Bertz

I mean your posts on this topic aren't exactly making me rethink whether "whining" was the right way to refer to your reacton.

Yeah that definitely impacts the calculus But like Neris was something like RP12 on last year's FA market. Does this year having the arms they have as cheap as they have them mean that Jed's willing to shop in the RP3 - RP5 range? Or put another way, last winter Jed was clearly shopping for "best reliever I can get on a 1 year deal." Is that still his target, or will he raise his sights to "best reliever I can get without needing a 3+ year deal"?

If Matt Thaiss is the opening day backup catcher, that's a problem. Full stop. That said: - This could just be waiver wire roulette. In the same way that teams claim relievers and then shortly after DFA them to sneak them through waivers, that would be a savvy play here to try and sneak Thaiss down to Iowa - Similarly, this may be a placeholder until they sign the inevitable veteran and then DFA Thaiss. The Cubs only have Amaya as a catcher on the 40 man currently, you need SOMEBODY there as a placeholder - Because of positional flexibility of guys like Hoerner and Bellinger, having a 3rd catcher on the MLB roster wouldn't be crazy, especially early in the year before the kids start pounding on the door. I wouldn't hate Thaiss getting a Luis Torrens style run until Shaw comes up around like Memorial Day

I wonder if getting Morgan in the door and doing so for barely north of league minimum makes Jed more likely to just pay retail for a closer. No one in the pen is slated to make more than $1.5M. Even if you spent $12-15M on a free agent closer you'd still be spending only ~$25M on the group collectively? Similarly, expectations have been $50-55M is availabe to spend this winter. With Morgan in tow you're still looking at that same $50-55M. You could pay low 8 figures for a closer and still have ~$40M left for a SP and bench help. It'd be a bit tight, but only by several million. The team being willing to exceed the tax, or another trade similar to this one to fill one of the bench spots would get us in the clear.

I don't want to get too caught up on half a season of L/R splits, but Hodge's peripherals were stronger against lefties than righties. And with his cutter I think there's repertoire reasons to think it doesn't have to be a fluke. I wonder if the plan is to bring in a veteran closer, and then Hodge functions as the "lefty" setup man while Pearson is the righty? I could also see if the big SP add is a lefty the thought being that you very much want a pen loaded with righties.

They're not all tied for last place, but I do think there's at least a 7-8 way tie for last place. - Fried feels reasonably likely, full stop - Santander got specifically name checked by Sharma in like August as a guy the Cubs really liked. I think Bellinger coming back closes the door here but it's not a slam dunk. Sharma does not venture into roomer mongering lightly - Nick Pivetta feels like he might have enough upside to warrant it? He seems like a guy you could get for $50M and convince yourself you can coach up to being worth $100M+ - Walker and Severino feel very unlikely, but I wouldn't necessarily say they're impossible. Your reasoning for each is sound

Are you having an episode right now?

His peripherals all went the wrong way last year but he became extremely successful at generating soft contact. Curious how real the latter is. Also pretty normal L/R splits, which is a bit surprising considering his signature pitch is a bugs bunny changeup.

That Garcia haul feels excessive, but the Crochet deal feels light. I could see the holistic cost being correct-ish even if it needs to be distributed a bit differently. Overall I think this is the rough shape I'm hoping for this offseason. Two exciting SPs, one exciting RP, and plus some fiddling beyond that. A few specific things I'd quibble with - Alexander seems unnecessary after adding Garcia. He's kind of a pure LOOGY at this point, and with the left handed reliever box checked, pretty emphatically at that, I'd assume Garcia and Little can take care of us from the left side and just look for someone on a minor league deal as a pure lefty killer - I would probably look for more power in our Wisdom replacement than Solano provides. Solano not being limited to 4B is nice, but it wouldn't be my priority with that roster spot. I tend to think complimenting Busch is more important than any defensive value, especially if we have a Vazquez or some other plus defensive infielder elsewhere on the bench Overall this would be a fun team. That pitching staff has an opportunity to absolutely smother opposing offenses.

Yeah I think that's where I'm leaning too. Wisdom + Madrigal pretty much as locks, and then one maybe two pitchers. Wingenter seems to be most cost-prohibitive with his $1.4M arb number, while Zastryzny seems to be most fungible, so they seem most likely.

Curious how many spots the team feels the need to open up this week. The to-do list of team needs as far as we know is - 1 SP - A reserve infielder (ideally lefty) - A couple relievers - It has not been reported but I also feel pretty safe presuming that if Wisdom gets NT'd that a 1 for 1 backfill will be added So that's 5 roster spots that are needed. Maybe call it 6 or 7 in case there are priorities we don't know about or they want an open roster spot for waiver wire roulette. However, we also know the plan for this winter involves some trades, so Jed does not necessarily need to open up 5 spots to accommodate 5 additions. There's also dead weight on the roster that is going to make a league minimum salary, which I believe undercuts the need to make a move right now. I'm not 100% confident in my understanding of all the administrative nonsense, but I believe the deadline this week is only relevant for guys eligible for arb. So if e.g. Kilian is the next guy on the chopping block, there's no incentive to make a move before you need to. I wonder if we see 2-3 arb cuts this week, Madrigal, Wisdom, and Wingenter for instance, and then the teams waits for additional cuts on an as-needed basis. Or do we see one pretty extensive cut of like half a dozen guys.

I'd guess Adbert's decently likely to re-sign on a minor league deal. Brennen's gone gone though, like you're saying probably to a team with an easier outfield to break into.

Nah, the Athletic guys pretty affirmatively kept Fried in bounds

Another feather in Higashioka's cap is his ability to speak Japanese. We know the Cubs really value soft skills from their catchers. With Imanaga on hand and the team already being being linked to two different Japanese SPs in the early going this winter it might be a pretty relevant differentiator.

@enosarris.bsky.social on Bluesky BSKY.APP Tyler Zombro to the Cubs, Passan is reporting. Great hire, imo, more than a few pitchers have sung his praises... Jordan Wicks to start throwing 97 confirmed

I believe Tread is considered ahead of Driveline at this point you just don't hear about it as much because he doesn't spend as much time on Twitter as Kyle Boddy.

BBTV is great, but it is just a WAR -> Dollars calculator. If, for example, you're at a point on the calendar where the only projection system currently showing on Fangraphs has your 2B who's generally +8 to +10 per year is only listed as +0.5, that's context you need to understand. Likewise any prospect valuations you see listed in November are going to be based on stale prospect ratings from July or August. That's context people should account for that they probably don't. People who point to a difference of like 26 vs 23 on there as if it's at all meaningful should be shunned until they take a data literacy course at their local community college.

People took "Paredes' swing was uniquely optimized for the Trop and he's going to lose some offense going to Wrigley" and then just went absolutely insane over some normal small sample size noise. The over/under on his wRC+ is something like 110 or 115. Reasonable expectations for Willy Adames shouldn't be any higher than that. Spending $150-200M to add some dong to the lineup and some athleticism on defense is absolutely silly.

I think the argument against the Dodgers is mostly about staying out of the shadow of Ohtani and Yamamoto. The dimwitted Jim Bowden actually had a great point about how by coming over early and foregoing a huge salary, Sasaki is going to likely be counting on major sponsorship dollars. So even setting aside anything like pride, the Dodgers might be a bad fit financially with Ohtani sucking up all the air in every room he's in. The Padres seem the next most logical. Playing with his idol Darvish, west coast, and fueling that Dodgers/Padres rivalry. I feel like the Cubs have as good of an argument as anyone else though. Still a very large market. Darvish evangelizes for the city, the team, and Hottovy. We also have two Japanese stars, but guys who would slot behind Roki in Q Score. The team did a phenomenal job of onboarding Imanaga last year culturally, in terms of his performance, and maybe most importantly his health. While it's certainly unlikely he comes here, it also doesn't feel like a pipe dream.

The other thing on Keegan is he was one of the few guys that Craig was willing to give leverage opportunities to. His 1.4 average leverage index when entering a game is a fairly standard setup man number. Now obviously that is due in no small part to guys ahead of him immolating, but I'd be surprised with the inexperience elsewhere in the pen if the team just chucks a guy that they know can enter a tight game and not just immediately piss his pants. The ship has probably sailed on Keegan being good, but there's value in "not bad."

Keegan Thompson is way too high on this list. He's as good a bet as any waiver wire guy they can grab. I don't have supreme confidence in him making it onto the Opening Day roster, but I'd be pretty surprised if he's not given a crack in spring training. Canario and Mervis likewise are way too low. Maybe they've got enough value where there's some semantics in that their exit from the roster comes in the form of some minor "my crap for your trash" type of trade in the next couple days, but they're in essentially the same spot as Kilian (though Mervis does have an option left).

Dylan Moore is a nice short side platoon bat in a utility role. Deluding yourself into thinking he's as good as Nico Hoerner would be like a Cubs fan deluding themselves into thinking they don't need frontline rotation help because of Javier Assad's superficially pretty ERA.

Singer's tough. On the one hand yet another low velo guy with less swing and miss than we'd like. On the other he is good and I'm not the most confident we end up with two starters better than him? I feel like I'd potentially have a much different opinion if this rumor popped up in January, but right now I'd pass.

Christian Franklin should have gotten the call to Iowa when all the Uber prospects did. The fact that he didn't to me signaled that they wanted to hold off on rostering him but also maximize chances of him surviving the Rule 5. Aliendo was I believe eligible for some level of minor league free agency. So him sticking around again feels like he's safe to not roster. Caissie and Cowles are slam dunk. There will also be the annual pitcher or two we're not sure about that gets rostered.

I think the problem is that any Nico trade needs to immediately upgrade another area of the team. For example: Nico Hoerner (3.5 WAR) + Javier Assad (1.0 WAR) + Prospect Capital for Bryce Miller (2.5 WAR) plus An open spot for Matt Shaw (2.0 WAR) and Nico's $11M salary coming free (1.0 WAR) It makes sense! Both teams improve and the Mariners get the clear best player in the trade. The problem is how many of these situations can you find where a contender, or at least aspiring one, has a need at 2B/SS and a surplus that can immediately step in and help the Cubs? You're pretty much limited to SP and C, positions where teams usually aren't super thrilled about parting with depth. Theoretically I'm cool dealing Hoerner, but you start looking for specific landing spots and it gets dicey fast. Like even the above, which I think works great on paper, falls through if Jerry DiPoto simply doesn't like Hoerner.