Matthew Trueblood

Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images The Cubs and Colin Rea agreed to a one-year deal for 2026 with a club option for 2027 Thursday, a source confirmed to North Side Baseball. Steve Adams of MLB Trade Rumors was first to break the news. Rea, 35, will make at least $6.5 million in total, and can make up to $13 million if the Cubs exercise their option next winter. The pact comes just hours before the decision point on the team's would-be 2026 option. included in the contract Rea signed last winter. That deal would have paid him $6 million this year, and the alternative would have been paying a $750,000 buyout. The Cubs ponied up an extra $500,000 to guarantee themselves a chance to bring Rea back on affordable terms in 2027, if they so choose. For Rea, this deal offers shelter from a market that projects to be frigid. As has become their custom, the league's owners have tightened their purse strings as negotiations over the next collective bargaining agreement loom. One source indicated that the Cubs considered declining the option on Rea, and pressed for the extra year of team control in exchange for picking it up. At the same time, this structure benefits the Cubs. With the buyout on next winter's option expected to be slightly larger than the one they just circumvented, they'll pay fractionally less for Rea in 2026 than they otherwise would have, and they gain the flexibility that comes with that 2027 option. Bringing Rea back in some form became something close to a no-brainer, though, once Shota Imanaga declined his team option for 2026. In fact, though they didn't have equal terms on which to make the decision, this sequence of moves suggests the front office has more faith in Rea for next year than they have in Imanaga. Earlier this week, I wrote about the decision to decline Imanaga's three-year team option (and the fact that the team might yet decline to give Imanaga a qualifying offer) at Baseball Prospectus, through the lens of the new pitcher arsenal metrics on that site. Imanaga took an important step backward last year in his ability to get the ball down, and especially to bury his splitter; that became an increasingly lethal problem as the year wore on. Other pitchers might weather such a change better, but Imanaga's limited arsenal and difficulty with deceiving or surprising hitters made it hard for him to do so. By contrast, Rea has worse raw stuff than Imanaga—more velocity, but from the right side instead of the left, and with less lively movement; no single secondary pitch with the swing-and-miss potential of Imanaga's splitter—but an exceptionally deep arsenal and a good idea of how to use it to maximum effect. Hitters can accurately identify the pitch type early against Imanaga almost 82 percent of the time. That's both because he relies so heavily on his four-seamer and splitter, and because those two pitches have such disparate movement. Right away, the trajectory, spin and velocity of the offerings lets the hitter spot differences. Rea couldn't be more different. Hitters can accurately identify which pitch he's throwing just 55.5 percent of the time, which places him in the top decile of the league in disguising pitch type. Because he has so many offerings he trusts—four-seamer, sinker, cutter, curveball, slider, sweeper and changeup, the last of which he switched from a splitter to a kick-change this year—he can also use sequencing to surprise hitters better than most pitchers, and the breadth of movement and velocity bands within which he can work is huge. As he and I discussed in July, he made changes under the Cubs' guidance this year, moving the four-seamer to a place of greater primacy within his mix, but he still made great use of all his offerings. Fascinatingly, his move from the third-base side of the rubber to the first-base side made each of his pitches work better with his four-seamer, and the concomitant switch from being sinker-heavy to letting the four-seamer lead thus led his stuff to play up nicely. Here are the stuff ratings (StuffPro, where 0 is average and negative is better; it's expressed in runs against average per 100 pitches thrown), the pitch type detectabilities (the percentage of the time the hitter was estimated to accurately identify the pitch) and the best tunnel pair for each of Rea's offerings, for 2024 and 2025. Pitch Type 2024 SutffPro 2024 Pitch Type Prob. 2024 Tunnel Pair 2025 StuffPro 2025 Pitch Type Prob. 2025 Tunnel Pair Four-Seamer 0.9 35.8 Sinker 0.6 69.4 Kick-Change Sinker 0.1 63.2 Four-Seamer -0.1 45.2 Four-Seamer Cutter 0.3 42.8 Sweeper 0.2 55.8 Four-Seamer Slider - - - -0.4 28.4 Four-Seamer Sweeper 0 50.8 Cutter -0.8 55.8 Slider Curveball 0.1 49.4 Sweeper -0.1 73.4 Kick-Change Splitter 0.7 27.8 Sinker - - - Kick-Change - - - -0.3 47.9 Four-Seamer It was actually a bit easier to identify Rea's pitches in 2025, on balance, because of his move on the rubber and the fact that he threw his four-seamer more than he had thrown even his more prominent sinker in 2024. However, the StuffPro columns show how impressively his stuff played up thanks to alterations to his angles and his mechanics. His mix also widened, with the addition of the slider, and as you can see in the tunnel pair columns, four of Rea's other six pitches looked like his fastball at least a substantial share of the time for hitters last year. On almost every pitch he threw, hitters read four-seam fastball, but they were wrong often enough to produce a fair number of whiffs and plenty of weak contact. The drawback with Rea, as we discussed late in the 2025 season, is that he runs out of steam a bit near the end of most campaigns. On balance, though, he's a very useful arm. The Cubs will work hard to ensure he's not counted on for as many innings in 2026 as he was in 2025, but he's proved himself to be an average-plus big-league arm. Unlike Imanaga, he has ways to make up for it when his stuff or even his location is less than perfect; his arsenal depth and pitchability fill in the gaps. For now, Rea can be penciled in as the Cubs' fourth starter, behind Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd, and Jameson Taillon. By the middle of next season, the team will hope to have Justin Steele back from his April Tommy John surgery and be nearly ready to promote starting prospect Jaxon Wiggins. They also have Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks and Ben Brown as depth options who could start or relieve for them. A long winter lies ahead, and one or more of those younger players might be traded before Opening Day. Injuries have to be taken into account, too. The Cubs will aim to add a high-profile arm to the front end of their rotation, pushing Rea down the depth chart, but in the meantime, they acted to secure some high-quality depth for the back end of their rotation and the long relief segment of their bullpen. View full article

That's certainly his attitude, and he got it done more often than not late in the season. But remember, you only saw a snapshot of him. He missed the first two months of the season. He's only pitched full seasons twice in his career (2021 and 2024). And again, he'll turn 36 before Opening Day. If you carry him for the full season, you have to be pretty careful with his usage, or he's going to either wear down or break down. That's the real track record here.

Image courtesy of © Kirby Lee-Imagn Images, Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images The Cubs traded Andrew Kittredge to the Baltimore Orioles Tuesday, saving the $1 million they were otherwise poised to invest via buyout on the $9-million option they held for his services in 2026. In return, they received only cash. They chose, in effect, something just under $2 million in extra financial flexibility right away over the chance to spend $8 million (the value of the option, less the buyout) to keep Kittredge. That deal won't be especially popular, at the front end of an offseason and before Jed Hoyer has made any more concrete moves toward maintaining his team's competitive position for 2026. Importantly, though, the concreteness of Kittredge worked against him. This moment of the offseason is all about fluidity. By not committing to Kittredge, the Cubs freed up the money they would otherwise have spent on him, keeping their options open—and freed up a place on their 40-man roster, to boot. That's not to say that the trade will prove to have been wise. In chess parlance, it's an opening move that sharpens the position quickly—just as shoving out Shota Imanaga was. Hoyer is fighting to keep options open, but in so doing, he's reducing the chances of a broadly popular, successful but unspectacular offseason. Moves like this one raise the stakes of the rest of the winter's work; they make it harder to envision a comfortable middle road. They will, inevitably, make fans more nervous, because they trade in safety nets for the walk on a high wire. Nonetheless, it's easy to see the logic at work. As I wrote back on October 22, there was never a chance the Cubs would bring back both Kittredge and fellow right-hander Brad Keller this winter. They had to make an early choice between the two, and saving the buyout (plus getting a little extra cash) does incrementally increase the chances that they can retain Keller. Considered in that light, this decision makes a good amount of sense. It's still possible that the Cubs will divert these resources elsewhere, and not spend as much as $9 million on any one reliever this winter. It's more likely that they'll reinvest this money somewhere, though, and Keller—a player with whom they're familiar, now; one five and a half years Kittredge's junior; and with a different path to similar levels of brilliance this year—appears to be the option they preferred of these two. Hoyer's biggest goal for the pitching staff this winter has to be missing more bats. A key question, then, is whether Kittredge (despite a gaudy strikeout rate over 30% in 2025) can be that swing-and-miss reliever. Keller had a lower strikeout rate than Kittredge's in 2025 and has a much lower one for their respective careers, but Keller had also been a starter until this year. The Cubs probably assessed the two along lines that look roughly like this. Let's walk through it together. Pitcher StuffPro PitchPro Pitch Probability Surprise Factor Mvmt. Spread Vel. Spread Andrew Kittredge -0.2 -1 80.9 101.4 79.4 71.1 Brad Keller -0.5 -0.5 71.9 109.5 93.9 89.9 StuffPro and PitchPro are Baseball Prospectus's pitch quality metrics, akin to the slightly more famous (but slightly less robust) Stuff+ metrics at FanGraphs. StuffPro measures the sheer nastiness of a pitch's movement, speed, release and approach angles, while PitchPro also adjusts for location. Zero is average, and a negative number is better; the scale of those two numbers is runs against average, per 100 pitches. In brief, Keller has better raw stuff than Kittredge. The latter achieved more, in 2025, by being more precise with his locations. Pitch Probability expresses the likelihood that a hitter's diagnosis of pitch type out of the hand will be accurate for any given pitch by that pitcher. Surprise Factor utilizes a pitcher's mix and their usage patterns to give an indexed rating to the ability to violate a hitter's expectations, not via immediate release point or trajectory but by going to a pitch they rarely use or using it in a rare situation. Movement and Velocity Spread rate the extent to which a pitcher's pitches tend to vary from the movement or the speed a hitter expects based on the pitch type they're likely to guess on a given offering. For Surprise Factor and both Spreads, the baseline is 100, and higher is better. Keller is better at disguising which pitches he's throwing that Kittredge is. He's better at using unpredictable variations in usage or sequencing to put a hitter on the defensive. His pitches move in a more productive variety of ways, and he changes speeds more deceptively, to boot. The only fundamental skill at which Kittredge outstrips Keller is hitting his spots. While that's an important skill—and one the Cubs value, perhaps, as much as any team in baseball—it's a hard one to carry from year to year, especially as (mostly) a two-pitch reliever well into your mid-30s. The Cubs liked Keller's fit in their clubhouse in 2025. They liked the way he responded to their challenges and input after they signed him. In their high-level assessment of Kittredge and Keller for 2026, they came away with a strong preference for the latter. That doesn't mean they'll re-sign him. Keller could be in line for a handsome three-year deal this winter, and Chicago might prefer to redirect the money they've saved by moving Kittredge toward hitters or starting pitchers and go try to find the next Keller on the scrap heap. The decision to trade Kittredge will and should be judged on how they spend the money, the roster spot, and the high-leverage situations in relief they're choosing not to offer him. However, the deal decidedly increased the chances that they'll bring back Keller, and since they clearly believe Keller is the better bet of the two hurlers, there's a definite underlying sensibleness to it. View full article

Image courtesy of © Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images It's never been Jed Hoyer's style to pay top dollar for relievers—even great, relatively reliable ones. When Theo Epstein was still with the Cubs, they did sign Craig Kimbrel to a three-year deal in 2019, but those were special circumstances, and Hoyer isn't Epstein. Last winter, however, Hoyer did have a long flirtation with Tanner Scott. Though the hard-throwing lefty eventually signed with the Dodgers, the Cubs' offer was competitive. In fact, it had a greater net present value (after accounting for the deferrals in the deal he signed with Los Angeles) than any other team's highest bid. Hoyer is increasingly open to big moves like signing a top-flight reliever to a multi-year deal, and well he should be. The Cubs are very much entering a winning phase in their competitive cycle, and the affordability of young stars Pete Crow-Armstrong, Michael Busch and Cade Horton gives them some financial wiggle room this winter. This winter, there are a handful of hurlers at roughly the same tier as Scott who should be on the team's radar, including a couple who officially became free agents Monday. Here's a rundown. Edwin Díaz, RHP Díaz opted out of the final two years of his deal with the Mets Monday, leaving $38 million on the table. Because the Mets did not extend him a qualifying offer before signing him when he first hit free agency three years ago, they can do so now, which would dampen his market. He and his representatives clearly believe he can still get a third year on a new deal. They're right, too. It feels like he's been around for a long time, but Díaz is just 31 years old. He has a career strikeout rate a hair under 40%, and he doesn't walk an inordinate number of batters, either. His fastball sits 97 and still touches 100, with life. His slider plays off it viciously well, coming in around 90 miles per hour and looking like the heater until it's too late for the batter. He's likely to make another $80 million over four years, although the qualifying offer could bring that number down 10 percent or so. The Cubs will take an interest, but it's a longshot that they'd actually be the ones to land him. Robert Suarez, RHP By contrast, Suarez is much more natural a Hoyer target. He opted out of two more years with the Padres, but that deal was going to pay him much less than Díaz's would have. For multiple reasons, he's also less likely to receive a qualifying offer from San Diego. That would make him available without draft-pick compensation attached, which would increase his appeal to the Cubs. Cubs fans got a good look at Suarez during the team's triumph over San Diego in the Wild Card Series last month. He fills up the zone with a fastball that often hits triple digits, consistently limiting walks and damaging contact well. He struck out 27.9% of opposing batters this season, which would be a boost for the Cubs' pen. However, that's not elite bat-missing ability, by the standards of modern relievers. Nor will Suarez, who turns 35 next March, have the same chance to command a long-term deal that Díaz has. He's not quite as dominant as some of the other arms hitting the market are capable of being, but Suarez should land in a price range more comfortable for Chicago than some of the others. His age and skill set make him the type of arm some of the other big-market teams shy away from. He fits what the Cubs like to a tee, though, and could be their top target on this market. Devin Williams, RHP What a disaster his year in the Bronx was. Williams is probably craving an escape from that situation, and his struggles in New York forced the Yankees to trade for David Bednar in July, so they won't be giving Williams a qualifying offer on the way out the door. He worked a career-high 62 innings in his walk year, but his 4.79 ERA will keep the market for his services from heating up to the extent he surely imagined as recently as six months ago. Williams can be a mercurial clubhouse presence, which might turn off some would-be suitors. It makes the notion of a reunion with a manager who understood and accommodated him especially appealing, so this could be one way that Craig Counsell delivers value to his new team based on the work he did for his old one. The most intriguing thing about him, though, is that despite the bad vibes and the ugly surface-level numbers during his stint with the Yankees, Williams still has good stuff. He ran into a few more barrels this year, and his 34.7% strikeout rate was a career-worst mark—but it would be the career-best for many guys. He also walked fewer batters than usual, dipping under 10% for the first time since his rookie campaign. Luke Weaver, RHP The former Cardinals prospect became a bit of a bust with the Diamondbacks, but when he moved to the bullpen in subsequent stops, he unlocked something impressive. For the last two years, he's been a co-ace in the Yankees bullpen, running an aggregate strikeout rate around 30% while limiting walks well. He has a high arm slot, a high-riding four-seamer, and a great changeup that plays against both lefties and righties (with the odd cutter to keep righties off of it a bit). He's also below the QO threshold, which should result in a robust market; he weathered heavy usage in the 2024 postseason well and was pretty much the same guy in 2025. Pete Fairbanks, RHP We haven't yet heard what the Rays intend to do with Fairbanks, on whom they hold an $11-million option with a $1-million buyout for 2026. That would be a lot of money for Tampa to spend on a reliever, though, so even if they pick up the option, he'll be on the trade market. He's the same age as Díaz and throws just as hard, but he doesn't have the devastating secondary pitch to go with it. His strikeout rate since the start of 2024 is just 24%, which makes him decidedly less than an elite arm at this point. However, he also keeps the bases relatively clear, and he can still be overwhelming in the right matchups or on the right days. José Alvarado, LHP The Phillies hold a relatively affordable $9-million option on Alvarado for 2026, but we haven't yet heard whether they'll exercise it. He was unavailable to them in October due to a suspension for PEDs that also cut a big chunk out of his season. However, when he's on the mound, few relievers can match Alvarado for sheer nastiness. His sinker sits 99 and touches 102, and the hard cutter he throws off of it induces whiffs at an exceptional rate. Conditioning and mechanical work helped him dramatically reduce his walk rate in 2025. If the Phillies let him walk or are open to trading him, the Cubs are likely to be among the interested parties. In addition to that sextet, the Cubs have to weigh whether or not to bring back incumbent high-leverage relievers Brad Keller or Andrew Kittredge. In the next two days, we'll hear which choice they make about Kittredge, on whom they hold a $9-million option for 2026. Keller is a free agent, though, so if they don't bring him back, they have to replace him. One way or another, Hoyer is likely to spend more than usual on the bullpen this winter. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images The offseason begins the moment the World Series ends, and even though the 2025 World Series ended in spectacular, exhausting fashion, teams have to start making choices immediately. The Chicago Cubs, for instance, have until Thursday to decide whether to exercise their club options on Colin Rea and Andrew Kittredge. We broke down those choices and their implications late last month. They also have one side of a mutual option with Justin Turner. Chicago also has to decide whether to trigger their three-year, $57-million option on Shota Imanaga. As we discussed in the wake of his last appearance in Game 2 of the NLDS, the team will not pick that up. Once they inform Imanaga of that (a step they'll take right away), the lefty has to decide on a $15-million option of his own, which also comes with another one for 2027. Imanaga is likely to exercise that option, but if he doesn't, it leaves Chicago with another dilemma. If Imanaga elects free agency over the promise of at least $30 million over two years, Chicago can give him a qualifying offer worth $22.025 million. They have the same choice to make about Kyle Tucker, of course, and technically, about out-of-nowhere relief ace Brad Keller. They certainly won't make that offer to Keller, and sources indicate they won't do so with Imanaga, either, should it come to that. They will extend one to Tucker, though. All of the qualifying offer calls also have to be made by Thursday, which is when free agency opens for real. Until then, players can only negotiate with their own teams. Starting then, though, they can sign elsewhere, and the landscape will be better-defined. Players (including Tucker) have until Nov. 18 to accept or decline the qualifying offer. For Tucker, that deadline doesn't matter. He'll officially decline the offer right away, and the Cubs will be eligible for a pick after the second round when he signs elsewhere—although, of course, that signing is unlikely to happen until some time in December or January. For other players, that two-week window will be much more like limbo. If, for instance, the Cubs surprise everyone by extending an offer to Imanaga, he'll have to weigh the likely impact on his market and the security of that significant payday against the theoretical upside of a deeper foray into free agency. Some players on the margins prefer to get deals done by that deadline, electing to accept the offer unless they can hammer out a multi-year guarantee elsewhere. Despite the lack of games, November has become a busy month on the baseball calendar. The Cubs' offseason plans will come into focus over the next four weeks; they have a lot of work to do. With labor unrest looming next winter, this could be a deep-freeze winter, but Chicago doesn't have the luxury of remaining inactive for long. View full article

Image courtesy of © Rhona Wise-Imagn Images Though neither Kazuma Okamoto nor Munetaka Murakami qualified for the batting title in Japan this year, if you bring down the required number of plate appearances to 200, they sit atop the leaderboard for offensive production. Okamoto, 29, batted an eye-popping .327/.416/.598 in 69 games and 293 plate appearances. Murakami, 25, finished fifth in NPB in home runs (22), despite playing just 56 games. Overall, he hit .273/.379/.663 in 224 trips to the plate. Obviously, both sluggers will be in high demand this winter, but it's likely to be at two different levels. Murakami has been a bigger name in American baseball circles for the last several years, because he flashed prodigious power at a young age and because it's long been known that he had interest in coming to the States. In 2022, he hit 56 home runs, proving his pop to be not just good, but potentially elite, and he's always demonstrated good plate discipline. Since he'll come to MLB at age 26, there's a good chance he'll make over $200 million on a long-term deal. Okamoto doesn't have the same buzz. He'll turn 30 next June, and has been a regular in NPB for eight seasons. He's always hit well, with a career line of .277/.361/.521, but he'd never demonstrated the ability to dominate quite the way he did when he was on the field in 2025. He did hit at least 30 home runs in every season from 2018 through 2023, but that dipped to 27 in 2024 and to 15 (albeit only because of injury) in 2025. Projections for his earning power this winter have come in closer to the deals signed by Seiya Suzuki (5 years, $85 million) and Masataka Yoshida (5 years, $90 million) when they came over in successive offseasons. Okamoto is older than either of those two were when they made the move, too, so he's likely to sign an even shorter-term deal. However, for multiple reasons, the Cubs should take a greater interest in Okamoto. He's the better fit for their roster, their home park, and their competitive window—and he might just be the better player, anyway. Okamoto bats right-handed, whereas Murakami bats lefty. As we've discussed here recently, the Cubs already have Michael Busch, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Ian Happ, Owen Caissie and Moisés Ballesteros to hurt right-handed pitchers from the left side, and they need to emphasize righty power instead. It's also important to note that, while Murakami's ceiling appears to be higher, Okamoto is the one with the more obviously translatable skill set. Murakami has struck out over 28% of the time in three straight seasons and whiffs on more than 30% of his swings, even in NPB. Okamoto, by contrast, struck out in just 11.3% of his plate appearances this year and hasn't struck out at a rate of 20% or higher since 2019. He makes contact on roughly 80% of his swings in Japan. Both players are patient, but Murakami's swing rate spiked in his interrupted season in 2025; Okamoto's has been steady. When they each played for Samurai Japan in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Okamoto was the standout. In 27 plate appearances, he batted .333, hit two home runs, and drew eight walks against four strikeouts. Among players with at least 20 trips to the plate in that tournament, only Randy Arozarena, Trea Turner, Shohei Ohtani and Anthony Santander had a higher OPS than Okamoto's 1.278. Both Murakami and Okamoto are third basemen who have been splitting their time and moving over to first base at times over their last few years in Japan; both are expected to play more first base in the States. Each is a good size (Okamoto: 6-foot-1, 220 pounds; Murakami: 6-foot-2, 213), but a bit slow. Of the two, Okamoto is the better defender right now, and he's even been shifted into the outfield for fistfuls of games over the last few years. In the medium-term future, one should bet on Murakami to have more defensive value, because he's considerably younger, but Okamoto will be more useful as a four-corners player in 2026. Okamoto is just a much better fit for the Cubs, who have every chance to win now and need a right-handed slugger to slot into their lineup to make the most of that opportunity. He can platoon with Busch at first base and play plenty of third base against righties, but also mix in at designated hitter as Suzuki (likely) moves back to right field on something close to a full-time basis. A lineup against righties could go: Nico Hoerner - 2B Michael Busch - 1B Seiya Suzuki - RF Ian Happ - LF Kazuma Okamoto - 3B Moisés Ballesteros - DH Dansby Swanson - SS Miguel Amaya - C Pete Crow-Armstrong - CF Against lefties, they could switch that to: Nico Hoerner - 2B Seiya Suzuki - DH Ian Happ - LF Kazuma Okamoto - 1B Dansby Swanson - SS Matt Shaw - 3B Kevin Alcántara - RF Carson Kelly - C Pete Crow-Armstrong - CF Craig Counsell would have the luxury of mixing and matching within that group, swapping Alcántara into center to spell Crow-Armstrong against some lefties; leaving Busch in against some southpaws while sliding Okamoto to DH; or even spelling Hoerner by using Shaw at the keystone. That assumes that none of Shaw, Ballesteros or Alcántara are traded, but a major offensive addition like Okamoto would make it easier to do just that if the situation demanded it, thereby opening up the starting pitching market for Chicago. The inroads the team has made in Japan through their signings of Suzuki and Shota Imanaga (among others) make the Cubs a frequent subject of rumors when stars come over from NPB. That won't change this winter, and it shouldn't. Starting pitcher Tatsuya Imai is another name that will be linked with the team often in the weeks ahead. There's a good case to be made for simply directing their spending toward Imai. When it comes to the dilemma between the top two power hitters coming Stateside, though, the clear preference should be for Okamoto. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Three years ago, in early 2023, there were several Cubs storylines attached to the World Baseball Classic. Though an oblique strain sidelined Seiya Suzuki for the tournament, it was poignant to see his jersey hanging in the dugout for Samurai Japan throughout their run to the championship. Meanwhile, for Team México, Javier Assad showed up and shoved; it was a thrilling glimpse of the intensity his stuff could achieve in short bursts. Then-Cub Marcus Stroman made two strong starts for Team Puerto Rico. Then-prospects BJ Murray (Great Britain), Matt Mervis (Israel), Jared Young and Owen Caissie (Canada) each played in the tournament, too, with Caissie giving confirmation of his prospect status by holding his own in a high-level international competition. Only Caissie remains a relevant Cubs concern with the 2026 tournament on the horizon, but in addition to him, Suzuki and Assad, there are several players now attached to the organization who could very well be involved come March. Third baseman Matt Shaw played for Team USA in the Premier 12 tournament in Japan in November 2024, leading into his rookie campaign with the Cubs. He's far from the top of the United States's likely depth chart for this higher-profile tournament, but he could be a candidate to get a call from manager Mark DeRosa as the former Cub seeks to round out his infield. Three other young Cubs position players might be even more likely to hear from DeRosa, though. After his breakout season, Pete Crow-Armstrong is arguably the most famous American center fielder. The injuries that disrupted Jackson Merrill's sophomore season with the Padres and the ones that have plagued the career of Twins star Byron Buxton make each of them unlikely to don the stars and stripes for a preseason tournament next spring, and the days of Aaron Judge roaming center field in any high-level competition are over. Crow-Armstrong would be a big get for DeRosa, with a chance to burnish his resume as the game's premier defender in center and to get some more concretely valuable offensive reps in preparation for the season. This seems like a fairly likely assignment, on balance. It's less likely that Nico Hoerner draws the call to play second base for DeRosa's squad, but it's certainly not out of the question. Hoerner's Fielding Bible Award-winning season at the keystone and his superb second half at the plate caught the attention of much of the league. That free agents Bo Bichette and Alex Bregman might be discouraged from playing in the WBC by their new teams could leave more room than would normally be there for the likes of Shaw or Hoerner to filter into the infield equation for Team USA. Speaking of that same variable, longtime Team USA slugger Pete Alonso is also a free agent-to-be, which could make him less likely to participate. Former Captain America Paul Goldschmidt still wants to play in 2026, but at his advanced age, he's not going to be a first-choice guy for DeRosa. Matt Olson, Nick Kurtz, Bryce Harper and Freddie Freeman are all candidates to play first base for the U.S., but there's some chance that Michael Busch is now on that radar, too. After hitting 34 regular-season homers and four more in the postseason, Busch is firmly in the mix for the title of best-hitting American first baseman right now. If age or injury leads to hesitation by the veterans who might otherwise be interested, DeRosa could tab Busch. The Cubs also have a bevy of lesser stars who might be asked to play by their smaller home countries. Miguel Amaya and Daniel Palencia will be in consideration for the Team Venezuela roster. Shota Imanaga (presumably, still a Cub next year, although on what contract terms is still in question) could be in line to play a key role again for Samurai Japan. That's not to mention any of the prospects with foreign attachments, like Venezuelan catcher Moisés Ballesteros and Dominican outfielder Kevin Alcántara. Something like five or six Cubs could be involved in the WBC next year, before accounting for guys (like potential trade targets Pablo López or Joe Ryan, or potential signees via the NPB-to-MLB posting system Tatsuya Imai, Munetaka Murakami or Kazuma Okamoto) who aren't currently in the organization but might be by then. It should be fun, once again, to track their contributions to the buzz and wonder of the tournament. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images The list of comparable phenomena in the history of sports is short. Shohei Ohtani is the best baseball player ever, without a close or serious rival, and the way he's swept up the sport—advancing it as a global interest while simultaneously wrapping the whole apparatus around himself, becoming the center of its attention and the source of its gravity—has very few precedents. In whichever order you care to consider them, the people who have had a similarly profound impact on their sport to the one Ohtani is having on baseball right now are: Babe Ruth Tiger Woods Michael Jordan Pelé Simone Biles If we acknowledge the fundamental and irreconcilable differences between team and individual sports, we can cull that list down to Ruth, Jordan, and Pelé, and thus have a more serious conversation. Ohtani is transcending his sport in a way no one but those three has ever done, and in a way few are ever likely to do again. His latest trick, of course, was becoming the first player since 1906 to notch four extra-base hits in a World Series game—which he did in the first seven innings of Game 3, thereafter drawing a record five walks in the Dodgers' 18-inning triumph. He reached base nine times, and although the Blue Jays refused to let him be the one who sank the dagger into them, their inability to get him out (and unwillingness to even try, once he forced the game to final at-bat leverage with his game-tying seventh-inning home run) eventually led to Los Angeles's win. His next trick will be taking the ball to start Game 4 of the Series on the mound. Baseball is not a game one can take over as completely as is possible in basketball. The Jays had a mechanism to work around Ohtani that is much more robust than the double-team defense teams could sometimes run at Jordan at the peak of his powers. Ohtani, however, stretches baseball to its breaking point. He's far more impactful than Ruth was, even at his best. By being both a dominant pitcher and such an otherworldly offensive weapon, he's become more of an all-around force than any soccer player can consistently be. Jordan is the only real comparator—and it's becoming a more apt one almost by the day. Michael Jordan had a great career in the world's second-best basketball league before being drafted by the Chicago Bulls; he was a star in NCAA for the North Carolina Tar Heels. Jordan won a national title and was the National Player of the Year during his college years. He then won the Rookie of the Year Award in 1985, and he won the NBA MVP Award in his fourth season in the league. Shohei Ohtani had a great career in the world's second-best baseball league, before coming over to the United States. With the Nippon Ham Fighters, he won a Japan Series and was the Pacific League MVP in 2016. He then won the Rookie of the Year Award in 2018, and won his first MVP Award in his fourth season in the American League. Each player also achieved international glory. Jordan was on the 1984 Gold Medal-winning Team USA basketball team at the Seoul Olympics. Ohtani closed the championship game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic. However, each was driven—at first bemusedly, then furiously—by the desire to win the championship of the world's best league in their respective sport. Neither felt complete without it, even as each did things their sport had never seen before and achieved fame and wealth that sport had never before afforded to anyone. In their seventh seasons in those top leagues, each finally made it to the mountaintop. Jordan's victory, of course, felt more like the culmination of a long climb, whereas Ohtani seemed to take a running start and fly to the peak, but the result was the same. Each had quieted any possible (at least any halfway serious) critics, but neither was remotely satisfied. In fact, each came back (if anything) more driven the following year, and somehow got even better. In Ohtani's case, it was by sustaining the new level of offensive brilliance he'd reached in 2024 while returning to the mound. In Jordan's, it was by conserving his energy better during the regular season so he could explode for 34.5 points in over 41 minutes per game during the 1992 Playoffs. Ohtani won't be able to singlehandedly carry his team to a second straight title, as Jordan sometimes seemed to do. However, he won the NLCS MVP Award by finishing off the Brewers with the best single-game performance in baseball history. Now, in the first three games of his second World Series, he's batting .500/.667/1.417. He's relentlessly dominant. Even when they go miles out of their way to stop him from landing the killing blow, the opponents can't stop him from pushing his team to the win. Intentional walks to Ohtani led to the pivotal runs in Game 4 of the NLDS and Game 1 of the NLCS. Teams could double- and triple-team Jordan, but he still created scoring chances for the Bulls in ways they couldn't neutralize—and he still played shutdown defense, at times, taking the opponent's offense out of its rhythm. Ohtani is the only team-sport athlete who has matched Jordan narrative beat for narrative beat, and who can also match his all-around flair. Yes, LeBron James is a better basketball player than Jordan was. But he didn't have the chance to reinvent the game; Jordan had already invented a version of it that will last as long as the sport does. He also couldn't match the competitive ferocity or the results that Jordan produced. Similarly, no baseball player can now reinvent the game in any real sense. Ohtani has cracked it open and created whole new swaths of possibility. Nor, apparently, can an Ohtani surrounded by sufficient talent be stopped—because he's showing the same dangerously indomitable will Jordan had. It's a unique pleasure to watch the heir to Air Jordan's legacy at work. He's not as charismatic as Jordan could be, at least to English-speaking audiences, but it's clear that he has every bit of the ambition that set Jordan apart from lots of other extraordinarily talented people. He's on the precipice of his second straight World Series ring. Maybe another one (or four) awaits after that. Maybe, even after this long season, he'll go fight to win a second World Baseball Classic next spring, the same way Jordan went and won a second medal in Barcelona on the heels of his second NBA Finals. Maybe injury or the vagaries of the game will rob Ohtani of some of the glory Jordan achieved. By now, though, there's no more question that he's that same combination of freakish talent and utterly unwavering commitment to winning. It's almost psychotic. It's not the attitude of a perfectly well-adjusted person. It is, however, what the very best athletes are made of. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Frerker-Imagn Images The offseason is right around the corner, and Miguel Amaya is poised to enter it with 2 years, 130 days of MLB service. That's very close to the cutoff for Super Two eligibility for arbitration in recent years, but according to a review of the players who make up the pool of candidates for that status, it's likely to fall roughly five days short of the line for 2025-26. Amaya, 26, is still an out-of-options player coming off an injury-shortened campaign, but he had a strong season and will be easy to bring back as half the projected catching corps for the 2026 Cubs. All players with between three and six years of MLB service time qualify for salary arbitration each winter. Amaya fell about six weeks shy of a full year of service (172 days on an active roster) in 2023, though, so although he's been credited with full service years in 2024 and 2025, he's not yet at three years. However, of all players with between two and three years of service who accrued at least half a season (86 days) in the foregoing year, 22% are made eligible for arbitration each winter, giving them a fourth year in that progressive system before they hit free agency. We don't yet have official confirmation of the cutoff, but a careful review of the nearly 180 players who fall into that service bracket (about 160 of whom amassed enough service time in 2025 to be eligible for the early entry into the arbitration ladder) suggests that this year's line will fall around 2 years, 135 days. That could break either way, by a few days, but it was 2 years, 132 days last fall and it looks as though it will slightly rise this time around. That leaves Amaya out in the cold, but makes the Cubs' life easier. They don't even have to make a decision about him as an arbitration-eligible earner. It would have been a pretty easy decision, anyway, but assuming he does come up short of the line, he won't even have to be tendered a contract ahead of the non-tender deadline next month. The Cubs can renew his contract at any salary north of the league minimum. They're likely to pay him around $800,000, which is roughly $650,000 less than the estimate of his arbitration earnings (should he qualify), according to Cot's Contracts. A bit over half a million dollars sounds like small potatoes for a big-market team like the Cubs, because it is. However, there are a couple of other considerations that make it more valuable than it sounds to them if he has to wait another year to start making seven-figure money. First, reaching arbitration a year early means boosting the platform for earnings in each subsequent year of arbitration. Amaya not being Super Two-eligible will save the team less than $700,000 in 2026, but that could easily be $3 million or more if he plays well and the Cubs end up wanting to keep him for the full term of his team control. It would just spread out across those years. Saving that much on Amaya also gives the team more leeway to bolster their catching depth organizationally, by signing a player to a split contract or a minor-league deal. They retained Reese McGuire on that kind of contract in 2025, which paid huge dividends when Amaya got hurt. It would be a further boon to the team to have such a player around in 2026, not only to give the team however much cover it needs to keep Moisés Ballesteros in the minors so he can develop as a catcher, but to fill in for Amaya should he go down again. Though he had an admirable overall season, Carson Kelly wore down once the lion's share of the catching duties passed to him. He had long stretches of unproductive at-bats at the plate; he's much better as Catcher 1-B in a tandem. As the main backstop, he's a bit underwhelming. Kelly also received $500,000 in performance bonuses from the team this year: $250,000 apiece for 81 and 91 games started. He would stand to do the same in 2026, so if the team can shift him into a smaller role, it will save them another modest but noticeable chunk of change—and they'll probably get better play out of him, to boot. Amaya is very likely to miss out on arbitration. One teammate with one day more service time—righty reliever Ethan Roberts—is guaranteed to do so. Roberts didn't get 86 days of service time in 2025, so even if the Super Two cutoff turns out to be 130 days or lower, it will be without having factored in Roberts, and he won't be eligible to go to arbitration. Unlike Amaya, Roberts has one minor-league option year remaining. He can still be sent to the minors when the team deems him not to be one of their best 13 pitchers at any given time in 2026, and since he'll be making the league minimum and have roster flexibility, Roberts might (improbably) survive yet another winter on the 40-man roster. He might be jettisoned right away, just to make room for the needed early moves (like re-adding players who finished the year on the 60-day injured list or adding players to shield them from the Rule 5 Draft in December). If he survives that, though, Roberts might sail right through the winter. Teams love optionable pitching depth. Small roster rules like these rarely make the entire decision on a given player for a team. They just nudge things a bit in one direction or another. For the Cubs, Amaya missing out on Super Two status looks like a money saver and a small squirt of grease for the wheels of their offseason. Roberts being disenfranchised by that wrinkle in the rules also makes him easier to keep. The Cubs will pay plenty of extra money and lose a bit of team control this fall, in good ways, but there will also be small wins in the early days of the offseason, like Amaya being as cheap as possible to retain and promote. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images For Cubs fans of a certain age, there are a host of haunting 'what-if' scenarios attached to the team's 2003 season. On the whole, that was a great year, featuring the team's first division title in 14 years and almost as many postseason games (12) as they'd played from 1945 through 2002 (13). It was the last season of Sammy Sosa's prime, although also the start of his fall from grace. It was the peak season for Kerry Wood and Mark Prior. It felt like the beginning of something, and indeed, the franchise has 14 winning seasons in the 22 full campaigns beginning with that year. Yet, they also fell just shy of winning the team's first pennant in 58 years. The core they thought they were building around—Prior, Wood, Carlos Zambrano, Corey Patterson and Hee-Seop Choi—turned out to be much less robust than they'd hoped. They were right on the verge of a curse-breaking bit of magic, but instead, the season ended in heartbreak. Thanks both to what happened that year and what came afterward, Patterson became perhaps the best emblem of their not-quite-breakthrough. For much of the first half, Patterson looked like he was turning the corner toward stardom. He'd played a full season in 2002, but it had been a bumpy rookie ride. The extremely free-swinging lefty drew just 19 walks against 142 strikeouts, and his 49 extra-base hits didn't really make up for the lack of plate discipline—especially in the power-happy context of the league at that time. His athleticism made him fun to watch, when he could get anything going at the plate, but the slumps outnumbered the streaks. Though he played great defense in center field, Patterson entered 2003 as an enigma: the team needed a lot from him but wasn't sure what it could actually expect. All of that changed in 2003. New manager Dusty Baker took some pressure off Patterson by batting him in the lower third of the order early in the season, and that helped the youngster tap into his talent more fully. By June, he was often batting third, because he'd come on like a house afire. On July 6, he was batting .298/.329/.511. In 347 plate appearances, he was striking out as often as ever, but he'd roughly doubled his walk rate, with 15 of them in 347 plate appearances. He also had a whopping 37 extra-base hits during that half-season of breakout performance. Then, in a gasp and a sudden silence, he tore his ACL beating out an infield single and was lost for the balance of that season. When he came back the next year, it wasn't the same. Patterson was fine in 2004, but would never again be the kind of player he was in the first half of 2003. By 2006, he was an Oriole. Ever since, it's been almost impossible to answer the aching question: How would things have gone if Patterson hadn't gone down that summer? Was there yet another level of brilliance, just one more pivotal adjustment away? Could he have learned and grown in a way that would have paid dividends for the balance of his career? In short: did that injury scupper his push toward stardom, or was that dream doomed all along? The answer was probably always the sad, boring, unsatisfying one: Patterson swung too much, and was swinging too much even in his great half-season. He never learned to stop swinging so much, and was probably never going to learn to stop swinging so much. He didn't have the right people in his ear at the right ages, helping him understand how to handle big-league pitching and organize his strike zone. He probably would have run into trouble during the second half of that campaign. The Cubs traded for Kenny Lofton to replace Patterson, and he would post a .381 OBP for them. The 2003 team was almost certainly better for Patterson having gotten hurt, and his career probably wasn't that much altered. Pete Crow-Armstrong stayed healthy, and maybe the 2025 Cubs were worse for it. Crow-Armstrong was hitting .270/.308/.563 in late June, when he hit a bit of a skid until the week before the All-Star break. He bobbed back up coming out of the break, and was hitting .272/.309/.559 at the end of July. Thereafter, he batted an execrable .188/.237/.295 in 200 regular-season plate appearances, and was somehow even worse (.185/.214/.185) in 29 plate appearances in the playoffs. Crow-Armstrong is an even better fielder than Patterson was, but his glove didn't make up for the horrendousness of his stick late in the season; the Cubs would have been better off giving the job to Kevin Alcántara or trading for even a low-wattage replacement in August and September. The fascinating questions we're left with, then, center on the different fortunes of these two very similar young players at crucial moments in their careers. Crow-Armstrong swings too much, just like Patterson did. Did this midstream failure, with no physical externality to blame it on, teach him something important? Is his makeup better than Patterson's, to a sufficient extent to make him capable of adjusting where Patterson failed to? Will he get better instruction than Patterson did? Though the 2025 Cubs might have made it further or had an easier final stretch without him, will the team and the player be better off in the long run because he stayed healthy long enough to have his breakout season turn sour? It feels like a soft argument, but there's a decent case for it. Crow-Armstrong will probably always be overly aggressive at the plate. His swing rate certainly seems to be (at least partly) a matter of disposition; he hums with aggressiveness whenever he's on the field. However, he got ample chances to learn hard lessons in 2025. He didn't hit well in the postseason, but he did come up with a couple of clutch hits, one of which came directly as a result of a good plate appearance in which he demonstrated some patience; perhaps that reinforced good habits. His confidence should benefit from that small course correction. Sometimes, it also helps to get embarrassed. On the back-breaking home runs in the Brewers' Game 2 and Game 5 wins (by Jackson Chourio and Brice Turang, respectively), Crow-Armstrong raced back to the wall at Uecker Field in Milwaukee and leaped heroically—for balls that flew far over the wall and left Crow-Armstrong looking desperate and helpless and foolish at the base thereof. WU9xZzdfV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X1VBRlpVVndGQWxjQVdnTUJBQUFIQmxRRUFBQUJWZ1FBVjFjSEJBQU1BZ0FHVkFGUQ==.mp4 Whatever pride Crow-Armstrong stored for himself in his defense amid a brutal stretch at the plate, it had to be bruised by the end of the NLDS. He didn't even play well in the field in that series. It's very possible he was worn out, after a very long year and one of the league's heaviest all-around individual workloads. Still, he got a ton of chances to feel the flush of humiliation under a national spotlight, and even before that, he went through a humbling period of prolonged helplessness at the plate. Every player is different. Every person processes success and failure in their own ways. Crow-Armstrong might not benefit from what he just went through; maybe it would have been exactly what Patterson needed. However, despite the pain and ugliness of it, the best bet is that Crow-Armstrong will come out better for having stayed on the field throughout a miserable two-plus months to end 2025. It feels, by extension, like Patterson would have benefited from that, too. The 2003 Cubs might not have gone as far if he'd stayed on the field, and the 2025 Cubs might have been better with less Crow-Armstrong down the stretch. In the long run, though, it's going to be better for this version of the team that Crow-Armstrong had to wade hip-deep through the muck of that second half. They got lucky, in a funny little way, by having their most exciting young player fall flat on his face (almost literally) at the end of his breakout season. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Nico Hoerner became the second Cubs second baseman to win a Fielding Bible Award Thursday, claiming the 2025 honor over Toronto Blue Jays star Andrés Giménez. Although center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong lost out to Red Sox counterpart Ceddanne Rafaela, the Cubs also eked out the win for the first-ever Fielding Bible Award for teams. This is big news, and should be all you actually care about when it comes to defensive honors at the end of each MLB season. The Gold Gloves are voted on by coaches and managers, many of whom pay only dim attention to the actual quality of fielders at each position. Though the frequency of embarrassingly bad Gold Glove honorees has dropped over time, the Fielding Bible Awards (FBAs)—created by Sports Info Solutions (SIS) and voted on by a panel of experts while incorporating high-level defensive metrics—are still far and away better gauges of defensive excellence. The company recognizes just one winner for the whole of MLB each season, which also makes the honor more exclusive than the Gold Gloves are. Hoerner played exceptional defense at the keystone this season, earning his first FBA after being a down-ballot vote-getter in multiple previous campaigns. He's the first Cubs second baseman to earn the prize since Darwin Barney did so in 2012. He's the fifth Cub to win one of the awards overall, since they began to be handed out in 2006. In addition to Barney, Anthony Rizzo won at first base in 2016; Javier Báez won as the Multi-Position honoree in 2016, 2017 and 2018, and at shortstop in 2020; and Dansby Swanson won the 2024 award at shortstop. As I wrote in September, Hoerner did a masterful job this year of using positioning and an aggressive style to maximize his tools at second. In an interview with SIS editorial operations lead Mark Simon for the SIS Baseball podcast, Hoerner specifically mentioned that he felt he still hadn't regained his full arm strength after offseason elbow surgery, and the pride he took in being able to overcome that to claim this season's award as the best second baseman in the sport. In a mild upset, Crow-Armstrong lost out on an award on which he seemed to have the inside track for much of the year. He was brilliant in center field this year, but just as he went over an offensive cliff in the second half, he seemed to lose a quarter of a step in center, as well. He was still good, but Rafaela sped past him to claim the award. That leaves another empty checkbox for the Cubs' extremely hungry, talented center fielder heading into 2026, but there's little doubt that (given good health and good enough adjustments to remain a regular for years to come) there's an FBA in Crow-Armstrong's future. Despite the individual snub, Crow-Armstrong (along with third-place finishers for the left field and pitching awards, Ian Happ and Matthew Boyd, among others) did help the Cubs claim the inaugural Fielding Bible Award for team excellence. This season, the Cubs actually boasted the elite defense they attempted to field (but fell slightly short of) the previous two years. Swanson's physical tools are starting to feel slightly stretched at shortstop, but he's superbly smart and sure-handed, offsetting some of his physical limitations. Rookie Matt Shaw, though a mess at the plate, settled quickly into third base and was a plus defender there from mid-May onward. Michael Busch continues an impressive maturation into an above-average first baseman. Happ, Kyle Tucker and a much-improved Seiya Suzuki provided good support to Crow-Armstrong's superstar effort in the outfield. None of the three main corner outfielders are especially athletic, at this stage of their careers, but Happ and Tucker have good body control on slides and dives, while Happ and Suzuki bring plus arms. The injury suffered by Miguel Amaya could have significantly disrupted the team's defense behind the plate, but instead, it arguably improved it. Carson Kelly was great at preventing wild pitches and passed balls; Amaya replacement Reese McGuire became a lethal thrower when runners challenged him. McGuire was also a fine pitch framer. Boyd led the way, but Cubs pitchers also did a tremendous job as a unit at stopping the running game. Shota Imanaga and Colin Rea joined Boyd in excelling in that aspect, and Rea is a subtly great all-around fielder of his position. There just weren't holes in the team's defense, the way there have been at times in the past, and it made a big difference as they surged to 92 wins. Now, they have a major team-level award to validate that greatness. Extending Hoerner should be a priority for the Cubs this winter. They're likely to continue discussions with Crow-Armstrong about one, too. Those two are the centerpieces, at this point, of a league-best all-around defensive unit, but the nature of fielding is such that they'll need to continue refreshing their roster and infusing it with youth to make sure that they remain at the top of the heap in 2026. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images Since 1947, there have been 28 player-seasons in which a right-handed Cubs batter hit at least 35 home runs. That's a respectable number, though obviously, it's a bit inflated by the presence of two men: Sammy Sosa and Ernie Banks. Sosa had 10 35-homer seasons in a Cubs uniform; Banks had six. Still, there have been plenty of other sluggers who found significant success. Hank Sauer, Aramis Ramírez and Derrek Lee each had multiple 35-homer campaigns, too. By contrast, the only three 35-home run seasons by left-handed Cubs batters were: Billy Williams in 1970 Williams again in 1972 Kyle Schwarber in 2019 As I've discussed here before, the temptation is to imagine that Wrigley Field is truly symmetrical. Its marked dimensions are: 355 feet to the left-field corner 368 feet to left-center 400 feet to center 368 feet to right-center 353 feet to the right-field corner In reality, though, that symmetry is an illusion. The 400 marker is essentially in dead center, but the deepest part of the park is to its right, as the wall slopes away in that direction. (Wrigley is one of just a few parks in the league at which the farthest fence is not marked.) The "well" in the left-field corner is longer and flatter than the one in right field, which means the ball sneaks out of the park down that line better than to right. The wall arcs away more in right field, so that the 368 is farther toward center field in left than in right. The effects of the wind have always been better for hitters aiming for left field, too. When the wind blows in, it usually comes from right field, knocking down balls hit that way. When it blows out, it has a much more democratic positive effect on fly balls, and if anything, it often pushes it better toward left. Arguably, that's all been heightened by the renovations since 2015. Since 2021, pulled batted balls in the air at Wrigley have broken down by handedness as follows: Left-handed batters: .602 average, 1.290 slugging, 96.7 MPH exit velocity, 24° launch angle, 15.6% home runs Right-handed batters: .576, 1.258, 94.7 MPH, 24°, 17.2% home runs The raw numbers are better for lefties, but that's because we're working with a better selective sample. Despite hitting the ball two miles per hour harder at the same launch angle, lefty hitters are getting the ball out of the park less often. Hitting homers to right field at Wrigley is just too hard to make it a fair fight. Obviously, this doesn't mean the Cubs should abandon the effort to maintain lineup balance. In truth, though, they already have it. Michael Busch only managed 34 homers during the regular season, but he was arguably the Cubs' best hitter. Pete Crow-Armstrong had a brutal second half, but he'll be back in the lineup next year and still has significant offensive upside. Ian Happ is a better hitter from the left side. At least one of Moisés Ballesteros and Owen Caissie is likely to play a major role in 2026. That's plenty of left-handed talent. They're extremely unlikely to re-sign any of Kyle Tucker, Cody Bellinger or Schwarber, but they can get by without those guys. Tucker, in particular, proved not to be an especially good fit for Wrigley Field at this stage of his career. The lineup needs more right-handed thump, though. Seiya Suzuki leads the charge from that side, and was perfectly adequate in that regard in 2025. Dansby Swanson was better this year than in either of his previous campaigns with the Cubs, including hitting 24 home runs. Nico Hoerner was a great all-around hitter. However, the team's first-half power binge gave way to a second half with a dearth of punch from the right side. If Miguel Amaya comes back and has a healthy 2026, he and Carson Kelly could give them a bit more consistent production at catcher. Matt Shaw went on a tear during the second half, although it now reads more like a hiccup between long, bad stretches than like a turning of the corner toward stardom. Rather than put all their hope in the incumbent options, though, the Cubs need to sign a slugger this winter. Eugenio Suárez is the most obvious fit, but another intriguing one could be long-time Cubs nemesis Pete Alonso. Although reportedly looking for a seven-year deal, Alonso is much more likely to settle for a four-year pact this winter. He would make a tremendous addition to the heart of the Chicago order, as the team's DH against righties and a right-handed platoon partner for Busch at first base. Right-handed power is fairly expensive, but relatively plentiful. There are several ways to solve the problem. The Cubs just need to choose wisely. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images As the Cubs gear up for a pivotal winter, the first three major decisions they'll need to make are about the three pitchers on whom they hold club options. We've already talked at length about the complex, layered options in Shota Imanaga's deal, whereby the team has to either exercise a three-year, $57-million extension or let Imanaga choose between a $15-million player option and free agency. That one looks fairly easy, though, at least in terms of the first move. The Cubs should and will turn down that option, knowing that even if Imanaga elects free agency, they can extend him a qualifying offer, worth about $22 million. Imanaga would be wise to accept that deal, even if he first turns down the $15 million. If he doesn't, Chicago can recoup a draft pick when he signs elsewhere. Since Kyle Tucker is likely to net them an extra pick, too, they'd be amassing long-term assets while clearing money from the payroll, to reinvest elsewhere. The two tougher calls are on veteran arms Colin Rea and Andrew Kittredge. The deal to which Chicago signed Rea last winter includes a $6-million club option for 2026, with a $750,000 buyout. Thus, it would cost them just $5.25 million to bring him back. That's solid value, for a pitcher who thrived with the adjustments the Cubs recommended to him and who pitched much more than initially expected for them in 2025. On the other hand, Rea is a low-ceiling hurler. He'll turn 36 next summer, and he's had a strikeout rate below 20% in each of the last two seasons. As we discussed earlier this month, one of the key mandates for the front office this winter is to assemble a staff that will miss more bats. Rea doesn't fit well into that plan. Kittredge poses a similar dilemma. He signed a one-year deal with the Orioles last winter, worth $10 million. The first $9 million was paid in 2025, and there's a club option for 2026 worth $9 million, with a $1-million buyout. When the Cubs traded for Kittredge in July, they obtained that option, which ends up being an $8-million decision. Kittredge, too, is 35 years old, but he struck out 30.8% of opposing batters last year—and it was 34.0% with Chicago, after the deal (even including a low-strikeout showing in the postseason). Matthew Boyd, Jameson Taillon and Cade Horton can be penciled into next year's starting rotation. In the second half, Justin Steele will join that mix. If he stays healthy and develops the way they hope, Jaxon Wiggins will be a candidate to join the staff during the season, too. The safe bet is that Imanaga will be back with the team in 2026, one way or another. That leaves room for an offseason addition, but it also leaves Rea in a quasi-competition with Javier Assad for a back-end starter or swingman role. The Cubs have to plan for injuries and amass as much depth as possible. Still, it feels as though the call they make on Rea will tell us something about their plans for the offseason. If they keep him, they'll likely look to move on from Assad, or else trade one of Taillon, Boyd and Imanaga. The Kittredge option will be even more telling, in an even more direct way. If they retain him, they're almost certainly not going to bring back free agent Brad Keller. If they decline the option on Kittredge, it sends a signal: they're likely to make a strong push to keep Keller, after the breakout season he enjoyed in high-leverage relief for them in 2025. Shortly after the end of the World Series, we'll find out whether the Cubs will have Imanaga, Rea and/or Kittredge on their pitching staff for 2026. That will lend lots of clarity, because the paths forward with or without each hurler become much more defined. View full article

I broadly agree. I do, however, think Ballesteros is still significantly higher than Long on pretty much any pref list you'll find—even without the defensive value he gets if he sticks at catcher. He bats lefty; Long bats righty. Long's shown reverse platoon splits in the minors, but I don't think that'll translate to the bigs. Long whiffs more, doesn't cover the whole zone as well, is more susceptible to spin. Plus, if two guys have had about the same amount of success at the same level and one is two years younger, the smart money is usually on the younger one being significantly better.