Bertz

It's for good reason, successfully graduating Shaw and Horton, but Cubs farm took a tumble from preseason.

Javy used to get a ton of HBP too. That's part of how he ran decent OBPs despite nonexistent plate discipline. It's...I don't know if skill is the right word but it's not random.

Caissie's being called up to take Amaya's spot. Looking forward to everyone being super normal about this

Jefferson Rojas and Cristian Hernandez each on base 3x, that's fun And yeah Erian Rodriguez feels like he should be at Tenn

Yency Almonte is back, and seems to be pitching well at SB. I'd love to know how close to pre-surgery the stuff is. I doubt he's got much of a path to the 2025 big league pen at this juncture, but if he looks good he might be worth a 40 man stash over the winter.

I think it's worth noting that this attitude towards '27/'28 would make just as much sense without the CBA expiring. You touch on why in your second to last paragraph. The team has practically no money tied up post 2026. Based on roster resource, it looks like this: - Swanson's $28M is rock solid guaranteed - Shota's $15M will probably get picked up - Steele in Arb 4, let's call it $10M - Assad at Arb 2, I'd be shocked if that's much north of $5M - Amaya, Busch, PCA, Hodge, and Palencia at arb 1. Barring some incredible developments none of those guys except PCA will top $5M. PCA might approach 8 figures So the team's got ~$100M in LT payroll committed in a year where the LT line is going to be at least $245M, and 1/3rd of that isn't even guaranteed. Even conservatively that's $100M available to sign players for the FO. Contrast that to this winter, where there's ~$50M available by the same assumptions, and a Tucker pursuit would take up most of the available cash on its own. An Edward Cabrera making ~$5M next year and projected for ~3 WAR is hugely valuable given the likely financial limitations. In 2027 though, there's not that same financial calculus because the marginal value of a dollar saved is pretty low. Ditto 2028. He's not worthless after next year, but if you did some $/WAR calculus I'd bet 80+% of the utility in a trade would have projected to come these first 15 months. Gore and Ryan, under control one fewer year, it'd have been more stark. I also kind of wonder if the prospect timelines influence this too. '27 is probably when you'd start to prefer having e.g. Wiggins and Caissie than Cabrera. So from the Cubs' POV I could see an argument that "you have to make things really worth it for us up front because we're going to lose the back half of the deal", almost like a FA contract.

I think keeping McGuire is about protecting somewhat against another catcher injury. Like he's not great but he's probably a little above replacement level, and maybe most importantly already knows the pitching staff and coaches. Add in that Castro took Berti from being mostly redundant to completely redundant and I'm not too surprised.

Surprised that they listed Brown as the probable for tonight initially if they were doing this, but overall still checks out

Yeah 2016-2019 looks pretty brutal, but that die is cast. '20 onward the IFA pipeline seems to be in pretty solid shape. And given all of the front office modernization stuff was done in '19 gives you pretty decent reason to hope there's process improvement behind those results. Draft-wise things never got nearly as dire (2017 sucked but seems pretty one-off), but similarly since moving over to Kantrovitz things have been great, aside from 2020 where I think you do have to give him a break from a logistics standpoint.

I feel like prospect fatigue is really working against Cristian. He's the same age as all the juniors in last month's draft (about two months older than Aloy for instance) and he's on track to open next season in AA. I think we all want to see more of that raw power translate into dongs, hopefully this past weekend was the start of an extended heater, but the resume is actually pretty solid on its own. He's likely going to end this season with 10+ dongs, 50+ steals, a K rate under 20%, and very few doubts about his ability to stick at SS. If he'd we'd drafted him as a sophomore last summer with a fat overslot bonus and he was having this exact season the vibes would be very different.

I saw on BN that Nate Pearson's confirmed to have been sent down over the off day. Hodge has strung together a few quality outings at Iowa. Paired with the bullpen reinforcements making it easier to use him in low leverage for a bit, and I'd assume that's the swap. It's possible that Assad is coming up, though I assume he's getting one more start at Iowa and then coming up next Monday for the doubleheader. And then based on what Counsell said over the weekend Amaya is also supposedly back today, curious if the casualty is McGuire or Berti.

Honestly I'm pretty okay getting talent further out. As much as the prospect situation has soured, I'm not worried about immediate MLB depth for next year. Brown/Assad/Wicks are going to have options and aren't going to be expected to be part of the rotation heading into ST. Wiggins probably opens the season at Iowa and isn't on too dissimilar of a timeline to Horton this year. Steele's due back in June-ish. I don't want to totally ignore Noland and Sanders either. It's not attrition proof, but nothing ever is. I'd assume like the Busch trade you'd get a premium on value for sacrificing proximity, and I think this is a rare opportunity to do that outside of a rebuild setting.

Jed badly needs to do a reverse Michael Busch trade this winter.

Caleb Kilian is still in the system?!?

Cristian Hernandez dong for the second game in a row

I really wish we had Statcast data throughout the minors. Obviously he doesn't have a lot of power, but are we talking Nick Madrigal level of punchlessness or more like Nico Hoerner? Because ultimately I think I care more about the raw power than the game power until we get a few more rungs up the ladder. Cristian Hernandez is a great example. He has not hit a lot of homeruns yet but several of the ones he has hit have been nukes. I'm not especially worried about him being a single digit homerun guy at maturity. If Southisene is capable of hitting balls more than ~105 MPH, even if they're currently all on the ground, I'll have more confidence that he's not going to have the bat knocked out of his hands at Iowa.

.500! He did it with a 10th inning HBP

Kevin Alcantara homered, and Statcast is refusing to give any details about it. I feel like it does that to a disproportionate number of Kevin's dongs. And then speaking of guys who refuse to make outs lately Ariel Armas has been on base 3x already tonight. He's now the cleanup guy at SB.

.496 I'm far too invested in this right now

.491

.486 now...

If I'm not mistaken, after getting on base his first two PAs tonightTy Southisene has a .481 OBP since the start of July (110 PAs)

Kepley's been hit 4 times and we're not done with his 3rd game yet. Curious to see if he's a guy that draws a ton of them

Yeah I think Brown (or whoever from Iowa) has to start either the Sunday before against the Pirates or the Friday after against the Angels.

Assad is currently lined up for the Monday Doubleheader, I feel pretty confident penciling that one in.