Bertz

I can't tell if this is simply writing up the rumor from the Athletic, or if this is also him +1'ing it and confirming the interest? Either way Philips would be fun, assuming it's a 1+1 deal. Very much not a signing you make when money is super tight though...

The Athletic has confirmed that he's staying stretched out as a SP this winter. I suspect with Brown/Wicks/Assad one gets traded this winter, one opens next year in the big league bullpen in long relief, and the last hangs out at Iowa making starts and serving as depth. I personally think Brown>>Wicks>>>>>>>>>Assad So assuming their trade value is commensurate to that I'd probably have Brown in the pen, use Wicks in a trade, and banish Assad to Iowa.

Obviously the best approach is to assume the worst, but if you focus just on what we're hearing this winter and don't anchor too hard on our priors coming into the offseason it does make you wonder if there's more money to play with than we've been accounting for. Consider: - The team is ~$55M under the luxury tax right now, and using the team's typical "set $10M aside as buffer" philosophy our standard assumptions imply Jed has ~$45M to play with - Top of the rotation arms in FA have been mentioned repeatedly. Dylan Cease, who will make north of $25M per year, and Michael King, who will make about $20M, have been singled out frequently - The trade route, which would be significantly cheaper payroll wise, has not had nearly as much smoke. Notably even after Shota accepted his offer the focus still seems to be addressing SP through a top of market FA. Honestly it is weirdly quiet all around on the trade front given the chips Jed has in his pocket - The team is being heavily connected to the upper middle class of closers. Guys who are going to make $10-12M a year. Devin Williams, who will likely get north of $15M, is being treated as unlikely but not being ruled out - The team needs a volume of relievers. I believe Mooney used the term "bulk shopping." Even if all of these guys are modest signings, the number of them means this is probably another $10-15M in aggregate - Things have been quieter on the bat front. There have been a few specific names mentioned here or there but generally it's just "right handed bat". It hasn't been rumored yet, but the team also clearly needs a backup middle infielder unless said bat provides coverage there. This is also probably about $10M unless you really skimp. Like for instance Turner + Berti last year were modest signings and combined for $8M - There have been occasional ties to bigger bats. Most notably IMO Passan last week tied us to Bregman again. So there are seemingly scenarios where the team is willing to throw $$$ at a bat. Makes you wonder if a more substantial bat is on the table in the event they get their big SP via trade? So all told even on the lowest end that's $50M the team seems committed to spend from here, probably north if $60M. Now of course trade(s) could be used to cover that $$ gap with prospect currency, that'sprobably the most likely outcome. And of course the team could just cut corners somewhere. But from the vibes and smoke out there right now free agency seems like the focus and to get all of the shopping they seem committed to done it makes you wonder if payroll is going to spike a bit to be $260Mish for a year

I really don't recommend cherry picking like this. For instance the Seattle game you cited was tied for the highest velo game of his career at 93 MPH. And the Atlanta game you "just so happened" to settle on after was well above his 2024 norms as well, bookended by ten games where he never cracked a 92 MPH average. Shota's worst velo start last year, 90.1 in that Friday afternoon disaster against the Mets, was followed six days later by his other 93 start. Shota's fastball averaged 91.7 last year, 91.2 this year before the injury (and again, April), and 90.7 after. There's all the additional detail Bastian laid out in his article. It's your perogative on whether you think he'll bounce back or not but "I don't think the injury impacted his velocity" doesn't have a lot of evidence behind it.

This is a good read. I think several things are true with Shota - It's clear that the hamstring injury impacted him, specifically on the velocity front - There's no promise that he will be totally fixed with the injury behind him - On that note, his velocity was already down half a tick pre injury. Though April weather in Chicago sometimes does that - Shota's underlying numbers don't justify his 3.73 ERA, though he's due some positive regression on K's and dongs so it's not nearly as bad as his FIP makes it look - Low velocity SPs are not generally the best aging demographic All told Shota's a good bounce back candidate, but we should be clear eyed that the median outcome is probably Taillon with a strikeout rate a couple points higher. That's worth the QO but firmly in "quality #4 starter" territory.

The Athletic this AM says that the team is still looking at the top of the FA SP market even after Imanaga. Later on they did pump the brakes on the caliber of FA relievers we might expect going forward. So my take would be that the plan is to add their impact starter and figure out the bullpen after. I.e. if you sign Cease the bullpen needs to be filled with trades and reclamation signings, if you trade for Cabrera you can safely throw money at the pen.

Keller is coming off of a better year but I'd guess there's not a ton of difference between him and Fairbanks going forward. If the team chooses Fairbanks to save a few million or especially an extra year on a contract I'd be aligned. Williams is in a completely different tier and will be paid as such. Probably gets Tanner Scott money, while I'd be shocked if either of the other guys top $40M total.

The team obviously needs a couple more anchor guys, I'm hoping for four guys I'd trust in leverage right from game 1 next year. But there's a lot of lesser names out there too, especially after last night's tender deadline. Some names that stick out: Mark Leiter Jr. - He had an awful 2nd half I believe tied to injury. Bring him home Sam Hentges - Missed all of last year and I'm sure the medicals are dicey, but he was a certified monster from '22 to '24 Caleb Ferguson - Strikeout rate backed way up last year, but the stuff models still love him. Was still death on lefties even without the K's. If you put a gun to my head to find 2026 Thielbar I think this is him Taylor Rogers - He got buried after we traded for him because of a couple of bad outings and because the circle of trust was already full, but his peripherals were stellar and there's a long history of quality leverage work

I would also say you want extremes in the bullpen. Velocity is the most obvious one to chase but not the only one. We already had an extreme velo guy in our late inning mix, now he's paired with an extreme spin guy. I wouldn't be shocked to see a weird arm angle or two (one of the Rogers brothers?) or someone with big time extension as well.

Maton's been *really* good the last year and a half, ironically since leaving the Rays. And he's done it across three orgs too so looks pretty persistent. I also remember there being a lot of smoke around the Cubs and him two winters ago for whatever that's worth. To me the two questions are: 1. This is the guy we decide to finally go multi-year on? A 32 year old who barely cracks 90 MPH? 2. How many Maton-caliber arms do we get this winter? I'm hoping the answer is at least two, ideally three. Jed quicklu knocking this out before Thanksgiving has me hopeful for the latter being the plan, which is nice.

At the back of the roster it's foolish to have too much confidence in any move since the margins between players are so small. But there's about a 200% chance Leiter gets brought back. Hell I'd try to get him back in the building before Thanksgiving.

Yeah anywhere but catcher his age would basically be disqualifying. At catcher it's still a big red flag.

Usually the SP market moves fastest. Like you should expect most of the major SP moves to be done shortly after winter meetings, with maybe 2-3 stragglers strategically holding out for teams left holding a bag when they miss on the hitters they want. That said I could see Schwarber signing soon. Like Naylor the vibes are overwhelmingly in favor of him re-signing. And Dombrowski doesn't mess around, I believe he got Nola done before Thanksgiving two years ago.

It's a little thing. buy I'd love to nab an optionable shortstop. Even if it's someone kind of crappy, Ezequiel Duran maybe? But the team does not have a capable AAA shortstop, and I don't really want to waste an entire bench spot on the outside chance Hoerner and Swanson get hurt at the same time. Plus if you address this now you can get someone younger with a little talent (like Duran) instead of whatever Paul Dejong type you can get in minor league free agency.

My goodness reading this made me so hyped I could run through a brick wall

For anyone hoping this would be substantial...it's not. A reader email question asked about the Cubs adding "someone like Rob Refsnyder" to pair with Owen Caissie. Ken was like "yeah that makes a lot of sense". Didn't feel rumor-y at all.

Has George Ofman been right about anything since Hendry was running the team?

I like Michael King. I like him a whole lot actually. But yeah as you get at he is an option that was attractive instead of Imanaga but is much less attractive along with Imanaga. In fact I'd say he's basically the dividing line between me being happy with our SP situation coming out of this winter and me being disappointed. The combination of ceiling (as you said a good #2) and risk is lower than this team should be aiming for it's big get. I would have been ecstatic to have King as "the other guy", but that role appears to be going to Shota now. I don't worry about the resource part of it so much. The Cubs have a bunch of guys on the Iowa/Chicago border and need to clear some of that depth out this winter via trade. Trading for a SP and signing a bat and some relievers in FA is the most straightforward approach, but vice versa should be easy enough. If the team does want to be aggressive and dump Taillon that would be exciting. Bellinger last year aside it doesn't feel like Jed's style, but a rotation of: TBD trade acquisition Boyd King Horton Shota Is fun as hell. It would also mitigate one of my least favorite parts of Shota's return, the idea of having 3/5s of ths rotation slated to be free agents a year from now.

I am not aware any major reservations on Alcantara's defense. PCA is really the only reason he's not viewed as a sure fire CFer. This is Longenhagen: And Callis And Kiley And like sure Kepley hasn't been slowed down yet but he played at the same level Alcantara finished at 19. Like if Kepley pulled a Cam Smith and raced to AA but didn't have a chance to continue proving himself because the calendar ran out sure we might be able to talk. But this is like saying your High School freshman acing algebra is a better student than your junior getting a B in calculus. It is completely ignoring the difficulty of the respective assignments.

Kevin Alcantara is just over 18 months older than Kepley, significantly more tooled up, and major league ready. What are we doing here?

Definitely does not make the Kittredge decision look better

It's a good question, but just about all of the indications we have are thankfully that it's a combo of bad luck and bad defense: - Except for '23 his peripherals are consistently stellar. This should generally be your north star. There are a small number of exceptions but when in doubt chase guys who do well in terms of strikeouts, walks, and homeruns - And unlike say Ben Brown it's not a situation where "yeah he struck out a ton of dudes but the guys who put it in play all smoked the ball". Cease has pretty normal hard hit and barrel rates. His Statcast xERA this year was 3.46, a run less than his actual ERA and ranking right in between Joe Ryan and Freddy Peralta - Cease has had a lot of bad defense behind him for his career, including this past year. The Padres as a whole ranked 20th, and Statcast estimates that Padres' fielders cost him specifically 5 runs. That's about a third of a run of ERA - That means the other two thirds of a run is sequencing. Luckily this appears to be noise. His peripherals are nearly identical with runners on vs bases empty (3.57 xFIP vs. 3.54). He got hit harder with runners on, but I have a hard time justifying him magically being more hittable without that showing up in degraded strikeout, groundball, or homerun rates There's some gray area when a guy's ERA doesn't match his peripherals, but all the usual suspects for cases where it turned out legit come up empty here.

In 2026 dollars there's not really a major difference between someone like Cease and someone like King. Sure Cease is going to get a contract roughly twice as large but it's going to get spread over roughly twice as many years.