Bertz

A lot of it is the novelty. Fangraphs says he had the 3rd hardest changeup in the league last year, and the two guys in front of him threw their's 0.1% of the time, meaning they were probably mislabeled fastballs. Pete Fairbanks is the only guy who threw his changeup a meaningful amount (roughly 5%) with a changeup as hard as Cabrera. Among starters Jacob Misiorowski was the only guy within even 2 MPH of him. Setting aside the novelty, the key takeaway from the explosion of pitch models the last five years is you want pitches that are weird. The best pitches have outlier velocity, outlier movement, or come in at a weird ass angle.

The Cubs have *really* valued game calling the last several years. I wonder if that makes them more or less likely to jump on a trend like this. I also wonder if at minimum there's a consideration of having the coaching staff call the game when Mo's behind the plate. Feels like between this and ABS the floor for catcher defense is being raised considerably.

Really good read from Sharma on Brown/Wicks/Assad. Headline is probably Brown adding a sinker.

You kind of have to wonder if we get to the last week of March and the Cubs' depth is still looking strong if the team doesn't try and make a trade from a position of leverage with a team like the Braves who's rolled snake eyes. You have to figure even someone marginal like an Assad starts looking worthwhile if you're down 2-3 starters before the season starts.

I'd go with an A, probably an A- if we're being a little finer with it. Things I liked: - I like that they finally pulled the trigger on a Caissie trade. It was definitely at least 6 months overdue and probably a year overdue, but that doesn't change the fact that I'm really into Cabrera (and I already dinged them for their inaction at the deadline) - Bregman was a good middle ground between replacing Tucker's offensive production, keeping costs in a place that didn't torpedoe the rest of the offseason, and preparing for Hoerner's free agency. I didn't love the idea in November but it grew on me a lot as the offseason progressed - I like that they actually invested in the pen. In prior years it would have been just like Harvey/Milner/Webb and then some NRIs. There's a mix of certainty and upside this year. It still feels one guy short but that's not horrible - I love that they're leaving room for the kids to break in. It's a tightrope between giving opportunity and not leaving yourself exposed and I think they've successfully walked it Things I didn't like: - Given that it sounds like they came in under budget a bit, they probably should have added one more reliever with some oomf. Honestly something as simple as not trading Kittredge and only adding one of Milner/Thielbar makes a noticeable difference IMO - I'm fine with each contract in isolation, but the team is spending $45M on the combo of Shota/Taillon/Rea. That feels....not great. Especially given the much discussed roster cliff - Related to the above, the team really went nuts on SP depth, likely to the detriment of the frontline talent. The team currently has 11 viable MLB starters, which is great. But they've only needed 8-9 each of the last three years. And sure there's no guarantee it won't swell to 10 (or 11 or 12) this year, but at the same time it feels counterproductive to put out a lesser top 5 in order to make the 8-12 guys marginally better Overall it was a good offseason and this is a good and deep team. Hard not to be excited.

It's hard to be too confident in the impacts of ABS ahead of time but I feel like we've got a lineup that seems as likely as any to get a boost from it.

This is either awful timing or incredible timing depending on whether Tony Clark is actually good at his job.

Yeah I hadn't thought too much about the Mo/Caissie decision being about contact vs. power, but it's a good point and the team has almost always chosen contact when forced to choose the last few years. I'd guess too they have fewer hangups about Mo likely being a Mitch Garver style DH/C/1B type than we do.

The Mets' non-Soto OF/DH situation sucks. Tauchman has a golden opportunity to hold down an everyday spot until Benge is ready, and by then there's a decent chance Luis Robert or Mark Vientos will have played themselves out of everyday at bats.

My read is that the team likes Ballesteros more than Caissie, maybe even a lot more. I'm sure there's a Marlins component to this too, they did essentially trade for him two offseasons in a row. Caissie is also super similar to Kyle Stowers so they certainly seem to have a type. For 2026 Mo and Caissie were mostly redundant. Caissie's glove mainly only would have mattered in the event of a Happ/Suzuki injury, and maybe not even then so much if Shaw takes well to the grass. After '26 it does suck to lose that ready made Happ replacement, but my guess is corner outfield is easy enough to backfill that the team isn't sweating it too hard.

Looks like he was #80 on their midseason list, so my guess is he fell off but not by a ton. I think I saw him as a Just Missed/Honorable mention on one of the earlier lists (Keith Law?) and I'd guess that's similar here.

55 - Jefferson Rojas 60 - Kevin Alcantara 72 - Jaxon Wiggins 84 - Moises Ballesteros Owen Caissie actually made the list this year at 62, Fangraphs has generally been low on him.

. Great year to pick in the 20's and have an extra second rounder

A little weird they're DFAing an infielder rather than just throwing Justin Steele on the 60 day IL. I wonder if Steele is being obstinate and doesn't want to commit to being out til Memorial Day.

Sounds like Collin Snider's already got his 2024 velo back, and the team has some specific ideas for keeping Harvey healthy.

Close the book on this one

Levine's pretty hit or miss at this stage of his career. That said the only time from the last couple of years I can remember him being this on something was Jesus Luzardo last winter. And that deal was done before the physical spiked it, so I'd consider it a win for him.

My understanding is LT numbers are vased on guaranteed dollars. So presumably for Harvey it's $5M with a $1M buyout, and thus the $6M guaranteed is the LT hit. I do know that option decisions that retroactively change the AAV can have a carryover. For instance Stroman's contract was 25/25/21, for a 23.7 AAV. When he opted out before that 3rd year we got a 2.6M 'penalty' in that 3rd year to make up for that AAV gap the first two years. I don't think this happens on mutual options though, mutual options are essentially just deferred money.

He's supposed to miss 2026 so this is a pure IL stash play. Still he's been great when healthy the past few years.

Worth noting Schwarber was significantly more raw than even Mo. As far as I can find he caught 100 games in college and another 70 in MiLB. Mo's at about 240 if we only count full season ball. FWIW Amaya was only 265 before he became a full time big leaguer.

The outfield's a little tricky. There's not really room for another lefty at the moment unless you decide to send Mo to Iowa. On the flip side we have essentially zero LHH outfield depth. Dylan Carlson is a switch hitter but much better against lefties, and then...Brett Bateman? And even the righties all have their question marks. On the pitching staff you handle this by adding another veteran like Tauchman, pushing Mo down to Iowa and telling him to hang tight knowing that attrition will work it all out in short order. On the position player side though? There's no guarantee of that injury, Happ/PCA/Seiya combined to miss less than 30 games last year. Ideally we can get someone of substance on a minor league deal. Max Kepler or Michael Conforto? I suspect those guys can do better though, and we'll just have to live with the idea that if god forbid something happens to Happ or PCA our lineup just gets a little too right handed.

I think there's a decent chance of another bench guy, and a decent chance of more pitching. Probably won't be a surefire starter if it's not Gallen, but someone you can stash on the IL (Griffin Canning?) or someone you think might take off in relief (Walker Buehler?).

Each of the last three years we've gotten 30+ games at catcher from guys who weren't one of our top two catchers heading into the season (Amaya in '23, Nido/Bethancourt in '24, McGuire last year). Amaya especially is made of glass, I don't think we should write off Mo getting some run at catcher. He of course could just hang out at Iowa until the IL trip that opens up that playing time, but A) is it really possible for him to radically change our defensive evaluation on him between now and like July and B) to your point of growing pains we're just kicking the can on getting those out of the way. I just don't see the point of blocking the kids for low margin upgrades. Especially at DH, where we're not boned if Mo faceplants. Austin projects really well, Long purely offensively is probably a bit better than Mo (at least in the short term), or we could of course just rotate guys through it as a rest spot. And of course I think KC's got a great point that DH is about as easy of a spot to fill at the deadline as you could ask for.

I just don't really see the point? Like why bother? For 5 points of wRC+? And if you want to lean really heavily on projections it's worth noting they really like Austin's bat and they don't think Mo provides zero defensive value.