Bertz

Unfortunately no because the Cubs went over the luxury tax. Under the luxury tax you lose your 2nd rounder for signing a QO free agent and you gain a pick at the end of the 2nd round for losing a QO player. It's not quite a wash but it's close enough. Over the luxury tax you lose your 2nd and 5th picks for signing a QO free agent, and you only gain a single pick after the 4th round for losing a QO free agent. So if e.g. the Cubs lose Seiya and sign Bauers, they gain a pick after the 4th for losing Seiya, then after signing Bauers lose their second rounder and also the pick they just got for losing Seiya. So the bar needs to be especially high for signing a QO free agent. My personal POV would be Rogers or bust, but everyone's mileage will vary.

I wonder how far they'd pay down Yoshida. Wouldn't hate him for the Conforto role.

This is the first time a QO free agent sign before the QO deadline in years I think. Glad this offseason is already moving at a decent clip.

Gallen is a decent buy low candidate. If he's the 4th best guy we acquire I'd be pretty happy with him.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7777321/2026/11/12/trevor-rogers-cubs-pitching/ Gimme gimme

I think too it's easier to plan around this situation where Brown is reinforcements as opposed to a guy in the rotation who you're white knuckling your way through every start hoping he doesn't get hurt again.

You've got 6 guys in the pen that you can write in....well pen. Palencia, Zef, Webb for late innings Rolison, Miller, Maton for middle innings They're almost certainly going to have at least 1 long reliever, presumably the lesser of Cabrera/Garrett. I would guess they do a second long reliever, but that's not a guarantee, so that last spot is technically open. I would also think there's a chance that, especially given how many guys ended last year on the IL, they bring like 14 or 15 dudes into ST seemingly ticketed for a big league roster spot and then assume a few will get eaten by the pitcher attrition monster. Particularly given the quick ramp up post lockout. And if they absolutely needed to they could option Rolison or Zef or Palencia I also could see trying to do the Harvey/Miller thing again. Sign an AJ Puk or a Brusdar Graderol or a Pete Fairbanks who you know is out until midseason. So I'm very much doubting a Bednar/Morejon type but I think they can squeeze a veteran reliever or three onto this roster.

That line in Carter's presser about Cabrera, paraphrasing: "Tyler Zombro is calling him every morning asking what he's working on" raised my eyebrows. I know sports are not real life but I would...not feel great about my job prospects if my boss was doing that to me. Everything else sounded positive and mostly frustration with the blisters but that line was hard for me to shake off. But yeah for the team to have sufficient depth enough SPs have to be brought in to where on paper heading into ST at least one of Cabrera/Garret are in the bullpen and Assad is ticketed for Iowa. So I'd expect the team to bring in 4 starters, or at minimum least three starters and one "starter" like an Aaron Civale. I think too it's important context that Colin Rea was dumped and these three guys are being pushed down the depth chart. So I know the fans are going to doom about Jed adding four #5 starters, but realistically I think you're looking at all four guys being north of the Colin Rea line and at least two being better than David Peterson.

One of the things that has been mentioned the last few years is how well the Cubs handle Japanese players off the field. A bunch of little things like post-game meals, family accommodations, etc. It sounds like they basically asked Yu Darvish "how can we do better at this stuff" and then put it all into action. That's part of why Yu has evangelized for Chicago even after leaving. All else being equal you'd probably like to have another Japanese player around. so don't be surprised if the team double or triple dips in that market, but broadly aside from the Dodgers (who, to be clear, have some institutional geographic advantages) I don't expect the Cubs to lose a recruitment on soft factors.

Yeah I think there's essentially four buckets in FA, and the idea should be to to pick 1 from each: - The good old guys (Gausman, Holmes, Gray) - The guys with a question mark or two but obvious upside (Taira, Mahle, Pivetta, etc.) - The boring but still pretty good LHPs (Peterson, Griffin, Boyd, Shota) - The buy low types or explicit swingmen (Bubic, Sandoval, Flaherty, Civale, May could fit here) Trevor Rogers doesn't fit into any of these buckets but I'd love to keep close on him still.

The last three years Joe Ryan has a 3.59 ERA with peripherals to match. That is good certainly but we're really stretching the definition of an "Ace" if that's what we're calling one.

Listening to Carter's presser last night it feels like the over/under on SPs is 3.5, and I'd probably take the over. And with that the added context that they bailed on Colin Rea on a market rate deal.

The Cubs way back in the day (during the 2021 tear down?) were connected to Campusano I believe. That said I'd be surprised. Fermin sucks worse than some generic guy you could go get in FA, though he does have a MiLB option at least. And Campusano is fun but feels like he would (rightfully) cost more than the team should be spending for how small of a hole this is.

Thanks for posting this. Really good stuff. Some other things that stood out to me - Probably the most confident I've ever heard Carter. He was very impressive here - Probably some copium but about as positive of a Ben Brown update as I could have hoped for - Very much did not sound like they're gonna roll with Amaya and Ayers at catcher. I don't think Kelly's back but they're going to bring an adult in - He didn't shut the door on anything but sounded like he views Wiggins as a reliever - The line about Tyler Zombro texting Edward Cabrera every day...I'm going to try not to read too much into that but raised an eyebrow - Bruce Levine asks a lot of meandering questions and you can tell Carter's thinking "WTF are you talking about" until he finally lands on a point - They clearl have a Japanese pitcher circled as a priority add. Presumably Taira but they're 100% adding a Japanese SP this winter

Yeah. Neck surgery in a vacuum is obviously not good news, but if my options are surgery recurring mystery injury I'm taking the former. It also gives team building clarity. Like with Horton you cannot count on him for next year, full stop. You probably will get some innings and they're probably going to be good but it's essentially a hypothetical trade deadline addition.