Bertz

Not huge in the grand scheme of things but the timing here is a bit funny. The arbitration deadline is I believe Friday afternoon. "Welcome to the org Edward, the first meeting on your calendar is a contract negotiation!" I would hope either the Bregman/Bichette stuff is reaching endgame or the Marlins just finalized his salary right before this?

If they manage to get Bichette this offseason is an absolute A+.

Since I've gotten really into posting pros/cons lists of late to organize my thoughts let's do one here. Spoiler alert, it's mostly pros Pros - Cabrera had a good year last year and got better as the year went on. He had a 3.42 ERA in the second half and his peripherals backed that up. He seems to be a legitimate #2 starter now - 127 pitchers threw at least 100 innings last season, Cabrera was 10th in average fastball velocity. Even beyond the results we've wanted a guy who looks like this for ages - Cabrera comes with three years of cost control, including a ~$5M salary this year - That low salary this year plus the timing of the deal *heavily* implies that the team is feeling good about reeling in a Bregman or a Bicbette - There is/was a lot of redundancy between Mo, Caissie, and Alcantara. Particularly those first two. So using Caissie here to pay the heavy freight means this tradd doesn't hurt the farm/organizational health as much as it would seem at first glance Cons - Cabrera kinda sucked before last year. So similar to Imai his projections are exceedingly mediocre. ZiPS says a 4.01 ERA and 1.9 WAR - The medical history is long. Most concerning is that he had two separate elbow injuries in the second half last year. So while any pitcher can blow up on you at any time there's an elevated chance with Cabrera Love this. Love love love it.

LET'S GO!!! Finally I've been waiting for this since July Caissie and one of Assad/Brown/Wicks is the logical bulk of a deal. Probably someone else that will sting but not make us apoplectic. E.g. Kepley. This also means we should put a hell of a lot more stock into the Bichette/Bregman stuff.

If you want to dream on Bichette IMO you're probably rooting for Tucker -> Jays Bregman -> Sox And to a lesser extent Bellinger -> Dodgers I don't suspect the Mets or Yankees are actually going to go after Bichette in earnest, but you'd probably want them to split Valdez and Suarez just to be safe.

It would make the meatballiest segment of this fanbase's heads explode, but I wonder if there is any thought to re-acquiring Isaac Paredes. - Two years of control so he's here through the roster cliff but not long term - Hits well enough that you're comfortable playing him at 1B or DH on any given day. So he can basically float between 1B/3B/DH without pushing one of the kids permanently to the bench - He makes enough money that you can't do both a FA SP and add Paredes and stay $10M under the tax, but he makes little enough you could stay ~$5 under if that's an order - It sounds like he's freely available. The Correa trade pushed him off 3B, and even with the boost from the Crawford boxes he's just solid as a 1B/DH bat. He's been tied to the Red Sox a good bit and you suspect he's a backup plan of theirs As far as 3B options go in FA there's a huge dropoff between the #2 guy in Bregman and the #3 guy in Geno Suarez. Paredes would slot in between them and is much closer to #2 than #3. I think that at his salaries is worth trading some value for.

Yeah I'd let Mo be the personal caddy to someone, Boyd probably, and let injury or (ideally) performance let him earn additional time behind the plate from there.

I'd be surprised if we get that lucky with the prospects stepping up and filling those offensive holes. They're really good and they're as MLB ready as can be, but I still think prospect attrition is such that we should be happy if we've successfully filled two of them. So I think on the position player side we're looking at needing to retain/replace a corner bat, Kelly. and Nico. Nico’s by far the hardest to backfill when you consider A) how good he is B) how weak the IF market is the next few years and C) how underpaid he is. I do agree with the main thrust of what you're saying though in that I'm also more worried about the pitching. Right now this second the 2027 rotation is probably this? Horton Steele Rea Assad Wiggins/Brown/Wicks competition And that's before any more attrition! You're probably looking at needing three SPs, with two of them being substantive. Related to this convo I really liked Trueblood's idea yesterday of dealing Taillon. To me it does two big things 1. It likely gives you the money to sign both a SP and an IFer of substance this winter. That helps the '26 squad of course but also knocks out two items on next winter's to-do list, including the scariest one (while also not completely slamming the door on Nico) 2. It turns the 5th starter spot this year into a competition. I think there's a decent chance that's an improvement straight up, but most importantly it gives runway to the kids. Brown/Wicks would hopefully get that spot early in the year and Wiggins enter the fray later. If we can see a kid step up and more confidently write their name into the 2027 rotation heading into next winter that'd be huge

They've made 5 signings in the bullpen totalling nearly $30M million, and multiple reports have them as the runner ups on Imai last week. It's okay to not like what they're doing but this is weird?

The team having a Taillon trade lined up, or at minimum a read of the market that says moving him would be quick and easy, would explain A LOT: - The team is continuously tied to 1st division caliber free agents on both sides of the ball. This despite our typical payroll assumptions being that they can only do one or the other - The most obvious way to accomplish both tasks, trading for a cost controlled SP and signing a bat, has very little smoke around it considering how obviously correct it feels - Occam's Razor says payroll might be higher than our assumptions, but well we all know who the owner is - This was discussed elsewhere this AM, but giving Shota a QO when the team already has so many impending FAs was questionable (at best?). But if the team went into that decision essentially saying "we'll go into next year having one of Shota/Jamo on a one year deal making $20Mish" it removes a lot of the downside - If money is tight and no SP is moved out, picking up Rea was kind of silly. Rea's probably worth that money in isolation but the team has 4 optionable SPs of at least some substance (Brown, Wicks, Assad, Wiggins) plus of course Steele coming back. Sure you can never have too much pitching but generally it has taken the team 8 SPs to get through each of the last three seasons. So that $6.5M for a team that's already pretty depth-y has some real opportunity cost. But if you're trading Taillon and planning to go into ST with a 5th starter competition? Using Rea to provide a floor feels like a much more worthwhile insurance policy in that scenario For Assad, I would expect that if the team trades for a SP he goes the other way as the immediate backfill for who we acquire. E.g. Assad +Caissie for Edward Cabrera or something therabouts. I'd be surprised if he's moved just purely for prospects, as he wouldn't bring back a top 10 guy in this system. Honestly might be more like two guys in the 15-30 range, something akin to the Mark Leiter trade.

Listened to Sharma and Mooney's podcast from this weekend. Not a ton to take away but: 1. Gallen being a real target is basically the one firm thing they didn't really hedge on 2. Mooney said "their heads were spinning" following all the trade rumors at the meetings and things have died off since. He wonders if post holiday/post Imai some of those start regaining traction 3. Confirmed that the team doesn't especially love Valdez or Suarez, but hey if the options start dwindling don't say never Otherwise it was mostly speculation and sounded like a conversation around here. Still plenty left in FA, are they just hanging back to get a good deal in February? Are they really going to go into the year with all three of Caissie/Mo/Alcantara rather than turn one into pitching? It's easy to see how they could trade for a SP and sign a hitter, but is there opportunity to sign a SP and still get a good hitter? They're clearly not sitting on a ton of private info at the moment.

I mean I think the idea of not being able to do another one year deal after Imanaga tracks. The fact is that Imanaga compounded those issues. I don't think it's inconsistent to say "1 is not ideal but 2 is a Problem." And yeah we'll see where payroll ends up but I do think if the plan is A) to do as much shopping as possible in FA and keep trades as a "break glass in emergency" sort of option and B) stay under the LT then tagging Shota was certainly an unforced error. Hopefully one or both of those assumptions is bunk. Trueblood's article yesterday implied the latter is. I like Shota, and $22M is almost certainly a plus EV move in a world where Adrian Houser is $11M and multiple years. But for a team that has Rea to set a floor and Steele/Wiggins/Brown to provide some reinforcements with ceiling the better move probably would have been to cheap out on one of the SPs and invest that in a better bat. If we end up spending ~$50M on like Shota, Gallen, and Andujar I understand the thinking on each step of the process. But I think, even if Tom's applying pressure to avoid super long term money, we'd have been better off with e.g. Gallen, a more legitimate infield bat like Jorge Polanco, and more of a swing SP like Soroka for that same money.

Obviously this front office making this kind of outlay should be a "I'll believe it when I see it" sort of deal, but among the reasons I could buy now being the time for the team to finally pull this trigger: - His age. Not as scary to commit 8 years when that only takes you through age 35 - As you note a good RHH bat is the ideal finishing piece to the current lineup. An infielder, pushing Shaw to a supersub role, is the ideal positional fit - The org is painfully thin on the infield. Jefferson Rojas and Cristian Hernandez are the only minor league infielders who've played above Myrtle Beach who appear to have any sort of ceiling - Similarly, not a lot of good infielders coming down the pipe coming up in FA. Jazz next winter, Jeremy Pena the winter after, and then finally another deep class all the way in the '28/'29 offseason - Next winter's roster cliff is going to provide a lot of challenges. The two biggest ones are Nico and Seiya. Nico because as mentioned above neither the farm nor the market are overflowing with infielders. Seiya because he's by a wide margin our scariest RHH bat. Adding Bichette now does not close any doors with those two, but does make it so you don't have to be so desperate to retain or find a 1:1 replacement for either guy I'm not going to get too attached to this unless/until there's more smoke behind it. That said the team is clearly infatuated with Alex Bregman, and here we have a guy that scratches mostly the same itch but is four years younger. It makes sense.

A different crack at this same project. Conrad at Myrtle raised my eyebrow, but I guess it's probably not a bad idea to give him a ~month in Low A to get back up to full speed and avoid those cold midwestern April games.

Coming back to this. If the Cubs had eyes on signing both guys, it means they have at least $40M in the coffers to play with, realistically probably more like $50M+. I have a few thoughts on that possibility: 1. IMO It probably makes more sense to sign one of the three remaining guys who you'd more thoroughly consider a star (Tucker, Valdez, Bichette) and skimp a bit on the other add than make two comparable additions on each side of the ball. E.g. Bichette and Chris Bassitt over Bregman and Imai. Or Valdez and like Yoan Moncada. 2. It's fairly easy to have a good winter if they've got that much to spend? For instance if the team needs to stick under the LT I'd be disappointed in adding Zac Gallen and frankly pissed about adding Geno Suarez. But if they have money to do both? Hell yeah let's roll. Similarly if Boras is making your life difficult, that kind of cash opens up trade possibilities I hadn't put a ton of consideration into (spitballing...Byron Buxton?) 3. I've been vocal, I'm sure to the point of obnoxious, about the team being best served by moving one of the Iowa bats in a trade for a SP. But if Jed still has ~$50M? Yeah by all means handle all your 2026 shopping via FA. I'd still try and move a Caissie or a Ballesteros, but it'd be something more future-forward like the Michael Busch trade (from the Dodgers' direction) than something selling out for 2026 I really hope this is the case. I will say too it would make some of the more curious bits from the last two months fall into an easier to explain place. So while I do want to guard my expectations there is a certain level of "yeah that tracks" to it.

The intention was Imai *and* Bregman?

Bregman also appears to be progressing So whatever happens it does appear things are going to start being whittled down after Imai/the holidays held everything up for weeks

Yeah I think the calculus is something like Caissie + Max Meyer > Cabrera + Griffin Conine I don't knoe their depth chart well enough to know if those are the exact tradeoffs, but it's something like that. And definitely more complicated than oure selling, which is why the Cubs are an ideal partner.

Oops I missed Busch. This looks like Steamer disliking his bat coming into last year: 108 wRC+ pre season '25 140 actual wRC+ in '25 122 wRC+ pre season '26 So he actually moved the needle a ton, it just started from a low place. He is another guy that will presumably get a bump when ZiPS comes out though. ZiPS had him at 117 coming into last year. I'd guess after last year it'll peg him around a 130 and ~3 WAR.

They are inherently conservative, and they should be, but I'll say Steamer seems to really regress defense down to a nub. The Cubs have gotten a multi-win boost in the depth charts each of the last few years when they finish folding in ZiPS, and a large chunk of that is that ZiPS seems to actually acknowledge that Swanson and Hoerner are stellar defenders. For Horton I'd guess the weak projection is the lack of strikeouts. I do know Dan Szymborski said in a chat that ZiPS likes him a lot more than Steamer, but TBD what that exactly looks like.

I doubt they even lose any games. Maybe they lop off a week to soft-launch the return to 154 games a season? But the timing of the TV deals means nothing catastrophic is going to happen. It's just going to be a bunch of annoying bluster like last time.

This got me thinking. We have ZiPS projections for most but not all of the league at this point. This is how the various available SPs this winter rank in terms of projected WAR. Not yet projected: Cease, Valdez, King, Baz Ranger Suarez - 3.0 WAR Joe Ryan - 2.8 WAR Zac Gallen - 2.7 WAR Pablo Lopez - 2.6 WAR Mackenzie Gore - 2.6 WAR Sandy Alcantara - 2.3 WAR Edward Cabrera - 1.9 WAR Kris Bubic - 1.9 WAR Brandon Woodruff - 1.6. WAR Merrill Kelly - 1.3 WAR Tatsuya Imai - 1.2 WAR These numbers don't mean everything in this day of pitch design, but I do think it's interesting how much the completely unbiased computer projections compare to our general pref list around here (myself included, this isn't me casting aspersions).

Also found this funny. ZiPS projections: Lopez - 141.1 IP, 117 ERA+, 2.6 WAR, salary just under $22M/year, entering his age 30 season Gallen - 174.2 IP, 110 ERA+, 2.7 WAR, based on Nightengale's report would get $22M/year, entering his age 30 season

Some Twins people. including Trueblood who covers both teams, have suggested it. I suspect much like the Marlins are aiming to trade Alcantara or Cabrera but not both, the Twins probably look to move Lopez or Ryan but not both.

I wonder if they're attempting this AND Tucker rather than Tucker OR Bichette/Bregman