Bertz

Honestly they're not much different on the position player side. The quintessential "it's not who you play it's when you play them" team the last few years.

They were probably already going to need a SP, feels like they might need to be the team that comes hat in hand for Gallen now.

Woof. Hamates are quick to get back on the field from but long to get back to 100%.

Love seeing Conrad out there this early. Makes it seem more likely he's fully healthy and can hopefully proceed right to South Bend on Opening Day.

I follow Dan Szymborski's writing pretty closely. He's mentioned something a few times this winter that I thought was really interesting. Basically that the Brewers beating the projection systems every year has been less about them getting a bunch of individual results that the computers don't see coming, and more about the Brewers being good about shifting playing time to guys the computers think deserve more playing time than the public does. For instance Isaac Collins projected for approximately 2 WAR/600 heading into last year, and yet didn't appear at all on Fangraphs' pre-season depth charts. So one thing Dan did when he ran ZiPS a few weeks ago (after the Peralta trade, before the Durbin one) was try to anchor less to what we expect playing time to look like now and more optimize towards what would theoretically be most effective. That method closed the Cubs/Brewers gap considerably. And it makes sense, the Brewers have absurd depth and only like four or five guys making decent money. They can funnel playing time to the guys hitting their 60th percentile outcomes and away from the guys hitting their 30th. The Cubs do IMO have a more obviously talented top of the roster, and plenty of depth of their own. I think much like this past year if the Cubs don't win the division it's going to be more of a "Brewers won" than "Cubs lost" situation.

Connor Schultz is interesting. He's an older relief prospect they signed out of Indy ball who ended the year on a real heater at Tenn. This would indicate there might be something there. I know teams tend to dig a little deeper for catchers for ST but I also like the vote of confidence for Ariel Armas. Maybe the most underrated prospect in the system.

I'm not the biggest BP guy but PECOTA loves the Cubs. One of only four team projected over 90 wins.

https://www.mlb.com/draft/2026/order Cubs current picks are: 23, 62, 75, 99 With only Zac Gallen left as a QO free agent who can impact the order. A few scenarios: - If the Cubs sign Gallen, #62 goes poof. The Cubs latter two picks stay where they are because the Cubs' lost pick is offset by the Dbacks added pick - If the Dbacks re-sign Gallen, the Cubs picks stay where they are. No one loses or gains a pick and the draft order is set - Assuming he doesn't go to the Dbacks or Cubs, the Gallen comp pick will either be #29 or #75 depending on how big the contract is. These would push the Cubs picks back accordingly - The team signing Gallen will lose theit 2nd highest remaining pick. For most teams that pick will lie somewhere in the 40-70 range. Exceptions are the Mets (92), Jays (104) and Dodgers (134). Depending on who exactly signs Gallen the Cubs latter picks will all move up - For most teams the Dbacks added pick and the signing team's lost pick will offset, and the Cubs will stay right where they are Also, last year's slots for each of the Cubs' top 4 picks are 23 - $3.85M 62 - $1.45M 75 - $1.09M 99 - $0.77M So with the 5% overage the Cubs should be able to easily get four and maybe even finagle five $1M+ bonuses.

If there's a run on back end starters look for the Cubs to make a move soon, whether it's paying up for Gallen or someone more from this tier.

Vibes are off the charts with Cutch but production wise juice doesn't really seem worth the squeeze. Via ZiPS Long looks like a very similar hitter against LHP, while the Alcantara/McCormick/Carlson trio are all a step behind but probably better players overall when you account for their ability to actually play defense.

I get it from the Sox side. I'd rather have Shaw or Paredes than Durbin, but being able to draw the line at Harrison as the big piece going out is a big deal. From the Brewers POV, you have to assume any pitcher they acquire is going to hit their 80th percentile outcome, but on paper without giving them the benefit of the doubt feels like a bad deal. Very similar to the Isaac Collins trade.

I kind of assume this will hurt their defense nearly as much as it helps their offense, they really needed to pay up for Suarez. Still Pirates aren't bad, they're better than the Reds were at this time last year IMO.

Levine's been hit or miss the last few years but has absolutely nailed a few things. Luzardo being the most notable. So it's so interesting to me both how confident Levine is on the Gallen happening, and also that he's pretty sure Taillon gets shipped out as a corresponding move.

I think it's fair to worry that Mo becomes a tweener. But at the same time every prospect's floor is either washout or tweener.

Generally 1H/2H splits are fairly meaningless moving forward. On the flip side PCA's at an experience level where you're still slightly worried about the floor dropping out. My POV tends to be about the 1000 PA mark is when you're in the clear, and PCA's prolonged second half funk started a little prior to that. I think the projections for him look about right, but there's clearly more (offensive) downside risk there than any of our other really good players.

Essentially every signal we've gotten from those connected to the team is the opposite.

If you were reading tea leaves you'd probably say that Arizona is about to spend a little money and not on Zac Gallen

This team *really* values soft skills behind the plate. They thought Yan Gomes walked on water and he stopped being a good defensive catcher by the public metrics 4-5 years before he got to Chicago. If Mo's a -5 catcher on paper but a +10 catcher in Craig's heart they'll gladly let it rip. Also seeing how some catchers have drastically improved their defense with new orgs (William Contreras?) makes me wonder if the catcher equivalent of jugs work isn't in fact viable. I'm sure getting ~20% playing time in MLB is not the optimal way to improve Mo's defense, but I'm not sure it's suboptimal enough to A) go with a less desirable option at DH and B) counterbalance the fact that Mo's bat continuing to hang out in Iowa is suboptimal for that half of his development.

I think catcher is the one position where there's as much (maybe even more?) to learn off the field as on. Like we have an example on hand in Miguel Amaya. He missed playing the field in most of '21 and all of '22. Then in 2023 he had a month in the minors, and after he came up in early May was mostly just Kyle Hendricks' personal caddy. I'm hoping Mo gets to be personal valet to one of the vets (Boyd ideally), and then he can just pick up scraps from there when one of Kelly/Amaya is banged up.

Valdez is a better player, but when you look big picture I'm glad we did Bregman: - Pitcher attrition is a horsefeathers - The trade market was way better on the SP side than the pitching side. Bregman + Cabrera is likely a lot better than Valdez + TBD Hitter - The way that Bregman pushed Shaw to the bench was a savvy way to add middle infield depth. With how good and durable Swanson/Hoerner are you'd be scraping the barrel for any veteran backup this year regardless of what money you offered. Now Shaw insulates us from injury and also Nico's impending free agency - Bregman's got a reputation as a top of the scale off the field guy. Framber...very much does not

If I was 60% sure the Bosox/Shaw stuff was dead after IKF I'm like 90% sure when this goes down just a few hours later.

I assumed the Skubal arb case was impacting the pitching market but didn't think this directly. Have to assume Gallen goes somewhere by this weekend.

I don't think it's insane to hope for something in the vicinity of Tommy Edman, Bryson Stott, or Jeff McNeil from Ramirez. That said Ramirez 4th is largely an indictment of the system in Kiley's POV rather than gassing up Pedro. He did rank the system 25th after all.

bahahahaha