Bertz

The rumor du jour the last two weeks in Cubs land has been Alex Bregman. We finally have an indication of what the team's backup plan is if he chooses to go elsewhere. Ken Rosenthal and Patrick Mooney indicate tonight the team is eying the aged Justin Turner. After the Cody Bellinger and Matt Mervis trades, the Cubs' roster is very thin at first base behind starter Michael Busch. Matt Trueblood wrote about the issue earlier today. Turner would give the time a far more viable backup than they have on hand currently. Turner is mostly a 1B/DH at this point in his career, so while his Baseball-Reference page says "Third Basemen" he would not be a threat to block Matt Shaw unless things went very very wrong for the rookie. Turner would likely play 1B and DH primarily, and get just a smattering of playing time at 2nd and 3rd. View full rumor

1. Fair for a longer deal is probably in the neighborhood of the 6/$156 the Astros presumably offered, maybe a smidge higher. Shorter is harder to say because the devil is in the details but comfortably north of what Bellinger got. Either an extra $5Mish AAV or a 4th year. 2. It sounds like Boras wants an AAV that beats Rafael Devers $31.3M, AND wants 6-7 years. I think you can justify either but not both. 3. My gut says he's a Cub and gets roughly the contract Trueblood laid out

Yeah Assad might not even impact his regular season by more than a few starts. Similar to the Taillon leg injuries the past few years. But this is what the depth is for. Feb/March/April is always especially brutal.

And so it begins

There has to be someone, maybe multiple someones, converting to the position this spring. It's the only thing that makes sense. There has barely been a peep this winter tying the team to a 1B. I think the Athletic mentioned Ty France one time? The backup catcher right now is either Berti or one of the catchers. Down at Iowa we do have Ballesteros, but if something major happened to Busch do you really want to take Moises away from catching for a couple months? Canario is interesting, that would be a good way to get him onto the big league bench to open the year. I also think Caissie needs to start a couple days a week there in case of that aforementioned long term Busch injury. I'm hoping the team is in in Canha/Turner, and just don't want to pull the trigger until the Bregman situation resolves itself. For as much as Jed's MO is depth and solving for downside situations this is some pretty major exposure currently.

We all noted it was a bad angle, but Moises' possible weight loss from that other video seems to have been overstated.

1B defense has three components: - Vertical range - Horizontal range - Receiving (both throws and groundballs) Moises' height means the 1st one's going to be bottom of the scale, and there's nothing he can do about it. Moises' weight will go a long way in in determining how he nets out horizontally. Receiving though, he's probably got the hands to crush it. There are endless examples of mediocre to bad defensive catchers who went to 1B and excelled, and I think a big part of that is because of the hands piece. The aforementioned Carlos Santana looks like a posterboy for this. The bar at catcher is SO high, if you're even vaguely major league quality, your receiving almost by default outstrips any non-catcher. I don't know how to weight these three in terms of importance. I suspect receiving is number 1 by a very healthy amount because it influences the largest number of plays. So I would tend to be less worried about Ballesteros than I would be e.g. Chris Morel. I'm going back a ways with these examples: but guys like Mike Napoli and Daric Barton taking to 1B like fish to water while guys like Adam Dunn and Edwin Encarnacion simply couldn't make it work stands out to me. I'd rather try to convert a bad raw athlete with some skill than a premium athlete who's a putz.

Carlos Santana is a 5'11" former catcher pushing 40 and is probably the best defensive 1B in the league right now. No one bats an eye if someone 5'10" or 5'11" plays 1B. What major problem suddenly pops up in those last two or three inches?

Respectfully, where's your evidence that his height is a problem?

We had a Caissie convo as few weeks ago, but I generally think he has been around so long prospect fatigue has set in and he gets credit for less than the sum of his parts in some places. I think the main place that manifests is that I don't think he gets proper credit for his age relative to league. Like if he had a 25% strikeout and a .250 ISO as someone still young for AA is Caissie a consensus top 30 prospect like Shaw? I want Caissie's focus to start the year on defensive versatility. He should be playing 1B, he should be DHing (which will uperficially hurt his offense). The idea should be that he is the callup and direct 1:1 replacement when any of Happ, Tucker, Suzuki, or Busch hit the IL. And at some point mid year Caissie should probably be up and filling in across those spots even if everyone's healthy.

Donovan Solano is a 5'8" 1B/3B, and has 940 innings of +3 DRS / -1 OAA at 1B the last three years. And he didn't start there until his mid 30's, I'd presume that being short at 1B limits your receiving but likely helps with the groundballs you field directly. Doubt it's a catastrophic disadvantage if it's a disadvantage at all. There is certainly a pretty high "tweener" potential with Ballesteros. But even then that just means he's a really fun and unique bench player instead of an everyday player. And part of the benefit of paying out the nose for a really progressive manager is to try and wring as much value as you can out of this type of unicorn.

I would suspect that if Bregman doesn't happen the team will add three more players: - A bench player of substance, someone like Mark Canha or Jose Iglesias - Possibly a lesser bench player, someone like Ty France. This guy would have a tenuous grasp on a roster spot, essentially a placeholder for the first prospect to be ready. They could simply keep Brujan or Canario for this role - A pitcher making some money. I suspect a trade. Someone like Jordan Montgomery or Robert Suarez, where we trade some pitching depth and they kick in some money. It could be a free agent like David Robertson. It could be someone like Kendall Gravemen or Brooks Raley who will open the year on the IL (and thus not contribute to the roster crunch) That probably isn't $20M, but it is likely at least $15M.

I guess to engage with this idea with less snark, if you want a player the caliber of Kyle Tucker to settle for a 3 year deal, you likely have to pay him a humongous salary, in the vicinity of $70M per year. The reason teams offer these 6, 8, 12 year deals is not because they are dumb and don't realize the end of that contract will be ugly. They offer them because they are a huge bargain in the first few years, and the team is willing to sacrifice some pain towards the end to get that bargain now. You offer 6 years at $30M per year, and it's because you expect the player to be actually worth something like this Year 1 - $50M Year 2 - $40M Year 3 - $35M Year 4 - $25M Year 5 - $20M Year 6 - $10M

Yeah just signed Kyle Tucker to a three year extension. Of course. Then trade Alexander Canario for Shohei Ohtani and pick up Bobby Witt Jr. off of waivers and then we'll really be cooking.

Yeah CF seems fairly cleared out after Bader, Grichuk, and Laureano all signed in pretty quick succession a few days ago. There's quite a gap between them and like Manny Margo. Otherwise the bench tier of FA is still sufficiently stocked.

With this seemingly in the 11th hour, I guess this is ultimately my pros/cons list for the Bregman/Hoerner swap Pros: - The offense gets a big jolt - Whatever uncertainty there is around Nico post injury goes away - Bregman probably opts out after year 1, and if so there's plenty of money to re-sign Tucker and make complimentary moves next winter. It also removes one guy from the post '26 cliff - You presumably get back valuable player(s) for Nico Hoerner - The FA market is getting dry. Adding Bregman + the return for Nico is probably the most impactful set of moves left possible barring unless Preller starts playing ball - 3B is kind of ass both organizationally and league-wide right now. If Shaw's at 3B, it's easier to replace him with competence if he fails Cons: - It's debatable if Bregman's better than Hoerner, so is this just a lot of moving parts to get older and more expensive? - The bench gets a lot worse. We probably have to roll internally or with league minimum vet types for the last two bench spots, AND we've traded away our primo backup SS - The team's options at the trade deadline are probably more limited because there'll likely be less cash to carry into July - If Bregman doesn't opt out, next offseason gets messy if you want to keep Tucker I ultimately think those negatives, most especially that last one, outweigh the positives. Though I do think it's close enough that the specific return on Hoerner might ultimately sway me.

I don't want Bregman on a long term deal either, but wailing against that and then not even two sentences later saying the Tucker trade was a mistake because it didn't come with an extension is very funny to me.

It's not the best angle to be able to tell this but he looks significantly slimmer, no?

And conversely if budgets are so widely tapped out league wide you can do a hell of a lot of work with the $20M left in Jed's pocket after hypothetically losing out on Bregman. You can't worry in both directions. Well, you *can* but it's especially silly.

It's 2025. Having ~$20M left over in your baseball budget is hardly some Brewster's Millions style challenge.

Something worth noting: teams don't make formal offers until a deal is almost done. So now we know the Cubs and Astros have done so. I'd be shocked if this isn't resolved in the next 48 hours.

Interestingly, I see several teams in the not green here that feel like plausible Nico Hoerner destinations: Seattle, Boston, and Cleveland. Maybe the Bregman path and the depth consolidation path can overlap? Nico Hoerner, an Iowa SP, and an Iowa RP for Matt Brash and Harry Ford for instance.

I wonder what the plan is with the bench if they add Bregman. Presumably it's Bregman in, Hoerner out, and the team is ~$10M short of the LT like we've presumed they'd end up for months. However, there's only two locked in spots on the bench currently: Kelly and Berti, and no money to address it further without eating into mid-season cash. - Do you just roll internally regardless of fit? Two of Canario/Brujan/Workman, and dump those guys as hitters at Iowa pop? - Does essentially trading Bregman for Hoerner impact the makeup of the bench? Since Bregman's not hurt like Hoerner, does Berti feel like adequate infield depth now? - Are there any league minimum types that feel worthwhile? Ty France at 1B? Michael Taylor in CF?

It doesn't change things a ton, but that $112 does not include Shota (since he technically has an option for next year). However arb commitments should be way lower with Tucker no longer under arb. It mostly washes out, and I've been using $185 as a placeholder, but that Shota thing tripped me up a few weeks ago so wanted to call it out.