squally1313

I can't see a scenario where we sign the top arm, and then sign a top bat that basically blocks the valuable group of Caissie/Ballesteros/Alcantara. It's too much money to throw at over 30 players. You can dump the money on pitching and turn Caissie/Ballesteros loose, or you can sign a top hitter and then use your blocked MLB ready hitters to pick up a pitcher. But can't see them committing $55m-$60m in free agency money and then still having to buy a bullpen. Having said that, I'd be thrilled. I'm feeling irrational enough at the moment to get a Schwarber or Alonso and then blow away the Tigers with Caissie/Ballesteros/Alcantara/Long....maybe even Shaw for Skubal.

This whole proposal is kinda the definition of a hedging plan, no?

I mean, this is a pretty impressive performance when you consider what the pitching staff was made up of during the year. Shota and Taillon were free agents at market rates but far from considered elite pitchers, the rest was a guy with 40 innings last year, internal development, and relievers in their late 30s. I agree with you that of the big names, the pitchers are more likely to hold/meet their value. But I also think Hoyer and Hottovy have proven that they can get outsize value from their (generally mid tier) pitching targets, so between that and freeing up trade capital on the offensive side to expand their pitching options trade wise, I'm more ok with overpaying for a big bat, because I think this offense is short one.

Fair. Regardless, losing a .363 wOBA/.382 xwOBA hitter is going to hurt. To paint with an overly broad brush, three of these hitters have career wRCs below 100. Strides have been made, yes, progress isn't linear, yes, but it's not like PCA and Shaw ended the season on a positive note, and the advanced metrics didn't love Amaya's 103 PAs this year. That doesn't make them bad players, but I worry we're making too much of the airplane out of .730 OPS guys with good gloves. I think, to make this sound more optimistic, the Cubs have had some success bargain hunting for pitchers, but their attempts to find bargain rate hitters has been largely a disaster. The offense is above average but will not project to be elite if we don't do anything meaningful to improve it. Jed deciding to spend the majority of his energy/resources on pitching, to me, makes it more likely that we end up pocketing a bunch of money, because why get a Corbin Burnes (Dylan Cease) or a Jack Flaherty when you could get a Matt Boyd (Michael King)? And he might not be wrong on that thought process, he's proven he can find value that way to some extent, and that's his whole thing. But then we're left with a pitching staff that outpitches their salary and a young, top 10ish offense, a pile of unused cash, and the same 88ish wins projection.

It's just like...it's the beginning of the winter meetings and they have $80m to spend. Maybe....don't feel compelled to mention minor league free agents? I hate the arguments that use like, a four season run to then predict how Hoyer is going to act. But the types of bats that he's gone and picked up (Swanson, Suzuki, Paredes, Tucker) makes me a lot more confident in actually spending all this cash then his pitching approach (Imanaga, Taillon, Boyd, Rea). He has a built in advantage with Hottovy and the pitching infrastructure, and he obviously should use it, but that's even more money to go overpay Pete Alonso to hit 130 home runs for you the next three years. Saying 'we're set' on the offense after losing your best hitter and then being like 'well there's the good pitchers, and then there's the weird project pitchers you can get for $5, and it's important I mention those' is maybe, possibly Jed Hoyer Speak for Japanese league pitchers and 'hm, you know, if you look under the hood, this guys got a profile that could really play up in the pitching lab' and a $175m payroll.

This is concerning, if you'll allow me to keep leaning into this apparently newly acquired doom boner.

There wasn't a single qualified pitcher in baseball last season that averaged 7 innings per start. Dylan Cease averaged 5.25, recorded 21 outs twice last year. Imai averaged 6.8 IP/start but I know most Japanese rotations are six man rotations. I'm fine with an argument that elite pitching is better than elite hitting, but I don't think the math holds up here.

'The offense is probably taking a step back'/'I don't think there's a pathway to being a significantly better team'.....why? We're bringing back 8 starters, and there's not a single person on that list with the exception of maybe the catching position that I would look at their overall 2025 stats and say we should expect it to get significantly worse. Schwarber and Alonso both outperformed Tucker offensively, in results and in expected results. Suarez/Bregman comes with more serious concerns offensively, but also don't weigh down your defense. Naylor is a step down from Tucker but a step up from the AAA group. Schwarber/Alonso make the offense better, Suarez/Bregman offsets the step down in offense in RF. I don't know, sign one of those at $30m on the top end and you have $40m-$50m to play with and a pile of major league ready hitters with nowhere to play. Instead of Cease (heavy rumors to Houston) or Imai, you've got a list of teams that would be want to pick up a major league ready outfielder (or a unicorn catching prospect, or a third baseman with a productive half season under his belt) and whatever starting pitchers they have.

I think for me its a few things: I don't really like any of the free agent options, on either side of the ball, with the exception of Tucker. We can't really trade from a non-existent pile of pitching prospects to plug the hole in RF/DH, and the offense looks very 2023-2024 Cubs without doing that. I'd rather give Hottovy the list of (younger, cost controlled) pitchers that are acquirable for a Ballesteros/Caissie/Shaw/Alcantara centered package than essentially 'here's Framber Valdez, Ranger Suarez, and Michael King'. This is probably a little irrational, a win is a win no matter how you slice it, but....if there's any team that has room for a 100% bat guy (like a short term deal in the Alonso/Naylor/Suarez mold), it's the Cubs. Right now we're going to have what....4 guys locked into the lineup that are going to project as valuable (because they are) while also projecting for like...100-110 wRC? Give me a 140 wRC to pair with Suzuki and just have PCA start every play in RCF.

I think the money is better spent on a big bat, preferably Tucker but would settle for one of the other options given our flexibility (DH bat pushes Suzuki back to RF, third baseman makes Shaw available), and then trade from Ballesteros/Caissie/Alcantara/maybe Shaw for a cost controlled arm. But largely you're ending up in around the same spot.

Kyle Tucker is not represented by Scott Boras Tucker had a wOBA 16 points higher than Bellinger, a wRC 11 points higher, and an xwOBA 50 points higher. Caissie, Alcantara, and pretty much any other alternative would be a significant downgrade from Tucker.

Eh....I don't think so. No one was judging the trade at the time based on only getting 2 months of Kittredge, the option was always factored in. I'm not saying it's never happened, but if these types of handshake deals actually happened with any frequency, why wouldn't every team out of contention just trade all of their valuable cost controlled players out (Skenes, as an extreme example) for whatever equivalent value 2 months of Skenes would bring you (a lot) and then send some pocket change back at the end of the year? The community is way too insular/incestual to renege on a hypothetical deal like that.

Yeah no need to have this conversation in multiple threads, but unless there was some weird NTC baked into his option that I'm missing, this all falls apart from an optimistic point of view when you realize that 'we can trade an effective reliever on a 1/$9 deal for cash' is an option pretty much any day of the week. Baltimore doesn't do this trade in January? 28 other teams are going to have a settled bullpen on March 1?

Is there a rational reason why this trade had to happen first in the order of operations? Was Kittredge never going to be able to be traded for cash considerations at any other point in the offseason if we actually ended up earmarking the money elsewhere?

Let's hope so. I also don't get too excited at the concept of looking at these decisions, then looking at Jed Hoyer, Mr. February, and trying to be optimistic with like 'oh, cutting bait on Shota and Kittredge? that must mean he's got a plan that is so comprehensive that there's no room for an effective reliever on a 1 year $9m deal.' You can see the logic on Shota, there's only so many spots in the rotation, it was a lot bigger commitment, he's likely a lot closer to the Rea/Brown/Wicks category than any of us would like to admit. But the bullpen is Daniel Palencia and AAA guys.

Those are two pretty dramatically different numbers though right? The final luxury tax number was $228m per Cots, $227m per FG. Something in the $200m-$210m range, while a bigger decrease than last year, wouldn't be as 'horrendously bad' optics wise, but still basically just mean $30m for the bullpen and then $20m-$30m for an average starter and a Justin Turner replacement. Basically all I'm saying is that they've lost some of the benefit of the doubt that I've been giving them, and I'm also a little more skeptical than maybe some others around here on taking Cubs reporters trading in access' word for the competitiveness of deals they didn't sign, and the prices on trades they didn't make. It's a long offseason and it should be judged in March, not at Thanksgiving. But...I've given enough credit to Jed for building a good base. Time to show any sort of evidence he can finish the job.

Interesting quote. I still don't totally buy the whole 'yeah, if we wanted anyone above Mike Soroka it was going to cost us Shaw or Horton and there was nothing we can do about it, just trust us'. But...at least he's acknowledging it. You kinda nailed it earlier. There's $80m-$100m (theoretically more!) to play with, and a ton of roster spots to fill. Players that will meaningfully move the needle of where we're at now are few and far between, and cost years in addition to dollars. So there's a very real worst case scenario where there's 4 worse versions of KIttredge at $5m each, 2 non-elite starting pitchers at like...$40m/2 year deals (Woodruff, the two you mentioned), and like...Ryan O'Hearn (the name doesn't matter so much as the vibe) to replace Tucker. And we're $15m lower than last year and maybe if you squint just as talented, but like...man. What a waste of time.

Yeah I'm still (stupidly?) clinging to the thought process of 'if you're going to go big at some point, this is probably it'. Like, the factors to a big offseason to me are: Idealish spot on the win curve (check) A bunch of expiring money to avoid repeater penalties (check) Some ideal group of free agent targets (definitely not a check, but becoming less likely every year) But also last season was super quiet on the FA front, and the trade deadline was garbage, and we have about 12 40-man spots to fill and a really dumb way to do it would be to just sign a bunch of modern day Justin Turner/Ryan Brasiers, but that's also the way to be able to point to a team salary number in the neighborhood of $200m without really making any sort of long term commitment/risk or really helping the team. Definitely think the only way to really judge this is in March, and I'm certainly going to laugh at everyone overreacting to the Reese McGuire replacement signing or whatever, but...after 4 months of 'it's actually fine we didn't use all our budgeted FA money, look at all these TDL bullets we have', I'm not really ready to assume Hoyer is just getting his troops in position. Edit: I'm also not super in love with the idea of opening up a bunch of spots for the GM who famously just waits for the talent that slips through the cracks. When you need one shortstop and there's four of them that all provide somewhat similar value and you can save $100m, fine. Similar on Bellinger/Chapman. When you need top end starters and a whole bullpen, maybe don't rely on the market being inefficient and scooping up what's left in February (or, even worse, July).

On the one hand it's November 4th and I'm generally optimistic about things around here. On the other hand there have been two moves today in which talented but flawed pitchers were basically sent away for either cash savings or literal cash and after the last 12 months or so, I'm starting to be a little suspicious on the whole 'another sign we're saving bullets for the big names'

I kinda agree that it's too hard to thread the needle of picking up half of the top of the free agent pitching market, especially given Jed's uber amounts of....we'll call it patience, to be generous. So go sign a bat, even if it's an overpay, even if it's not a perfect fit. None of these pitchers are slam dunks, really any 9 digit player on the market is going to come with question marks. But signing a big bat to round out the line up unlocks the ability to use the young bats to trade for a pitcher, which is, theoretically, a much bigger market of quality pitchers than the 4 that generally get named as free agents.

Agreed on him being at fault for putting us in that position. Agreed on misreading what the market would be in the offseason. Disagree on looking at what Bieber has done and what the Blue Jays have done with Bieber and being like 'nah, that's pretty irresponsible'.

I don't know, this is the kind of mindset where, if Bieber would have blown up or never gotten healthy, we wouldn't have been saying 'well you never know' or 'that's only with the benefit of hindsight'. Bieber gave them 7 starts of a 3.57 ERA in the regular season which we probably didn't need, and 17 innings with a 3.57 ERA in the postseason that we almost definitely could have used. We've been at home for 2 weeks, they're one game away from the World Series. If we point to trades not working out as proof of why we shouldn't do trades and then when they do work out we take a position of like 'well, who knows, might not have worked that way for us'....you're basically just saying you aren't typically willing to trade future for present. 'Had they lost to the Mariners...' They didn't. He gave them them 9.2 innings of 4 earned runs while the Cubs watched from home after starting Drew Pomeranz and Jameson Taillon in a 5 game series. Sorry, kinda ranting at this point.

Yeah, which, if anything, is probably just going to lead to them leaning harder into their castoff plan. I've given up trying to solve the bullpen. It's the BABIP of roster construction.

The 2024 bullpen got better as the season went on, similar to 2025, just started from a worse spot and didn't get much above average (19th all year, 14th in the second half). I'm fairly comfortable saying the audition method is just The Cubs Method at this point, for better or for worse, and looking at the big money acquisitions last year I don't know if getting a theoretical lockdown arm is a better strategy. It's basically just strength in numbers plus Hottovy magic. Which is...fine, I guess. I just wouldn't allocate a big number to the pen when sorting out the rest of the budget.