Bertz

A smattering of less heralded pitchers I like: Steven Matz - Last three years when relieving: 3.10 ERA/3.87 xFIP. Numbers are pretty similar the first time through the order as a SP at 3.21/3.63. As we prepped for the playoffs and talked about pockets of hitters it really hit home how much I'd love a lefty who can give you two+ innings on the regular Hunter Harvey - He pitched well in very limited time around an injury this year, though with a couple ticks off his fastball. Feels like a guy who wouldn't just settle for a 1 year deal, but will be looking for one to prove he's healthy and go seek $30M+ next winter. Cubs could offer him a contender with a great pitching dev and even a pretty viable path to saves Jose Alvarado - I actually don't want him if he hits free agency. There are some cracks starting to show in his profile, and combined with the steroid suspension I dont want to commit the several years to him I think he'd demand as a true FA. But Philly has a club option on him, similar to ours with Kittredge, and they likely want those dollars to put elsewhere. If we could trade some nominal value in what would essentially be a sign and trade I'd be ecstatic Chris Paddack - When Paddack gives up on being a SP and shifts to relief I think he will take off quickly. Given A) where we are on the win curve and B) the existence of Brown/Wicks/Assad we're probably not the team to give him the shot? But I'd love to get him in the org and bring him to ST

There's going to be a lockout for sure, everyone's already desensitized to the idea so it won't serve as a deadline with any real teeth. That said I am not too worried about losing games. All the national TV deals are lined up to expire in '27, and the league wants to get the ball rolling on expansion as well. Add in that the players generally seem happy with how the last CBA went and it's clear that this go around it's the owners who are coming to the table in a position of need. The idea of them doubling down and going on the offensive for a salary cap is saber rattling IMO. I don't see how there's anyone beyond maybe a few owners with one foot out the door like Reinsdorf or Arte Moreno who will actually be willing to do anything drastic.

I don’t think it's a huge worry. Nico aside everyone slated to hit FA next winter is making within a stone's throw of market rates anyway. So yeah ~40% of the roster is turning over, but there's going to be $120M+ plus to spend on backfills. And the team has a talented young nucleus to act as a cheap spine for the roster. If anything there's some opportunity to raise the ceiling of the team. Turn five $20M a year players into three $30M a year players and two kids making the league minimum.

After faceplanting at Tennessee he seems to have fallen a little behind that pace. Though probably not a ton. I'd guess, even assuming Rojas has another big year next year, that going into 2026 2B has someone ahead of him on the depth chart. But I'd expect that person to be leapfroggable. Whether that is one of the more advanced but less talented kids (Triantos or Ramirez) or via positional flexibility (a Willi Castro or Gavin Lux type).

Probably worth noting it, along with his velo, dropped more after his IL stint. 2024 Velo - 91.7 2024 Arm Angle - 39.6 2025 pre-IL velo - 91.2 2025 pre-IL arm angle - 36.9 2025 post-IL velo - 90.7 2025 post-IL arm angle - 35.3 Both numbers were already on the move before his IL stint (though his velo was slight enough you could wonder about the weather), but you do have to wonder if the hamstring borked his mechanics a bit and an offseason reset is a viable opportunity to clean them up.

https://www.mlb.com/news/baseball-s-next-free-agent-classes No stars but it's an almost preposterously deep FA class for RHH bats.

IIRC the reporting is that he didn't even let the Giants and Jays counter the Dodgers contract, and the Jays at least fully intended too. Plus there was the whole Bachelor style rounds of eliminations before $$$ even got discussed.

Geno Suarez has largely been a dud as a Mariner. It would be really cool if this is the start of one of his patented Alfonso Soriano style hot streaks.

That's much better than I expected to read. Fun stuff. Still feels behind the 8 ball with his age but if there's a position where you can handwave that away it's catcher.

I think it's worth noting that Alex Bregman is basically an Ian Happ caliber hitter these days. That's good, especially since he's an above average defender to boot. But Matt Shaw's probably a league average hitter or better, almost certainly a better defender, and 8 years younger. I think the gap there is smaller than you'd think and shrinking rapidly I think if you want to take Bregman over Shaw it would have to be one of two reasons 1. You don't like Matt Shaw as a person 2. Bregman + Caissie/Mo might be approximately equal to Shaw + Tucker *purely on offense*, and Bregman's only going to get ~half the total contract of Tucker 1 is fair and I certainly won't argue with. 2 I'm willing to listen on but I'd bet after you do a full accounting the juice isn't actually worth the squeeze.

I think it's very very likely that Shota is back next year, but it's roughly a coinflip whether it's via his option or via accepting the QO. His option makes him less 2026 dollars, but maximizes his guaranteed dolllars plus puts him in the driver's seat going forward. The QO maxes out his 2026 dollars and has the benefit of him not being eligible for a tag next winter. I feel like the merits of both make a lot of sense. I think Shota's probably not earned the Cubs picking up his option. But I also think he's way too good to not get a QO (horsefeathering Walker Buehler got $20M last winter). But he's ALSO not good enough to turn down thr QO (if he was the Cubs would pick up their option). So net net I think it is very unlikely he just walks out the door but I'm open minded about the mechanism for him staying.

Another pitcher worth keeping in the back of your mind is Tatsuya Imai Passan said about a month ago he's expected to get something in the $150-200M range, and obviously wouldn't have a qualifying offer attached.

The team generally uses the luxury tax line as its defacto payroll cap. The Cubs are ~$80M under that line right now heading into 2026, and that's assuming no options get picked up. Take out ~$10M for trade deadline money, another ~$20M for the various depth bench/bullpen types (e.g. the Caleb Thielbar and Jon Berti type signings), and there's $50Mish remaining to spend on more fun and impactful stuff. Even the most conservative estimate for Tucker is something like Corey Seager money (10 years, $325M), probably higher. So that's 2/3rds of your fun money right there. And if Shota picks up his option you're already tapped out. You can feel more comfortable dealing away some of the young bats for additional pitching if you've got Tucker locked down, but realistically you're staring at a pitching staff that is okay at best unless you get some really positive outcomes from Steele, Wiggins, and/or Brown. So unless Tom bumps payroll, that's the choice: keep the band together on offense and have a fairly shakey pitching staff (admittedly with upside), or fortify the pitching staff but replace Tucker with a gaggle of talented kids. I prefer the latter, but I don't think anyone is wrong to prefer the former.

It is 100% status quo. But I'm very comfortable with a situation where we keep the team's talent level flat while simultaneously getting younger. Especially ahead of the roster cliff next winter. If Tom wants to stop doing the crocodile arms routine for a year and we can have both Tucker and pitching, great. But asuming we have to choose I want pitching, and lots of it.

Yeah we're spending probably ~$10M on the position player group in this example? And I figure there's ~$70M to play with before any options. You're right I don't expect Long to move the needle a ton on a controllable pitcher, but maybe something more like Sandy Alcantara who's got a healthy salary? So let's call it something like this for spending $60M on pitching: - Long and Assad for Sandy Alcantara ($19M) - Shota sticks around on his player option ($14M) - Pick up Kittredge's option ($8M) - Sign one of the closers (Devin Williams, Ryan Helsley, Robert Suarez) to a 3-4 year deal in the $15M range. I like Williams most so let's call it him - Spend your remaining cash (~$5M) on the best lefty reliever you can muster, let's call it a Drew Pomeranz reunion Full pitching staff of SP - Boyd, Alcantara, Horton, Shota, Taillon, Steele (IL) CP - Williams SU - Kittredge, Palencia MR - Pomeranz, Hodge, TBD spring training audition winner LR - Brown, Wicks I don't love that Boyd/Shota/Taillon are all FAs after '26. But you have Steele, Horton, and Alcantara (only if you want him) plus I'd like to think you feel solid about one of Wiggins/Brown/Wicks by then. And if you don't like Alcantara, I think it's pretty easy to throw a little more money at the rotation (Bieber?) and use the trade chips more on the bullpen.

I actually like the Goldschmidt idea. I think that might be the right level of bat to add. Caissie as the nominal starter in RF with a bench of Amaya Goldschmidt Alcantara Some infielder to cover 2B/3B (Luis Rengifo?) With Mo down at Iowa working on defense until there's an injury or Caissie flops. Long traded. That feels like a good balance of giving the kids rope but not so much they can create a black hole at the bottom of the lineup. Leaves the rest of your resources to get thrown at pitching. I do worry the fanbase will be weirdos about Goldschmidt. The guy theyd be getting and the guy they remember are not the same.

FWIW since I think we spent a lot of time worrying about this

Shota's option is for 3 years $57M. So to try and get a sense of how that stacks up market wise, here are SPs from the last three offseasons to sign a 3 year deal between $40M and $70M. An asterisk means that guy had a QO attached 2023 Zack Eflin 3/$41M *Nate Eovaldi 3/$54 *Chris Bassit 3/$63 2024 Seth Lugo 3/$45M 2025 Michael Wach 3/$51M Yusei Kikuchi 3/$63M Luis Severino 3/$67M (largely seen as an immediate overpay because rhe A's were desperate to get someone to go to Sacramento) --- I'll be honest, this bar is a lot higher than I expected. Feels like you really cannot pick up Shota's option. It sucks to have 60% of your rotation likely headed to FA after the season, but if he sticks around it probably needs to be via his option or the QO.

I think you can painlessly move one of the quartet of Iowa bats (Caissie, Ballesteros, Alcantara, Long) and one of the the Brown/Assad/Wicks trio this winter. Realistically that fourth bat and third arm are going to spend most of the season languishing in Iowa if you keep them around. Depending on how strict you want to be about defining "Top of the Rotation" and what the contract situation is of the guy you're targeting, I think that bat+arm combo gets you pretty far in a lot of trade convos. The better the name the more painful the convo, and the more likely you need to add a third piece of real substance. That said short of like Paul Skenes I don't see much out out there that would absolutely require guys off the MLB roster or Jaxon Wiggins.

In my brain Ayers is paired with Cam Sisneros. There were a bunch of times early in the year the MB was fiercely struggling, you'd check a boxscore and see they're up 8-3, but like 7 of those runs are thanks to these two damn 24 year olds. Basically this:

Bregman fell off hard in the second half. Shaw had a 130 wRC+ in the second half, Bregman had a 101. Seems weird for the person whose pretty much whole thing is "but what has the offense done lately" to advocate for Bregman.

Didn't see Jed's conference, but reading Brett Taylor's recap doesn't seem like much of consequence was said. This is probably the thing that stood out the most? Probably expect the Cubs to continue focusing on well rounded athletes on the position player side, guys who help you whether the wind is blowing in or out. One dimensional sluggers (say... Geno Suarez?) probably aren’t going to be where the team throws their resources. This one maybe too? The team wants more strikeouts, but probably not so bad that they're going to like take Taillon out back and shoot him.