Bertz

Player benefits, estimated at $17.5M. Salaries for guys on the 40 man but not the 26 man, which is another ~$2.5. There's also the pre-arb player bonus pool which is $1.7 per team. It's also smart to build in some buffer for guys going on the IL, which is what ultimately put the Cubs over this year.

With Bellinger gone I had 80, and that included about $5M as buffer so you could call it 85 if you want to be super literal. Bellinger opting in cuts $27M, which brings us down to~$53M. Smart money is always to round down, hence $50. But you could maybe call it $55 with a Tauchman trade seemingly pretty inevitable?

Apparently Gerrit Cole is opting out, which seems dumb. Also apparently expectation is the Yankees will exercise their options to add a 5th year at 36M to his original deal and retain him, which seems even dumber.

Yeah I wonder if this greatly increases the odds of a trade for O'Hoppe or Langeliers. None of the bats we've been throwing around have seemed likely to out-produce Bellinger to a significant degree. They were guys who would get to that production differently (more dongs, less defense and contact). in a way that we feel fits the roster better. If you acquire a power hitting catcher though, you can still get to the same spot in the aggregate. 10 dongs at catcher and 30 in RF isn't any different than 20 and 20.

The good: - Seiya is locked into DH, and next year's defense should be very good - We have a a very good replacement in CF if PCA backslides. We have a solid replacement at 1B if Busch backslides - Depending on your thoughts at catcher, the starting lineup is ready to go. The bench needs some love, but largely the team can just focus on pitching pitching pitching - Mike Tauchman’s a decent little trade chip now The Bad - It's now harder to add more dong to the lineup - Likely the guy who would have most directly replaced Cody in the lineup would have made less than $27M per year. So there's $5-10M to address other items that essentially just went poof - While I'm pretty okay with Cody on the 2025 team, I'm much less enthused about him being on the '26 squad. Feels like, especially with him not being a starting CF any more, odds of him playing out his whole contract are decent?

I'm sure people will be totally normal about this

I'll say I expect Cody to opt out, and I'd prefer he opts out, but I don't think it's *that* much of a problem if he stays. It keeps Seiya firmly planted at DH, and provides some redundancy at CF and 1B, and gives us a left contact bat in the lineup we wouldn't otherwise have unless we made the mistake of starting Tauchman every day. And we saw in the second half once catcher got resolved the lineup was banging, so while we should strive for upgrades keeping the gang together isn't the end of the world. $50M to address the bench and the pitching staff is a bit tight, so I'd prefer the $80M with one extra item on the to-door list, but it's marginal.

I wouldn't be as quick to write off deals with the White Sox as much as deals with the NL Central. We've seen Kimbrel and Quintana in recent years, plus smaller deals like Tepera. Especially with just how far the Sox are out of contention the Cubs feel as likely of a Crochet suitor as anyone. And then generally, I think essentially any pitcher that might provide impact is fair game. Fairbanks making less than $5M is not expensive at all, and even Pressly at $14M with it only being one year I doubt Jed would bat an eye. Jed hates years, not dollars. On the SP front I actually think someone like Luzardo is a great fit. He has injury concerns sure, but A) the Cubs have pitching depth and B) he's slated to make a salary where you could acquire him as part of a two SP offseason.

Yeah you probably have to offer up some of the available DH playing time, something like 60-70 games on the infield and another 60-70 at DH. Which obviously means the righty bat you add can't be someone expecting 140 starts. So essentially would you rather have Polanco and like Mark Canha, or a much better righty bat paired with like Cavan Biggio? Assuming in the latter scenario any of the QO guys are off the table, I probably go with Polanco?

I don't know if they'd come somewhere with such a murky path to 2B playing time but Polanco or Moncada would be good buy low options to get that LHH infielder I've been pining for.

They are not showing up on individual player pages but Steamer projections look like they're live on Fangraphs https://www.fangraphs.com/depthcharts.aspx?position=ALL&teamid=17 It loos like all of the pending FAs have been cleared out (including Bellinger) and the Cubs are the #17 team in WAR as currently constituted. That is #1 in the division, though the Cardinals are right behind them by a fraction of a WAR. They rank 12th on the position player side, 22nd on the pitching front If you go player by player not a ton of surprises, and few things that kind of stand out though - Steamer has generally been pretty down on Dansby Swanson (while ZiPS has loved him), but 3.4 WAR feels pretty fair - Busch gets a fairly soft projection (1.9 WAR) as does Taillon (1.3) - Shaw gets a strong projection, the other prospects not so much. Generally these systems do not love rookies, so I think the Shaw piece is more of a surprise than the latter - Steamer likes several members of the bullpen, it does not love any of them (even Hodge). And generally reliever WAR tends to rack up exponentially as production improves All in all I don't think anything here is too far away from expectations. It paints the picture of a team that is a smidge north of .500 heading into a winter where they presumably have a lot of resources to throw around.

For Bellinger specifically there's probably not much that can happen in the next three days to influence his decision. Harrison Bader is likely the only CF competition on the market, and the Cubs don't have any other interesting option QO decisions to make. However, there's no cost to waiting. So whether it be something silly like be Scott Boras viewing waiting as a power move, or wanting to just insulate yourself from something surprising (White Sox making Luis Robert a free agent?) or something we can't see (Yankees or Phillies expressing interest) there's a good chance he wants until closer to the deadline.

Flip it around, if you're making a decision that could impact you to the tune of 10's of millions of dollars, why would you rush it?

Lynn and Gibson are fairly perfect flip candidates on one year deals. Cards might be planning on being *real* bad next year

I agree. I have, as recently as yesterday, poopooed sell trades for any of those guys (plus Taillon). But I do wonder if having $70M and 13.5 WAR (in 2024 production) slated to walk out the door all at the same time is something Jed wants to get ahead of? And even if he doesn't do anything about any of those guys, does having them all on hand make additional two year deals problematic? Like I've been stumping for Nate Eovaldi and Tyler O'neill. But is the prospect of having to replace Eovaldi and Taillon at the same time or O'neill, Happ, AND Suzuki at the same time make either of those a non-starter?

Some general predictions/expectations I have before things kick off in earnest: - The Cubs sign a player to a 9 figure deal, probably a pitcher, probably Max Fried - The Cubs acquire someone who is unambiguously the closer. Jed spends an uncharacteristic (for him) amount on the guy. Not an insane package for e.g. Mason Miller, but something in line with the Brandon Morrow or Wade Davis acquisitions - There’s a trade for someone entering his walk year on a healthy salary, maybe two. An example would be Dylan Cease like Trueblood brought up - One of the 2nd tier rumor guys (Morosi, Heyman, Bob) lists us pretty high up on Soto at some point, we have two or three days of chaos before Rosenthal or Passan come in with some cold water and it never really gets hot again - On the position player side the over/under for players added is 3.5, but the over under for guys who would be the primary starter at their position is 0.5 - The team doesn't spend the full $80M it's got before hitting the LT. They'll say something about having money for the trade deadline, and there's maybe some truth to that, but the bigger reason will be they don't want to enter next offseason already up against the LT, and there's only so many walk year players you can add this winter

2 pretty much classic games, and yesterday was a lot more fun than the final score. Games 2 and 3 were kind of duds but overall not a bad series.

He's getting Muncy too?!?

How is he still in after Freeman?!? Teoscar is the go ahead run!

You cannot let Cole face the top of the order here

Aaron Judge being the Yankees center fielder is still so insane to me. Feels like completely independent of any Juan Soto pursuit they absolutely have to sign Bellinger.

MLB player projections are more or less three years averages with an aging factor sprinkled on. Having two of your last three years being good vs. two of your last three years being bad is a big difference, even with a lesser platform year. Specifically, the year he aged past was disastrous to the point he was the 3rd worst hitter in the league.

Two things I'm really curious about with regards to the pen: - Which guys on the market are going to insist on save opportunities? - How long of a contract is Jed willing to give to a reliever? With it looking increasingly like Bellinger is opting out, Jed has ~$80M to play with this winter. Even with the other shopping to be done, I'd be comfortable allocating as much as $20M to improving the pen? And without a Hader caliber reliever on the market, Jed can get almost any two relievers he wants with $20M. From the players standpoint, save opportunities limit where you can double up though. For instance, setting anything financial aside, it seems very unlikely Jed can sign both Clay Holmes and Kenley Jansen. Both guys want the ball at the end of the game, and someone's going to give it to each of them. From the team's POV, we know Jed hates multi-year deals to relievers. We also got some rumors last winter that he was willing to bend on that a bit with Counsell on board. It didn't end up happening last year, but with finances being a bit less limiting this winter it seems as likely to happen now as ever. But if, for example, Tommy Hottovy and Craig Counsell love Clay Holmes, but he requires a 3 year deal and la Robert Stephenson, does Jed pull the trigger? Ultimately, I'm hoping for a younger stuff-heavy guy like these three you've written up, paired with one of the older reliable vets. Clay Holmes + Chris Martin for example. A stuff heavy closer to step right in and be leaned on, plus a stable veteran to assist in setup with Hodge and Pearson. Would really turn the pen into a weapon. and not be that much of a resource hog.

I'd be pretty surprised by any sell moves of substance. Happ and Suzuki aren't going anywhere. I don't expect the team wants to move them, but even if they did they've got NTCs. Hoerner as well, you could have earlier squinted and seen a path to trade (e.g. Hoerner out, Brandon Lowe in), but after his surgery I'd guess those odds went from slim to nons. Taillon I think you could logically argue for, but if he was going to be moved I think it clearly would have been done at the deadline. Maybe Bellinger if he opts in? He doesn't have a NTC, he seems to pretty clearly have surplus value on his deal (if he opts in it is because he's angling for a bigger deal next winter), and he's a bit redundant on this roster. Otherwise I think we're in for buy trades or roster cleanup type trades.

Cubs' beat writers all expect Bellinger to opt out. Especially how close we are to decision time it feels about as clear as we're going to get until the definitive decision has been made.