago Cubs Talk
I don't mind Kittredge at his option(which is technically an 8m decision since he has a 1m buyout if declined) in the abstract, but it comes down to total money to spend. How many Kittredge+ salaries can the 2026 Cubs reasonably carry in the pen? If the answer is 1, I would rather it not be Kittredge. If the answer is 2, I think it's still an open question. If it's 3, then it's an easy decision, but I'm not very confident the answer is 3. -
Shaw had a 130 wRC+ after the all-star break. He ended the year in a funk but I wouldn't put a low offensive ceiling on him just yet. We should learn from the adjustments PCA made from his first taste of MLB pitching to his first full season. But even beyond that, the team needs to have the possibility for positive variance, it got that from PCA, Busch, and to a lesser extent Shaw this year. Trading Shaw in service of what's likely a market rate solution further cuts down on those opportunities since you have so many lineup spots spoken for.
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FWIW, Uribe has a 4.50 ERA in outings of 4+ outs this year(plus another unearned run). If 2 innings of him is plan A that's not really a bad thing.
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Joey Ortiz is going in the book, that was a dirty slide
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He threw a 30ish pitch bullpen the other day, if they advance he's almost certainly on the roster
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TBS's graphics have not been very airtight, early in the game they called Ortiz Jake Bauers in a graphic
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https://www.mlb.com/scores/2025-10-11
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7 Central
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Go score a couple more so you can give it to Civale
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TBS running "what if you could reverse the effects of aging" cosmetic commercials in between trailers for The Substance is a really funny bit
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Caleb Durbin is Nick Madrigal who got more vitamins as a kid
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Ah I mixed up games 2 and 3 in my head, but yeah either way they’ll need to empty the pen of leverage guys AND get a few innings from a riskier option. Definitely not as intimidating as you would think given the advantages Milwaukee presumably has this series
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I mean they could try Priester again like the Cubs are doing with Boyd, but if their plan A is “use 7 pitchers for 9 innings” I like my chances that 2 of those guys don’t have it and that plan B is even more desperate
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This probably will not last to the 2nd inning, but I’m at peace with the outcome at this point. Made the NLDS, didn’t get swept and get the revenue of both home games, clearly disfavored to advance after 2 bad games. Pressure’s off, hopefully they touch up Peralta early and start making them think, because paradoxically I kinda like their game 5 chances? Especially if they use Misiorowski tonight they’re gonna have no one who can reasonably get more than 3 outs without a lot of performance risk.
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Just scanning game logs, Peralta has not been very good when facing a team twice in a short span. The one exception is his August start against the Cubs, though that was on 5 days rest and on the heels of the Cubs drubbing him
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Expanding the time horizon does not make Assad or Rea a definitively better choice than Boyd. Baseball is a game full of noise and we constantly overrate the thing that happened most recently as the new norm. Pitching Boyd on short rest is not ideal, pitching worse pitchers who also have concerns about their sharpness is also not great. You can think Assad or Rea were a better option, that’s not unreasonable. What is unreasonable is carrying on about how obviously horrific a decision it was and how it single handedly lost the game.
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It's not short rest though, it's just not extra rest
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Peralta is on 4 days rest tomorrow so I'm sure that's the plan for tomorrow, Misiorowski likely available in that game if not for a shorter outing today too with the off day. I'm less criticizing the plan and more marveling that a team so consistently good can't find more than one (1) guy they trust to get 10 outs.
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With 50 pitch minimums I'm very dubious about both the noisiness of that data and how the small sample would then correlate that noisiness among teammates.
