Transmogrified Tiger

He has not reached the point where he's mashed AAA pitching, which is part of why I think he should go to Iowa.

Correct, I kinda bypassed that first decision point. This is part of why he was likely available in the Bryant trade, and also why I'm a big fan of trading Alcantara while his value is high.

Bingo, 2025 is the year that once he goes to the big league club, he can't go back down without consequence. It has more minutiae than you need, but AZ Phil's 40 man page at TCR is the best resource for this, though Fangraphs isn't bad as a starting point(e.g. if they say he has options he almost certainly does, but if they say he doesn't he might still have one)

Canario has already used an option year by virtue of playing with the MLB team this year, so his option clock isn't hurt by any subsequent callups in 2024* *Technically there are a maximum number of times you can go up/down in a year, but that number is I believe 5 so Canario is not at high risk.

Yes. Neither is believed to be serious but Davis hasn’t played in a week with bumps and bruises, and Canario left Saturday’s game with an unspecified injury.

good news, they're basically the same player at the plate right now so it barely matters for the offense

I like this prompt, I had considered a similar thread though I'm not sure I have 5 moves I would make. I have a different list, in some ways the opposite of yours. In general I'm less interested in the batting order or even the bullpen hierarchy, these things are fairly fluid and I don't think sequencing hitters or pitchers differently makes much difference. Case in point, the bullpen needed to get 12 outs last night, with Smyly definitely down and possibly Miller and/or Keegan too. Someone's gotta get the outs and blowing a lead in the 6th counts the same as blowing it in the 9th. I'm also less down on Neris, albeit in the way that I don't see a whole lot of clearly superior options in the current pen. Send down PCA, call up Mastrobuoni or Canario. PCA's bat is not ready to face major league pitching, and the position player group's primary concern is scoring runs consistently. If you want a PR/LHH on the bench bring up Mastro, if you want an OF you can spot start or catch some thunder then bring up Canario. Let PCA show his readiness with the bat in Iowa, which he really has not done for more than a couple games at a time. Send down Little, call up Roberts. Little is outside Counsell's circle of trust, is walking a disqualifying number of hitters for the run environment, and isn't getting the Ks he has in the minor leagues that might make that temporary trade off worthwhile. With Leiter and Smyly the replacement doesn't need to be LH, I'm open to arguments for others but Roberts has the greatest potential to be a pop up success that pitches important innings through the summer. Let Amaya catch tonight, then bench him through the weekend. I'm not going to weep if they dump Gomes for Nido, but this is a position that carries more risk than the average bench player shuffling, so I'd rather they make a decisive move like a trade for Diaz rather than grabbing whatever guy *maybe* can wRC+ 75 for a bit. Amaya I have more belief in but I think he's getting worn down by his struggles and the demands of the position. Play him tonight and Gomes tomorrow like you would normally, then let Gomes catch the full weekend slate. There's an off-day Thursday and a day/day/night weekend series so Gomes won't turn to dust. Hopefully that gives Amaya a boost so he can start building confidence with the bat, which may outweigh the benefits of replacing Gomes with a coinflip waiver claim(which you can still do afterwards) Another I feel less strongly about would be giving Bote a handful of starts to see if you catch fire and give Morel a mental reset, and if Bote forces the issue consider using Morel over Tauchman in a couple matchups(this can also be Canario independent of Morel/Bote).

Those year to year variations are already accounted for from an LT perspective, that's why we talk in AAV. Unless it's someone achieving some incentive or choosing an option that changes things, the AAV already has it covered.

Specifically, from an AAV standpoint there's 44.75 million coming off with Hendricks, Smyly, Gomes, Mancini, Bote, and Barnhart. Other potential departures: - Bellinger (26.7M AAV) - I think the safe position is to assume he's opting out unless something takes a dramatic negative turn, though I wouldn't exactly spend his money in our heads either. - Neris (9M) - If the team is not in the playoff chase they're gonna want to manage his innings so his option doesn't vest into a player option(60 G or 45 GF). Right now his pace is borderline to reach it. - Non-tenders: With this much of the season left it's hard to say since injuries or performance could impact a number of them. At present Madrigal feels like the safest one, though Wisdom/Tauchman and the relievers(Leiter, Merryweather, Almonte, Alzolay) are possibilities if performance tanks or there's a long term arm injury. The good news is that aside from possibly Bellinger, there's very little of current importance falling off the roster, which means while they do need to have e.g. a backup catcher, the shopping is more of a luxury than when they needed to replace Contreras or Stroman. Arb raises for the remainder(even if only Steele) will eat into that money, but it's safe to say that they'll have at least 35 million at their disposal, if not 70M in the case of Bellinger & Neris departing.

I think Wesneski is figuring out how to pitch in the bullpen. Since he went to the pen, he has given up 100% of his runs on home runs, which is 1) weird & fluky, and 2) probably due to him trying to corral increased stuff out of the pen. His walk rate is up pretty significantly in the pen, which tells a story that he hasn't harnessed his stuff at max effort and is frequently pitching from behind. That leads to more pitches getting whacked because while he has good stuff at max effort, it's not top of scale that's going to backfoot hitters in their approach to let him get away with heart of the plate mistakes.

I highly suspect the only way Jed's job could be close to in jeopardy this year is if the team were so bad that it makes it unlikely they can be competitive in 2025. Given the composition of the roster, this requires not only being very bad, but being so in a fairly specific way. The bullpen blowing 30 leads is more easily fixable than 3 starters having TJS and the only offensive bright spot being Bellinger who then opts out. The other way is if the team were bad in a way that isn't objectively ruining 2025, but tanks fan enthusiasm in a way that impacts revenue and gets Ricketts attention. This leads me to the two realities of the Cubs so far this year. One is the objective reality, which is that despite bad injury luck, the Cubs are among a large group of mediocre teams that could easily make the playoffs. The NL has 4 very good teams, 2 very bad teams, and 9 teams within 3 games of each other who will get 2 playoff spots. While we could *hope* the Cubs could cross into that very good category this year, the *expectation* given the org's state and payroll was that they should be in that upper class of the next tier to make the playoffs. Injuries and uneven performances have dropped them to the bottom of that tier, but that hole is not a deep one. Getting out of it is unlikely without intervention, but it's not a matter of wholesale changes(a catcher with an MLB bat, a reliever, and some injury recovery could be plenty). The other is the emotional reality, which is that the 2024 Cubs have been an intensely frustrating team to watch even by the standards of mediocre teams(which are always going to be more frustrating than either extreme). They blow late leads, they have long stretches of offensive struggles. We thought last year's team played an incredible number of close games, this year's Cubs are on pace to have 33% more one run games and have played 6 more than any other team in the NL to date. While that emotional reality is not necessarily predictive, the feelings are real, and if they continue for long enough people are going to check out on the team this year. Is that enough to reach a critical mass where Ricketts takes action? My guess is no. But compared to another 82-84 win season it would make 2025 much more make and break for Jed.

surely that's full time ref

Alone in 4th as of this second! Ahead of Vlad, Alonso, and Olson now.

Maybe my hottest take is that Morel is not coordinated enough to be an excellent MLBer. He's very athletic and has the muscle twitch to generate bat speed, throw the ball through a wall, etc. But the fine motor control isn't at that same level, this is why he'll kick ground balls or the slightest deviation sends his throwing mechanics awry, or why his swing looks almost short armed and he can't micro-adjust to stay on barrel(consistently terrible sweet spot %).

cowards

looked clearly safe in real time to me

Watching Mbappe debase himself to desperately try to draw fouls and waste time as France tries to sneak a 1-0 win over Austria(on an own goal) is just sad. Best player in the world resorting to pretending he caught a hand to the face after getting stood up, have some shame

Happ has a 139 wRC+ over the last month and is like a couple good days at the plate from his career line, why would we mock the idea of him playing* *don't actually answer this question

It's not his first 2 starts, DJ Herz has been unable to throw strikes and (partially as a result) show any sort of length as a starter his entire career. In the lower levels he was able to overpower enough hitters to stay out of trouble but we already saw that start to fade in AAA(K-BB% way down, FIP of 4.70, etc). Him having a single excellent start against the worst offense in baseball is not evidence of any sort of talent evaluation failure. Herz is almost certainly a reliever. He might be a good one, and if so that's the gamble you take when you trade a AA pitcher in order to get a quality player at the deadline. But 'maybe if things go right and he stops walking so many he's a good reliever' is an extremely common profile, and one that front offices should be extremely willing to trade if it helps them make a useful addition.

Bellingham

Imagine if he cared, he'd probably be 37 for his last 30!

Ian 'would rather be anywhere else' Happ now 2 for 3 with a HR and walk

you might recognize it in its plural form, a game thread

The closest thing to being correct is the idea that the Cubs would benefit from adding 'superstars', which is basically impossible to disagree with by definition. Do they need to trade for 'three superstars'? No. Should they trade Bellinger to get one? No. Would a team trading such a player have any interest in Bellinger? No. Bellinger, Busch, and PCA can't coexist? No. Trading for a 1B like Vlad means Bellinger or Busch must go? No. Have Bellinger, Busch, PCA and Caissie all met MLB expectations requiring a trade? No.