Bertz

On a practical basis the team is over the LT. They're under at the moment but by a slim enough margin that normal in-season stuff (roster churn, bonuses, etc.) will bump them over. And that's okay, the team has very explicitly said they're fine going over this year. Post-Bregman They've frankly been uncharacteristically non-cagey about payroll, which has been refreshing. Best guess feels like they've got a harder cap of the second threshold, and that's including any in-season moves. But no way to say for sure at the moment.

Signing Andujar just to block Austin is dumb. Austin projects better, it's not hard to find shortside platoon bats at the deadline, and we have Long as a ready to go in house replacement. The money thing and the SP thing are more interesting. If the team has let's say $10M left to play with, you could either "trade" Taillon for Gallen OR trade Shaw for optionable SP depth and backfill Shaw with a veteran bench signing (let's just assume Andujar).

Gordo works for NESN so not a total rando

A good offense gets ~6200 plate appearances in a season. That's essentially 10 full time (600 PA) players and one more bench guy. So figure this team has - 7 full time guys: Happ, Suzuki, Hoerner, Busch, Swanson, PCA, Bregman average 600 PAs each - Some of these guys will get more than 600 PAs, looking at Swanson/Hoerner particularly, but IMO that's counterbalanced by Busch/PCA getting a bit of platoon support plus inevitable injury - Kelly, Mo, and Shaw probably play semi full time, averaging 400 PAs a piece. Kelly on account of being a catcher, Mo on account of being fairly strictly platooned. I agree with Geography that you probably play Shaw mostly every day against lefties and then he gets more scattered time moving around againsy righties - That leaves 250-300 PAs each for Amaya, Alcantara, Austin. That feels about right?

I think the closest thing to a full on need is another reliever. I would like to go into the season with four guys i feel comfortable with in a leverage spot on day 1. We currently have three in Harvey, Maton, and Palencia. Thielbar was great last year, and despite his age ZiPS still likes him, but back against the wall I still view him as a platoon guy who's adequate against RHH. I'd love another LHH outfielder. Basically the best guy willing to take a minor league deal (something in the Max Kepler range?). I was big on dealing Owen Caissie because he was pretty superfluous on this roster. However if god forbid Happ or Suzuki go down for an extended time I would like someone who can provide some support to whatever combo of Alcantara/Shaw/Long/Austin ends up providing the primary backfill. The rotation...I am torn between wanting to maintain depth and between wishing we could disappear Taillon and have a competition for the 5th starter spot. Adding Gallen would be fun too, but even there IMO it should be essentially a Gallen/Taillon trade. The team has a good bit of depth on hand, even with inevitable injury I wouldn't find a lot of value in cramming another veteran swing guy like Nick Martinez onto the MLB roster. I frankly think that would hurt the pen more than it'd help the rotation.

FWIW DRS is based on people watching film (the same as PFF grades in football) while Statcast is based entirely on data using the hawkeye cameras tracking every game. Everyone's mileage will vary, but I tend to split the difference between the two with infielders, while on the outfield I trust statcast pretty implicitly. There's a ton of relevant context on a ground ball: speed of the runner, quality of the hop, minor changes in positioning affecting what direction you approach the ball from, other baserunners, etc. But on a fly ball? Short of inclement weather how far you had to go, in what direction, and how long you took feels like it covers it pretty thoroughly. I tend to think this team is fairly incredible up the middle while on the corners it's fairly average, maybe a smidge above. Shaw's got enough speed I could see him juicing the corner outfield spots pretty significantly, and definitely already does 3B.

You are repeatedly conflating better players being paid more money with teams valuing offense more highly than defense on a 1:1 basis.

I like this. If he's healthy and rust-free in ST he's pretty much the platonic ideal of a RHH 4th outfielder. If he's not you dump him. Gives Alcantara opportunity to win a job without just giving it to him on a platter.

I think the Cubs should be open to this sort of operating model, but I think now is not the right time, for a few reasons. 1. The 5+ years prior to last season as a Cubs fan were largely a series of escalating kicks to the nuts. I don't need Jed going all Preller on us but also I think Jed owes us a little inefficiency in exchange for a handful of extra wins 2. The team already has a good nucleus of young talent. If my napkin math is correct the team got 16 WAR last year from guys who are still pre-arbitration in 2026. On top of that they have three top 100 prospects who will open 2026 either in the bigs or a phonecall away at Iowa. The farm's not amazing (though it's mostly that Tennessee is a disaster) but this is not like 2019 where the farm was in shambles and Happ was the only sub 25 year on thd roster worth a damn. You can of course always use more young talent but I think this is sort of calculated retreat move is something a big market team like the Cubs should only use when org's talent pipeline is hurting 3. There's not an obvious near term place to fill guys in. This team is absurdly deep. Like Houston trading Tucker last year made sense. They were staring at a replacement level hole at 3B and added a quality starter there, a direct prospect backfill for Tucker, and a depth SP. They essentially spread Tucker's 4.5 WAR over three spots and added a bunch of team control in the process. But for us? The 2026 impact would likely be dropping two or three wins on the position player side in exchange for a really fun #7 starter? I don't think you can justify that.

It's similar to the Shane Baz deal. No one as good as Caissie, honestly no one particularly close, but 4 or 5 very real prospects. Definitely would not have cost Shaw.

We literally have a guy on our team getting paid big money for his defense. He plays like 30 feet away from Hoerner. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/dansby-swanson-heads-to-the-windy-city/ The market paid Swanson exactly what WAR said he was worth, despite his projection topping out at a 106 OPS+. Nico Hoerner's projection next year? 107 OPS+. Last winter, the Blue Jays traded for Andres Gimenez. Gimenez is the one second baseman with an argument for being a better fielder than Hoerner, but he is a much worse hitter. Projected to a 90 OPS+ going into last year. Despite being a significantly worse hitter and already being tied to a 9 figure contract, he returned Spencer Horwitz. Horwitz at this time last year had basically the exact same resume as Michael Busch. Fans just care about dongs but teams look at total production.

He had a really rough go at Iowa last year. He's young enough to deserve some level of mulligan, but he currently projects below replacement level for next year. I don't think you can count on anyone currently at Iowa to be a positive contributor on the infield in 2026. It's not unreasonable for Triantos, or Pedro Ramirez, but you can't count on it.

IIRC the ERAs attempt to strip out defense, but that can obviously there's some wiggle room in exactly how to apportion credit for contact management vs. defense. Then WAR is based on ERA, look at Horton/Cabrera/Shota and you can see all three have similar ERAs, similar IP, and similar WAR despite a bit more spread in FIP. Generally the problems with an ERA based WAR are the randomness that a projection already attempts to control for, so I think it makes sense here even though I wouldn't want to use it for actual results.

Listening to Sharma and Mooney's podcast from yesterday. Sharma: "I came away from this weekend (Cubs Convention) thinking that Nico Hoerner's a part of this team without a doubt." And then don't have the quote but basically said they're listening and would probably make a Kyle Tucker type deal but it's unlikely any other team values him as much as the Cubs and makes that happen. They also seem to lean against Shaw getting moved, but FAR less definitively.

To elaborate on this and be less glib, teams don't pay more for offense, it's just that you can cram more offense into a player than you can defense. The realistic ceiling for defensive performance in a season at your position is about +20 runs. Add in positional value, which can be a little over 10 for an everyday catcher, and you have a realistic cap on defensive value of +35 runs. With an average bat that's a 5.5 WAR player. There is baserunning to consider too, but realistically best case scenario for a catcher is about average. For CF/SS/2B it helps cover the gap in positional value between catcher and those other spots. Offense just has a much higher ceiling. Ohtani has been on average a +70 bat the last three years. Aaron Judge managed to get to +96 (!!!!) in 2024. Teams aren't paying more for offense, it's that the guys who get the mega bucks have mega bats. That's essentially the whole point of WAR, to put these very different player archetypes on the same scale.

No

Whether or it's Nico or Shaw I'm starting to get the sense we're sending an infielder to Boston.

I'm sure I'll eat these words but every Jett Williams scouting report is like "his power is so impressive for someone so little!" But like they seem pretty ordinary overall? He's a good prospect, his production for his age is plus, but this seems like a guy who'd be a borderline top 100 type if he was 5'11" and didn't play for New York?

Passan confirming everything but Meyers

I haven't seen it confirmed but sounds like Peralta and Tobias Meyers for Brandon Sproat and Jett Williams. Assume the Brewers will win every trade but on paper not that scary.

Looking forward to seeing how this inevitably hurts us

He also at one point had four back to back to back to back posts responding to a single comment. Still very much at the top of his game

BTW click through and go to the comments section if you miss Tom

Whoopsie posted this in the wrong thread initially Re: Rojas, I think this that I posted a few months back is worth keeping top of mind That doesn't handwave away a sub .500 OPS, not even close really. But I do think that when you combine it with his age and the fact that his K/BB numbers were still strong it is IMO firmly in the yellow flag zone as opposed to something more existential. I was basically just starting to work up the courage to put Rojas #1 in the system when he went to AA. After his stint at Tenn I have him behind the Mo/Caissie/Wiggins/Alcantara quartet, but probably still a smidge ahead of Conrad at 6 and several smidges ahead of Long at 7.

Wrong thread