Bertz

He presumably gets the qualifying offer from here?

I'd be very excited about King as the second of two additions. Maybe Shota leaves and we do something like Joe Ryan and King? Maybe we do King and a bat? But yeah as much as I like King and you look at him and he's clearly Tommy Hottovy coded, a guy who missed three months with a shoulder injury and then was pretty bad from there on is not someone who can be your big offseason fish. Not at this part of the win curve.

Okay. I official forgive him for the approximately 75 false starts before the bye

I believe all the opt outs to this point have been exactly what was expected. Possible exception of Ha Seong Kim? Though he's not really relevant to us.

It's pretty much bottom of the scale contact ability. That's not an automatic no from me, but I would need to be morr desperate for help either at 3B or just broadly to add power to the lineup. What I will say is that while I'm an "absolutely the horsefeathers not" vote on Geno Suarez for similar reasons, Murakami at least had age on his side. At 25 he's still likely ascendant. It also is worth noting hat his ZiPS projection is very strong.

Okay this is more like the Rockies we know and love

A little more (some good, some brake pushing)

Really looking forward to Pedro at Iowa this year

I'd be very surprised. That said If this ends up being the case I'd expect it means one or both of these things: - Imanaga at 1/22 is solid value in a vacuum, but Jed wants to open up the roster spot so that he can REALLY beef up the rotation. Right now we're wondering of he's going to make a trade or sign someone of consequence. If Shota leaves he can do both. Even if he's not shopping at the very top of the market, he could do something like Sandy Alcantara and Shane Bieber and quickly remake the rotation - Shota is very likely to accept the qualifying offer if it's given, and that would mean 3/5s of the rotation (along with Boyd and Taillon) are all set to hit free agency together next winter. I could understand not wanting to voluntarily put yourself in that situation

Everything is not perfect with Caleb but between stuff like this being a regular occurrence and the fact that we now have a legitimate "lol you left him too much time" QB for the first time ever it's really hard for me to sweat the smaller stuff

Teoscar Hernandez's defense makes me angry and I don't even like the Dodgers. If he was our right fielder I'd lose my mind.

I think there's a little bit of a chess match thing going on. You don't want Scherzer facing lefties but also you bring in a lefty for Muncy and then they have to face Teo and Edman which is scary. Scherzer being a certified psychopath probably helps make the decision for you.

Do we know what title she got with the Mets? I assume she got a pretty nifty promotion. Assistant hitting coach at the big league level? Or maybe something in the Farm Director neighborhood?

The smart money in basically any year is "right at the luxury tax line, probably a smidge under". That has been where payroll has defaulted under Tom. The exceptions have been when A) the team has been bad B) right after COVID C) circa 2015ish when the team had so many pre arb salaries they practically couldn't spend more D) 2019 when they actually went way past the line. Clearly that's a number of exceptions, but more years than not they've hugged the LT line. For that reason I tend to think in terms of luxury tax dollars rather than 26 man payroll dollars. But ballpark it there's usually about a $25M in difference between the two. So $244M as the LT line, minus $25M to convert LT dollars to 26 man dollars, minus a little bit for in season moves, and I think that $200-210M range is right expectation for opening day payroll, with the team likely crossing $211M during the season. If you want to be optimistic, I think this year makes more sense than most to blow it out a little bit. A decent length playoff run is a good windfall, and there's incentive to try and push for another next year. On top of that, generally if you spike payroll you're realistically committing to doing it for a few years. Reason being there's only so many 1 year deals you can fit onto a roster. But with 2027 payroll currently looking something like $80M, you could add 3-4 meaningful multi-year deals and still open next offseason in good shape to navigate the LT. Again I'm not counting on it, but it feels more likely than most years.

https://www.thecubreporter.com/cubs-40-man-roster Some Arizona Phil things IMO worth noting, mostly with regard to minor league options - Alcantara does have one more option (Phil has maintained this since last year, but it doesn't show up everywhere) - Eli Morgan apparently has another option remaining (I could have sworn he only had one coming into the year)? Makes the decision to keep him much easier. Gavin Hollowell also received an extra one, so I'd expect him to hold onto his 40 man spot as well - Javier Assad somehow still has two option years remaining? Nominally increases his value - I don't think any of these ones are surprises. but all of Roberts, Neely, Hodge, and Little have at least one option remaining. So expect them to survive any 40 man purge events over the next few months as well - Ben Brown only has one option, while Wicks and (as mentioned above Assad) each have two. Doesn't force any drastic decisions, but if youre going to go into ST expecting one of these guys to take the long relief role, it does give Brown a slight leg up IMO

I mentioned this elsewhere w/r/t Alec Bohm but I think a semi full time player who can play the infield corners and mash lefties is a glove perfect fit for this roster. - While Busch has earned some more leash against LHP, he definitely needs some righty support. Whatever combo of Mo/Caissie backfills Tucker will certainly need that RHH support - I'm not too worried about Shaw, but you're generally on bust watch with any young player until they reach ~1000 PAs. And we do not have a good 3B backfill at Iowa unless you think Long can play there (seems doubtful). - This team needs a backup middle infielder. But because Swanson and Hoerner are so good and so durable you're really going to be relegated to scraps in free agency. A strong backup at 3B also indirectly provides a strong middle infield backup via moving Shaw to 2B - Adding some LF flexibility to the mix only makes the fit stronger, as Ian Happ is merely adequate against LHP I'm generally in "no half measures" mode on the position player side of the ball this winter. Either bring Tucker back or just fiddle with the bench and go hard on improving the pitching staff. But having someone who *could* be an everyday 3B but doesn't *have* to be an everyday 3B is kind of perfect. So if the team believes in Okamoto's bat I think I'd be down.

If Jonny Long ends up being legit I would consider last year's AFL to have been his coming out party. He had already been raking at Tenn but we actually got measurement and scouting reports when he went to AZ. I also tend to think what Kilian did in the AFL was legit and that he backed up after. Though considering he was ultimately a bust that distinction doesn't necessarily matter much.

I think this is right on. I'd also say he could be a placeholder for a better team. Like take the Phillies. They have Andrew Painter, who they clearly want to be their future ace. But he did not show enough in AAA this year to warrant a spot in MLB to open next year. Assad is the type of guy you could nominally have as your 5th starter but who is easy to cast aside as soon as you feel good about Painter.

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6761320/2025/10/29/chicago-cubs-craig-counsell-staff-changes/ Cubs have only lost one guy on the coaching staff. Alex Smith who did some of the game prep planning work. Sounds like they're bracing to lose Ryan Flaherty as well (I've read elsewhere he's the favorite for the Padres job). Nice to finally have some consistency eith the hitting group.