Bertz

(pending what a Nico trade return would look like)

This is a good point. The Brewers signing Christian Yelich to a mega extension immediately after he had mangled his knee comes to mind.

None of this sounds worth a Bellinger contract and a 2nd round pick.

Yeah Kilian is probably nothing at this point, at least as a SP. He did have a big time velo bump last spring out of the bullpen, so you can at least dream on him in short relief. 98-100 generally plays even when it's fairly flat.

Yeah I think if they don't make the move now it becomes imperative to do it at the deadline. But, I do think there's enough support in place that I don't feel too bad about waiting for July. We saw last year, the Brewers were pretty successful with Freddy Peralta and a bunch of innings eaters. They were able to do this thanks to: - A strong defense to mitigate all those extra balls in play - A stellar bullpen to lock down close games and minimize unnecessary exposure for the weaker parts of the rotation - A good offense that wins plenty of games where the pitching gives up 3/4/5 runs I think, especially if we end up with Robertson or Suarez the Cubs should likely have all 3 of those components and be able to win plenty of games started by Taillon/Rea/Assad. Add a playoff starter in July for the stretch run and we should be good.

Kiley McDaniel releases his full Top 10 1. MattShaw 2. Moises Ballesteros 3. Kevin Alcantara 4. Owen Caissie 5. Cade Horton 6. Jefferson Rojas 7. James Triantos 8. Brandin Birdsell 9. Yahil Melendez 10. Jaxon Wiggins

I have not exactly been rah rah for Bregman previously, but I think I'm fully out on him after reading this. You have to have one hell of a subsequent deal lined up for Nico (or Shaw?) for this to feel anywhere near worth it.

I suspect the goal for him, especially if the team ends up with another bonafide late inning arm like Robertson or Suarez, is going to be a multi-inning setup man akin to what Keegan Thompson was at his peak. I think this does a few things: - It plays to Pearson's strengths that you highlighted above - It builds in a rest day for the rest of the other late inning arms. You had an article on this a few months back, but teams are trying to move away from back-to-backs and certainly avoiding three days in a row. Being able to bring Pearson into the 7th or 8th and letting him just take a game to the house is potentially really valuable - It provides a role on the team that Brown and/or Horton can also step into. I don't think either guy should have the door shut on starting, but I do think expecting more than 120-130 innings out of either this year is a pipedream. I also think either guy would rock this type of role. 15 starts and 20-25 high leverage long relief appearances might be the best way to thread the needle between development and providing value

To TT'S point, the numerous reliever -> starter transitions the last few years show that more or less any currently healthy fully veteran pitcher can throw up 120-150 innings without a gradual buildup. For Boyd specifically, he had forearm issues for two years, which are often a precursor to elbow issues, and then his elbow popped which compromised parts of two years. This isn't a second TJ, this isn't a labrum, this isn't a Jacob deGrom situation where every part of the kinetic chain seems compromised. He's a pitcher, so I wouldn't stake my reputation on him staying healthy, but I'm less worried about him than I am most pitchers because of his age and his velo.

I believe the Rangers series lines up for us to get deGrom too. Though with him I kind of wonder if the Rangers don't ease him into the year to get him to last deeper into the season, similar to what the Dodgers are trying to do with Ohtani.

Have you seen this thing? https://www.mlb.com/cubs/schedule/2025/fullseason April is ROUGH, and the first two weeks of May aren't a lot better - The Cubs have 3 separate series against the Dodgers - 8 of the first 14 series are against teams Pecota and Fangraphs project to make the playoffs - 3 more of those 14 series are against teams projected over .500 - The Cubs only face two outright bad teams: the Pirates and A's, and both series are on the road. The Pirates have an off day before our series, so you have to presume they'll line things up to give us Paul Skenes and Jared Jones Even if this team is the goods and ends up winning 95 games, it's very possible they enter May under .500 and don't start pulling away from there until closer to Memorial Day. That said it's not totally doom and gloom. There are some silver linings even early in the year - After the Cubs leave New York on 5/11, it's nearly a month before they play another good team (YMMV on the Tigers, otherwise the Phillies on 6/9) - Because of the Japan series, the team has A TON of off days early on. Except May 1st, every Thursday until June is an off day, with a couple Mondays sprinkled in as well - Since the Cubs open in Arizona, they knock out a "west coast trip" without it actually being a lengthy trip

Only 3 SPs in MLBTR's top 50 free agents have signed for less than MLBTR predicted: - Max Scherzer was predicted at 1/$16M and got 1/$15M - Shinnosuke Ogasara was predicted at 2/$12M and got 2/$3.5 - Flaherty was predicted at 5/$115M and got 3/$35M (easily reachable 2/$45M) The rest got paid more, guys like Fried and Eovaldi and Buehler got a lot more. Flaherty's not old. He doesn't have a QO. This isn't a situation like Jordan Montgomery last winter where Boras sacrificed him to try and get Blake Snell paid. I think if you look at this situation critically for even a few moments your mind has to go to medicals.

I just listened to Sharma and Mooney's podcast from over the weekend. Not a ton there, but: - They sound pretty down on the likelihood of a Padres deal happening. They think Preller and Hoyer are just both guys who talk through everything, and it doesn't mean anything is likely or close. Never rule out Preller making a deal of course - Similarly they doubt Bregman happens. It just seems like he'll get $150M+ so why would he be put in a position to need a Bellinger deal from the Cubs - They also shut down Kenley Jansen. He's actually a guy the Cubs would probably be quite into, but he's very insistent on being *the* closer. He's 53 saves from 500 for his career. He's got a chance at passing Hoffman or Rivera if he continues to age gracefully. He's not going somewhere to be in the mix or to set up - Cubs weren't big on Estevez, aren't big on Finnegan, but the Robertson talk seems real - They didn't use the term "opportunistic" like they did in last week's article, but you could tell that's the vibe. Jed has some money to burn, very few other teams do still, and this is a time of year where you can get some deals

If you think Jack Flaherty barely getting more money than Matt Boyd says more about Boyd than it does about Flaherty, you've probably lost the plot.

ZiPS got folded into Fangraphs Depth charts yesterday, so we've got a quorum on public projections. We're waiting for Szymborski to do his run that dynamically alters playing time, but with the Cubs and Brewers both having plus depth I don't think that will alter the 2-way race very much. Steamer - Cubs 2 games better than Brewers ZiPS - 6 games Pecota - 10 games Steamer handles defense in a way that some might call conservative and others might call silly, which is probably why the gap is lowest there. And it makes sense? You look at these teams up and down by position and you take the Cubs everywhere except Catcher (where admittedly the gap is huge), the bullpen, and maybe left field. And if the Cubs' internals are anywhere between ZiPS and Pecota it probably colors how you want to handle the rest of this offseason. Raising the floor by grabbing David Robertson and your favorite RHH bench bat and waiting until July to make a big trade is probably pretty prudent.

Good lord how messed up is his back?

Fangraphs folded in ZiPS projections to all of their depth charts and projected standings. When they were just using Steamer, the Cubs were 2 games up on the Brewers and Cards. Now they're up 4 on the Brewers and almost 6 on the Cards.

I thought this was an interesting read. I like the idea of visualizing reliever usage like this. It'll be interesting to watch Counsell with a hopefully effective bullpen this year. I tend to think from watching him with the Brewers he's a top right guy. Fans on the other hand tend to want more of that Marlins' strategy.

Looking through Jim Callis' feed I don't see him saying it anywhere, but they're usually not far behind the Top 100. I'd assume the next week or so.

My guess, assuming we're not getting a bunch of outright lies, is this is the state of play: - Something about the Astros offer sucks. Deferrals, a vesting option. something like that. Bregman wants to go back so decent chance this works still - The Tigers offer is decent. Probably on the low end of what Bregman would take, but he doesn't want to go to Detroit so he's hoping someone else steps up - Cubs are offering something Bellinger-esque - Red Sox are offering something stupid. 4/100 with no options or something like that. They're going to get a "we tried" out of this - Mets haven't seriously engaged, but are interested until Alonso inevitably re-signs And thus we wait for someone to step up or Bregman to take Detroit's money.

It's very funny to me that all of the local folks are like "yeah they want him but only on their terms don't get too excited, it's probably not gonna happen." At the same time all of the less...scrupulous...national writers are pushing this HARD.

I don't understand why these minor league guys keep signing here. From the team's POV, whatever. There's little to no cost and you have Spring Training to see if anybody makes some changes that pop off the page. From the player's POV, has no one looked at a depth chart? There is enough talk about the Cubs and free agent relievers that you can pencil in the Cubs adding another late inning option. Let's call it Robertson so I have a real name and not a placeholder. The Cubs' MLB bullpen will thus look like this heading into ST: CL - Pressly SU - Hodge*, Robertson, Pearson MR - Morgan*, Merryweather Matchup Guys - Miller, Thielbar Hodge and Morgan with the * are the only two guys with minor league options. Both look exceedingly unlikely to open the year in the minors. That's fine though, there are always injuries, right? But these are the guys already eying a spot at Iowa wanting to be that next man up. I have to separate them into three categories because there are so many: On the 40 man, no MiLB options: Keegan Thompson, Rob Zastryzny, On the 40 man, has MiLB options: Palencia, Little, Neely, Kilian, Hollowell Not on the 40 man: Phil Bickford, Trevor Richards, Brooks Kriske, Ben Heller, Brad Keller, Brandon Hughes Then you have the starters! If Assad or Brown or Horton come up sans injury it pushes Rea to the pen, which kills another spot. If you're a Brad Keller type and your career is hanging by a thread, I don't know why you wouldn't go to like the White Sox or something where you can actually count the number of guys you have to pass on the depth chart on your fingers. Or is this a compliment to Hottovy: these guys are coming here hoping to get fixed and go somewhere else in April?

Have to assume this is the Tigers and this saga is about over

I do want Cease dealt even if it's not here. The Cubs' April schedule is so damn brutal, and part of that is facing the Padres twice. Even though in an objective sense Cease going to the Mets is lateral for us, punting an extra hard game or two to later in the year would be nice.

He's not as good of a roster fit after Berti but I still would have liked.