Bertz

Just incredible stuff

I'd be lying if I said the superficial comparisons don't color this at all, but Josh Naylor's bat feels like the obvious "optimistic but still firmly realistic" comp. Give Mo an extra half a win per year for being able to catch 30-40 games a season and you've got a comfortable 3 win player. ETA: Looking at Baseball Prospectus, which I don't love broadly but I think is the only place still doing minor league framing, they have him at -0.8 framing runs and -2.4 overall defensive runs at Iowa this year. Prorated out to a full 120 game catcher workload that's -1.4 and -4.1 respectively. Very much does not feel like average is out of reach at his age?

I suspect that the plan for the bench is for Austin, Alcantara (or McCormick), and Shaw to each start most days against left handed starters. The questions are A) which of the four lefties in the main lineup doesn't lose out on playing time and B) can any of the RHH bench guys usurp a current starter. But back to A: - Mo seems almost certain to be platooned. He was fairly platoon neutral early in his MiLB career, but sucked last year at AAA. .230/.296/.281 in a very hitter friendly environment. I have strong hopes that he'll eventually be split neutral, but in the short term it seems very unlikely - Michael Busch will probably be platooned. He showed some signs of life against LHP late last year, but absolutely tiny sample (22 PAs of 140 wRC+ in August/September). Hope for the best but smart money is he still needs a caddy - PCA sucks against LHP, and I suspect will continue to. But the magnitude of suck will likely dictate if he gets platoon support or simply slides down the order to 9th against LHSP. Also worth noting Pete did noy have problems with lefties in the minors, so you can dream on him improving - Ian Happ is playable against LHP, but certainly below average. He has a 126 wRC+ against RHP the last three years, but 96 against LHP (with a matching 96 in 2025). I suspect that Happ has the political capital to not get relegated to platoon duty as long as his performance against lefties can ve considered at least "fine." But it's an obvious lever to pull if his performance slides or other guys start earning more playing time For Austin specifically he's obviously not going to directly take any playing time from PCA, and probably not Ian Happ, but unless/until he faceplants he's going to start in place of one of Busch/Mo against every LHP.

Agreed. I think the question is if they want/have to move someone out to make space for him or if they just want to enter ST with silly levels of depth.

Also this is probably the best/most succinct writeup of Mo I've seen

Kiley: 51 - Ballesteros 83 - Wiggins Has Caissie at 77 FWIW

Listened to Sharma and Mooney's podcast from late last week. They seem to think another pitching move is coming. Didn't really sound like they were reporting anything, Mooney just laid out the logic: - Based on the media scrum at the convention it's clear Craig Counsell is pushing the front office to keep adding - Jed and Carter are always paranoid about injuries - They love acquiring pitching depth and they LOVE being opportunistic - They are signaling that they have more money than recent offseasons and they're not maxed out on budget yet - If the acquisition cost now makes sense vs. giving up prospects at the trade deadline it makes sense I feel like it's hard to fit a guy onto the roster unless he's optionable or rehabbing, but you can never have too much depth I guess.

Cubs signed this guy to a minor league deal. He's been in indy ball the last two years, and apparently has had a velo bump during that time 🤷‍♂️ Also was reading BN this morning and apparently Chas McCormick has minor league options. So even if Alcantata beats him out for a spot, if the Cubs add him yo the 40 man they can hang onto him all year at Iowa.

Absolutely wild to leave Nico Hoerner off this list

Thinking more about next year's planning, '27 payroll as of right now is somewhere in the $140M neighborhood. So for the sake of nice round numbers, let's say the team is $100M under the luxury tax pending whatever changes with the CBA. Also as of right now the bullpen will need to be rebuilt again and the situations at 2B, C, RF, LF, DH and two SP slots are varying levels of unsettled. Again for the sake of nice round numbers assume it costs $15M for a good quality first division starter at catcher and DH, and $20M for each of those other holes (I'm counting the bullpen collectively as one $20M hole). That means the Cubs would need to spend $150M AAV in free agency to get the team back to the level of top to bottom strength where it is right now. That's uhhh....probably not gonna happen. So in order to feel like the team isn't going to take a big step back after this season you probably need three kids to stake claim to 2027 starting spots. If you want to not just tread water but have fun in free agency next year, i.e. chase $30M plus guys instead of $20M minus guys, you need a fourth or god willing a fifth kid to step up. That's actually not as daunting as it sounds! Shaw's basically already there, and Mo's got a pretty high floor and a good bit of runway to open the season. There's another five guys on the Iowa/Chicago border in Alcantara, Long, Wiggins, Brown, and Wicks. But IMO it does mean that from here out, where the roster decisions are at the margins. the team should generally swallow a little risk in exchange for giving the kids more runway.

My mental model is you fill one of the OF spots with a kid and one with your checkbook. - Alcantara's the most straightforward and desirable option, hopefully he earns it - Long is very likely to have the bat, the question is whether he'd be more like a -5 outfielder defensively or more like -15 - If the team otherwise addresses 2B, whether that's extending Hoerner or internally with a Rojas or a Ramirez, Shaw's got a decent chance at being a very good OFer - It's unlikely but it wouldn't be insane for Kepley or Conrad to race through the minors. You'd absolutely still want a veteran hedge in this scenario, but you might be able to get away with e.g. a $10M Ramon Laureano instead of a $25M Seiya Suzuki And then the market's lacking a tio end talent like Tucker, but it's solid in pretty good outfielders. Happ and Suzuki obviously, Randy Arozarena, Taylor Ward, Trent Grisham, Dalton Varsho. None of these guys (save mayybe Varsho) move the team forward, but they'd all hold the line.

Not the biggest fan of Law at this point but realistically opinions on Mo and Alcantara (and Caissie) probably shouldn't be a lot different than they were a year sgo.

Keith Law: 41 - Alcantara 47 - Ballesteros 79 - Rojas No Wiggins

There's probably not a lot of harm in letting him try in the spring, but for me it's a longshot that it'll be needed. If Austin fails then that role (and roster spot) would seem to have Jonny Long's name on it. So for Shaw to get run there you basically need Austin to fail, Long to fail, AND Busch's late season progress against lefties to not carry over.

What a guy. Even including the 2016 guys has a good argument for best combo of cool on the field and cool off the field of anyone we've had in a long time.

It took two years of handholding for you to understand how to look up payroll you dufus

Not a new feeling for you

Honestly people are mostly just bored of Alcantara. He has contact issues, but they're like Dansby Swanson sized contact issues not Patrick Wisdom sized contact issues. He's probably the toolsiest player in the org after PCA and Seiya (and maybe now Conrad?). And his performance was a bit disappointing this year but not nearly in lockstep with the loss of helium, especially now that we know about the hernia.

I think it's like personal income tax where it's just the extra 12% on dollars above the second line. The second tax line is definitely the softest. As you say 12% isn't a lot, and draft penalties don't kick in until the third line. So I am suspecting that's the limit less because of the penalties being onerous and more because it's the most obvious place to draw any sort line from here given the lack of urgency we're hearing from the team. Like it'd be weird to have a CBA defined line at $264M and Tom to set payroll at like $267M. And I doubt they're blowing past $264M, because then a lot of November/December decisions get retroactively hard to explain.

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.