Matthew Trueblood

Other than by coming over to your house and explaining it himself, that is. Although he seems like a cool guy, feel free to ask him. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images A decade ago, we were living through the offseason between 2014 and 2015. Statcast data was not yet widely available, but it had been introduced. The system was implemented in select parks in the second half of 2014, and the league began to release (and attempt to contextualize) the incomplete but valuable data yielded by the new technology. At first, though, it took root only imperfectly. Many fans didn't fully understand the data, not because the numbers themselves were overly complicated, but because they couldn't place them in an easily comprehensible context. It's not enough to know that a batted ball was 106 miles per hour off the bat; we need to have a sense of whether or not that's good. Since then, the evolution and expansion of Statcast data has taken us into more genuinely complex territory. Even once you have the rough scale of spin rate on each pitch type, you have to understand the nuances involved in order to evaluate players using that information. Does their spin axis maximize the utility of the pitch? What constitutes maximizing utility, in the first place? For a given pitcher, is reducing total spin somewhat in order to better manipulate the direction of that spin an option? Could a change in the pitcher's grip beget a valuable increase (or, for changeups and some sinkers, decrease) in spin rate? And what kind of grip do they have anyway? A given center fielder might be doing very well going back on the ball, but are the numbers overstating that because of the nature of their home park—dimensions, wall heights and angles, and so on? For that matter, is he only impressing the system so much because he's playing too shallow to begin with, forcing himself to race back on balls another outfielder might collect easily? Suddenly, we're on context overload. If we try to smooth or ignore any of that context, we lose the value of the numbers themselves. Good, studious analysts can still extract great insights from the data to which we now enjoy access. In fact, they can bring the public better insights than ever. More is required of both the analyst and the reader, though, and new numbers are pouring forth for our consideration and education all the time. This year, the most momentous of those new data sets was swing speed. Bat speed has been understood as the key to power hitting almost since the dawn of the game. In fact, it now seems radical only in its self-evidence, but it's only fair to note that many hitters once prized the ability to swing a heavier bat (more mass to apply force) almost as much as the ability to swing fast. To whatever extent they were ever right, though, the steady (then sharp) increase in velocity from pitchers throughout the league has rendered that notion obsolete. The name of the game, in terms of generating power but also to make consistent enough contact to be productive at all, is now bat speed. It's not the whole story, but it's an important piece. Let's use the available bat-tracking data for one notable Cubs hitter to better grasp the whole concept, though, and to tease out both the context of the numbers and the key interactions at work. Ian Happ offers us a great way to study this, because as a switch-hitter, he offers two different sets of that data for us to study. Over several years, we've all seen Happ evolve and develop as a hitter, so we understand (more or less) who he is from each side of the plate. He's mostly been better from the left side, and there's a distinct stylistic difference: he's more patient as a lefty, more focused on lifting the ball. As a righty, he's often seemed to be fighting for his life. His career numbers from each side speak to that: vs. LHP (as RHB): .243/.316/.397, 28.5% K, 8.7% BB vs. RHP (as LHB): .249/.352/.469, 26.6% K, 13.1% BB You might expect to see Happ generating much better bat speed from the left side, then. That's where he not only connects more often, but generates much more power. For his career, he averages a 90.7-MPH exit velocity from the left side and an 87.4-MPH mark from the right. You'd expect to see a big gap in his swing speeds, even, and in a predictable direction. Welp. I'm hiding the ball a hair, here, because we only have swing speed data for 2024, and I reported to you at the end of September that Happ had taken an almost reckless, hard-hacking right-handed approach this year. It led to a better isolated power figure than he's posted against lefties (in any meaningful sample) since his rookie campaign in 2017, and to a career-best seven right-handed homers. A year or two ago, we probably really would have seen Happ swinging faster as a lefty than as a righty. Still, it's remarkable to see him swinging faster right-handed, even this year. As you can see by the tick marks at the bottom of the graphic above, both of Happ's swings are faster than the league's average one, so that's reassuring, in the first place. As we try to understand how he can swing faster but be considerably less powerful from the right side, though, we have to examine the other key variable measured by new bat-tracking data: how squarely you tend to make contact. Baseball Savant offers a metric they called Squared Up%, which is the percentage of swings on which a hitter realizes at least 80% of the maximum possible exit velocity, given their swing speed and the speed of the incoming pitch. That's a deeply flawed way to measure the skill we really want to assess, though, because it gives each swing a binary rating: squared-up, or not. Instead, to avail ourselves of a graduated measurement of the ability to square the ball up (one that can distinguish partial successes from total ones and set outcomes on a spectrum, the same way we do with swing speed or exit velocity), we should try to use a version of Squared Up% that rates each batted ball's squareness—that gives us that percentage of the optimal exit velocity achieved on every swing, rather than using a brightline test on each. Happily, Pitcher List analyst Kyle Bland created an app that does just that. When we examine the distribution of Squared Up% for all of Happ's swings from each side, we can learn some things. First, here is left-handed Happ. As you can see, Happ's Suqared Up% from the left side maps neatly to the league's average distribution. We should note, and take a moment to synthesize, the fact that that average distribution is somewhat bimodal—in other words, that it has two humps, two points where outcomes tend to cluster most. This is why Savant made the choice (although it's still one I dislike) to give Squared Up% as a simple test: it's meant to ask whether a given instance of contact comes from that bigger hump on the left (lower-quality contact) or the flatter one on the right (balls hit right on the barrel). From this, we can learn something broader about baseball at the highest level: that most swings do result in either a barreled ball or one that's mishit, with a surprisingly large share of the ones mishit falling into a similar bucket in terms of exit velocity efficiency. Pair a slightly above-average swing speed with this slightly better-than-average Squared Up% profile, and you can see why Happ generates such good power from the left side. He crushes the ball because he can swing fast without sacrificing what the Cubs have long called "barrel accuracy". Here's his right-handed profile. Aha! This explains just about everything. Happ swings faster right-handed, but he really gives up the ability to consistently meet the ball on the barrel by doing so. Fast swings make up for some of the inaccuracy. There were 423 batters who swung at least 200 times against left-handed pitchers in 2024. Happ ranked 361st in the percentage of those that passed Savant's Squared Up%, but because he ranked 126th in the percentage of his swings that were over 75 miles per hour, he still generated a good amount of hard contact against southpaws. It wasn't efficiently generated, but efficiency is not the goal. Hard contact is. Happ's improved results from the right side this year came from having an inefficient, ugly attack—but a dangerous one. By contrast, his left-handed approach blended slightly less raw violence and danger with a much more graceful and efficient address of the ball. There's another frontier lurking in this arena. Eventually, we'll get publicly available attack angle data for all swings, which will further inform this kind of analysis. That can be thought of as the third dimension, the third variable in this equation. It's already reflected by the Bland version of Squared Up%, though, if only implicitly. For now, we have enough depth of information to do some solid analysis of a player vital to the Cubs' 2025 hopes—and he helps elucidate the different ways we benefit from unfolding this data set to look at it from new angles. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jerome Miron-Imagn Images In their latest bid to add depth and upside to their bullpen mix, the Cubs signed right-handed pitcher Corbin Martin to a minor-league deal. The agreement includes an invitation to big-league spring training, where Martin will compete for a job in the bullpen for a Cubs team still piecing depth back together after an autumn exodus from their relief unit. Martin, 30, is perhaps best known as one of the key pieces of the trade that sent Zack Greinke from the Diamondbacks to the Astros in 2019. Major injuries have derailed a once-promising career, keeping him off the mound for all of 2020 and 2023 and for long stretches of 2021 and 2024. Fully converted to relief work, he reemerged as an intriguing arm in 2025, with a fastball that sat just over 95 miles per hour and had the cut-ride shape the Cubs love from pitchers of his ilk. To it, he adds a hard cutter and a sharp 12-to-6 curveball that dramatically improved after he changed his grip and the pitch's shape midseason. Previously, he'd thrown a pitch much more akin to a sweeper or slurve, but this version of the offering is better. The cutter sits 91-92 on the gun, so it's a firm pitch with little movement or velocity separation from the fastball. By leading with those two pitches, though, he sets up the curveball well. Despite ugly raw numbers, he put up a 94 DRA- at Triple-A Norfolk and in the majors for the Orioles in 2025. He comes with four years of team control, if things pan out especially well, but he does not have any minor-league options remaining, so if he makes the team, he'll need to stay on the active roster or the injured list or be exposed to waivers. As fliers like these go, Martin is a solid one. His velocity and shape on the three key pitches in his arsenal promise some better results on contact, and he can miss bats. The question will be whether he can throw enough strikes to ensure that that matters; walks have haunted him over the last two seasons. A healthy Martin showing a semblance of command could be a strong contributor to the Cubs' middle-relief corps. For now, this is just a bit of spaghetti to throw against the wall, but as was true of Brad Keller last winter, there's more than the usual amount of reason to admire the fit and hope that this piece sticks. View full article

Some high-impact free agents hold up the markets for other players until they sign. For multiple reasons, this isn't one of those cases. Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images Although the new signing period for international amateur free agents begins in nine days, we could be as much as a fortnight from the resolution of Roki Sasaki's free agency. The famous 23-year-old Japanese righty is slowly paring down his options and considering further meetings with interested teams. According to the scant reports we have right now, the Cubs are very much still in the running, and because of the limitations on Sasaki's earning power (relative to his market value), there's no single player the team would be happier to land over the balance of this offseason. Nonetheless, don't be surprised if the Cubs make another move to bolster their starting rotation before Sasaki signs. To be sure, expect them to continue exploring the trade market, and to be engaged on key potential free-agent targets. We've heard them connected, recently, to infielders Josh Rojas (who signed with the White Sox instead) and Hyeseong Kim (who landed with the Dodgers), and more reports have them in the running for Yoán Moncada, the highly talented but injury-wrecked third baseman. Although Moncada and Alex Bregman really aren't in the same class of potential targets, there might be some truth to the idea that where he lands will hinge on what becomes of Bregman. However, none of the same dynamics apply to Sasaki. The Cubs will not yield in their pursuit of him until he signs, be it with them or elsewhere, but nor will that pursuit in any way slow down their pursuit of help on the infield, in the bullpen, or even at the front end of the starting rotation. In fact, of the half-dozen teams still seriously considering signing Sasaki, only one (the Padres) might see that endeavor remotely influence the pace at which they explore other options. There's a universal reason for that—one that explains why (for instance) Garrett Crochet and Jesús Luzardo have already been traded and why Corbin Burnes signed over the holidays, signifying the lack of any restraining influence on the market from Sasaki. It's almost obvious, but because many fans are unfamiliar with the rules governing this situation, it's worth making explicit here. It's this: Signing Sasaki doesn't affect the payroll of any of the teams who might sign him, or significantly reduce their need for starting pitching. Because he's chosen to be posted and to come to the United States at such a young age, Sasaki isn't eligible for a contract at all akin to those signed by other star Japanese imports in recent years, like Shota Imanaga, Seiya Suzuki, Masataka Yoshida, Kodai Senga, or Yoshinobu Yamamoto. He's subject to the spending caps that apply to amateur international free agents, which means not only that he'll make less than $15 million upfront and less than $1 million as a 2025 salary, but that whatever money a team might pay him will come from an allotment that would be spent either way. Small trades could allow a team to acquire more spending power, so they might give up far-off, lottery-ticket prospects for the right to spend an extra million or two, but every team tries to spend all the money the rules allow them to spend from this pool every year, anyway. In other words, it's incorrect even to say that Sasaki will cost teams around $10 million. In effect, he will cost them nothing, monetarily—not one cent. They would have spent all the money they'll spend on him, anyway. He'll have a huge impact on the overall IFA market, because whichever team signs him will have to renege on several (technically illicit) agreements with teenagers from the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and elsewhere, but he hasn't limited the temperature of the hot stove because no one will have to divert any resources to him that would otherwise have gone to their big-league payroll. Nor is Sasaki going to reduce the need for good starting pitching on whichever team signs him, at least for 2025. Remember, this is a 23-year-old, and unlike (say) Yamamoto, he's not noted for his durability or capacity to work deep in games. In NPB, he's never made more than 20 appearances or reached 130 innings in a season. Any team who signs him, if they have designs on contending this season, needs to plan on operating a six-man starting rotation. They need to bank on about 20 starts and 130 innings from him, and while those starts and innings figure to be very good ones, they won't be enough to make bypassing another strong starter advisable. Some teams in contention for him (the Dodgers, who have already signed Blake Snell and will get Shohei Ohtani back as a pitcher this year; the Red Sox, who have signed Walker Buehler and dealt for Crochet; the Rangers, who already brought back Nathan Eovaldi; the Yankees, who signed Max Fried) have already furnished themselves with five- or six-man staffs that make Sasaki a true luxury. The Cubs are among the contenders for him who still have work to do, and even if they get him, they also need more. The Cubs-specific reason why you won't find them waiting out his decision before making further moves is somewhat related to each of those broader reasons: they have a ton of money to spend, and won't lose any of that flexibility if they sign Sasaki; and they have too many needs to keep waiting on someone who only partially fills one of them. The team's current projected payroll is around $173 million; they'll add at least $40 million to that. Again, Sasaki's earnings aren't even part of that calculation. If they get him, they'll add $40 million in payroll aside from him—at least as long as they can find a way to spend that much fruitfully. They need to get a few wins better on the position-player side of the ledger, and a few wins better on the pitching side, and they have options—but those options are beginning to dwindle in number. If the Cubs don't make a major addition before Sasaki signs, it won't be for a lack of effort—and it will be a huge problem, because they'll further lose out on viable alternatives in their quest for improvement. This is not a case where everyone will hold their breath and see what happens with an elite talent before making other plans. Moves will be made over the next two weeks, and the Cubs need to be among the move-makers. View full article

The KBO star second baseman must sign a deal by 4 PM Central, or stay in Korea and eschew this chance to join an MLB team. Image courtesy of © Mandi Wright-Imagn Images Ever since the Cubs traded Isaac Paredes as part of the Kyle Tucker trade, there has been some speculation that they would pivot toward a compensatory reinforcement of their infield. On Thursday, one of their rumored targets, Josh Rojas, signed a one-year deal with the White Sox instead, but Friday brings a decision point for another intriguing option: Korean infielder Hyeseong Kim. Not to be confused with countryman and former double-play partner Ha-Seong Kim, the younger man was posted earlier this offseason by the Kiwoom Heroes, and he has until this afternoon to sign with an MLB organization. If you need a refresher on who Kim is, you can find it here; he's been on our radar as a possible Cubs target all offseason. In short, he's an athletic infielder who bats left-handed, making him a similarly strong fit for the team's infield to the one Rojas would have been. His speed is an element Rojas didn't bring, and he seems to have superb plate discipline, but there might be an issue with the quality of his contact in the big leagues. Our best guess is that those concerns about whether he can generate any power against MLB pitching have slowed and deflated his market, but he should still be a viable big-league role player. Recall that the Cubs have invested heavily in a new baserunning and basestealing infrastructure this winter, by adding two coaches to the MLB staff and a new minor-league coordinator for that dimension of the game. Kim, who stole 30 bases in 36 tries last season and has averaged almost exactly those totals over the last seven years, could help them further expand their running game. At even a .340 OBP, he'd be in position to steal a bunch of bases, and his mark in the KBO for the last two years is .390. Again, there's likely to be a steep discount on those numbers based on his skill set and the way big-league teams will attack him, but Kim looks like a competent hitter whose legs can make him dangerous. He'd also be a complement and a hedge for Matt Shaw at third base. Other teams might offer Kim a clearer path to playing time, so the Cubs would probably have to make him a clearly superior financial offer to land him. He could be a great addition for them, though, thanks not only to his own versatility but to the way his presence on the roster would unlock more of their overall team flexibility. Signing Kim would reopen the option of trading Nico Hoerner to Seattle or San Diego, in the right deals, to land the team a top-flight starting pitcher. It would also make it easier to part with James Triantos in a trade. It seems unlikely that Kim will sign with the Cubs, simply because we haven't heard any inkling of that connection to this point. It does make sense, though, and his market has been strangely quiet in general. By the end of today, we'll see how things shake out. One way or another, one more option will be foreclosed. If the Cubs swoop in and sign Kim, though, they'll still have plenty of financial flexibility, and one of their remaining offseason checklist items will be complete. View full article

Ooooh, sweet child of miiiiine. No, I'm kidding. Or am I? Image courtesy of © Sam Navarro-Imagn Images As the Cubs consider further upgrades to a bullpen already improved directly (a trade for Eli Morgan, this week's Caleb Thielbar signing) and indirectly (the Matthew Boyd signing, pushing more of their depth arms toward relief roles) this winter, it's worth pausing a bit to consider whether the answers to all their problems have been standing right in front of them—not all along, maybe, but at some point in the recent past. Seven notable free-agent relievers have had a stint with the Cubs already. Here they are, ranked from the one they'd be most helped by reuniting with to the ones they should resolutely avoid. 1. Jorge López, RHP - 2024 Cubs Made available after he essentially broke down and was cut by the Mets, López thrived in a four-month stint with the Cubs under Craig Counsell, his first big-league manager. He made some basic but pivotal changes and emerged as a high-leverage relief weapon, hampered only by a groin strain that cost him virtually all of September. López should be a very inexpensive but high-upside arm in free agency, and presumably, he'd be open to a return. 2. David Robertson, RHP - 2022 Cubs Though he'll turn 40 in April, Robertson is still going fairly strong. His cutter and curveball remain a potent combination, and he's been creative and crafty in staying ahead of Father Time over the last decade. There's always risk of being the team holding the bag when a pitcher this old finally breaks down, but Robertson is a compelling target. 3. Chris Martin, RHP - 2022 Cubs Only a year younger than Robertson and with significant durability concerns, Martin is nonetheless appealing. He's been consistently excellent when he's been on the mound for the last several years, and has slowly built a deep arsenal that belies his role and his age. He still slots nicely into high-leverage middle relief. 4. Andrew Chafin, LHP - 2020-21 Cubs With Thielbar on board, the need for a lefty like Chafin is greatly reduced. Thielbar joins a corps that already included Luke Little. However, Chafin remains a sturdy slider monster with excellent set-up value in a traditional bullpen structure. He would improve the team's depth, but the roster crunch might not be worth it. 5. Drew Smyly, LHP - 2022-24 Cubs The appeal of Smyly is less his matchup value—he has that unique arsenal and often runs reverse platoon splits, anyway—than his ability to give the team multiple innings in a game out of the pen. He's also a well-liked member of the clubhouse. If he came back, it would have to be on a minimal deal, but he could give the pitching staff a bit of length that's missing from their current bullpen depth chart. 6. Craig Kimbrel, RHP - 2019-21 Cubs Far, far past his prime, Kimbrel is probably going to land with a non-contender on a low-dollar deal this winter. It's hard to imagine almost any scenario in which the Cubs would want to bring him back for a second engagement, and that's for the best. This season promises to be a stern enough test of fans' nerves as it is. 7. Héctor Neris, RHP - 2024 Cubs I know. I'm just obligated to mention it, as part of the conceit of this piece. Did you happen to see how well he bounced back after returning to the Astros for the stretch run? Maybe there's a little left in the tank, after all. The Cubs don't have to be the ones to find out, though. Ideally, the team will aim higher than any of these guys as they strive to finish off a better bullpen than the one they brought into 2024. If they did end up bringing back López or Robertson, though, it might be enough to galvanize an already-talented collection of hurlers. View full article

I think Will meant that Sasaki makes a big difference in the overall vibe and valence of a Padres offseason, the way @TomtheBombadil keeps encouraging us all to remember that he does for the Cubs, too—rather than that signing him would radically change the rest of their plans. In their case, because they do have to move money and an SP happens to be the most obvious way they could do so, getting a high-quality SP at a low price would be especially helpful, perhaps, but I think it's more in a holistic, long-term sense than in a specific direction-influencing one for the immediate future.

The San Diego Padres are in a tough predicament. The Cubs are well-positioned to help them escape it, while also checking the last two boxes on their essential winter shopping list. Image courtesy of © Denis Poroy-Imagn Images Entering 2025, the Cubs have plenty of money. It feels almost like all they have is money. They're roughly $40 million shy of where they intend to be, payroll-wise, to open 2025, and the problem they face is that the number of good ways to spend that much money on the free-agent market is dwindling—although it was never their preference to dive deeply into that pool, anyway. This offseason has already seen the team acquire the linchpin bat they needed, in Kyle Tucker, and bolster both the starting rotation (Matthew Boyd) and the bullpen (Eli Morgan, Caleb Thielbar), all without trading any of their closest-to-the-majors prospects. They still need a relief ace and a frontline starting pitcher, though, and those things are grossly expensive in free agency—not only in terms of dollars, but in the number of years of guaranteed money key players are seeking. For weeks now, in ruminating on this dilemma, I've circled back to one team as the most promising way for Jed Hoyer and company to resolve this dilemma: the San Diego Padres. With help from perspicacious Padres skeeter Will Holder, I think I've finally pinned down the best way for these two teams to assist one another. The Padres, in short, are in a pickle. We knew that. After the death of owner Peter Seidler, the gravy train stopped (or at least slowed), but the franchise was already committed to several players on large, long-term contracts, and those obligations remain despite the team's reinstated spending constraints. While the Cubs face a stiff enough challenge (adding substantial talent without overpaying, in a market beginning to thin out), they have money to spend. Imagine if they were even further from done with their shopping, and had to cut costs, too. Will continued: The fit here is compelling, isn't it? The deal would look something like this: CUBS RECEIVE: RHP Dylan Cease RHP Robert Suarez PADRES RECEIVE: OF Owen Caissie RHP Ben Brown RHP Javier Assad or LHP Jordan Wicks This deal would make the Cubs about $24 million more expensive in 2025, and it would push in even more of the organization's chips on the success of this season. Cease will become a free agent after the campaign, one for which he'll be paid roughly $14 million in his final season of arbitration eligibility. The Cubs could try to sign him to an extension, of course, but as with Tucker, the chances of that feel slim. With another season similar to the one he just put up in San Diego, he'd be in line for an extremely lucrative free agency, probably topping $200 million in guaranteed money. Suarez, meanwhile, will make $10 million as a base salary, with incentives likely to push that figure to anywhere from $11-13 million if he serves as the primary closer—a likely outcome. After the season, he has a two-year, $16-million player option, so if he pitches well, he's likely to become a free agent, and if he gets hurt or goes off the rails, he's likely to be a long-term budget item with limited utility. That's the bad news. The good news in this deal would be that Cease and Suarez would make the Cubs clear-cut NL Central favorites and a fairly imposing playoff opponent even for the Mets, Dodgers, and Phillies. With Cease at the front of their rotation, the team shouldn't miss Brown and either Assad or Wicks much, with whichever of the latter two they keep waiting alongside Cade Horton and Brandon Birdsell to reinforce a rotation of Cease, Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, and Boyd. Suarez has a 2.89 career ERA, and while his strikeout rates don't sparkle, he's shown good command and he throws 100 miles per hour. His stuff should limit hard contact a bit better than it actually does, and the Cubs are good at helping relievers make that particular improvement. He'd slot in as their relief ace, pushing Porter Hodge, Tyson Miller, Nate Pearson and the rest of the team's relievers into roles for which they're better suited. Meanwhile, the Padres would shed all that money, nab their much-needed left fielder and collect long-term control of two solid arms, even if there's reliever risk attached to Brown and a lowish ceiling on Assad and Wicks. They'd gain the flexibility they need to round out an offseason that would keep them in the thick of playoff contention. It's not the absolute most they could get for Cease, but Suarez's contract—not just the high salary for one year, but the poisoned pill of that two-year option that makes it highly player-friendly—would be hard to move for value in its own trade. In this one, his inclusion would give the Padres the leverage to push for a low-level fourth piece, or to try to demand Kevin Alcántara instead of Caissie, if they're so inclined. It's unlikely that this exact trade comes to fruition, of course—as unlikely as pointing due south by gazing at the horizon, without the aid of a compass. That's how guessing at offseason moves goes. We're using the information we have to get ourselves pointed in the right direction, knowing full well that we can't be precise without more and better data. Right now, what I can say with confidence is that the Cubs have money to spend and need to find the best way to use it, and that the Padres have money to move and need to get a lot of value out of moving it. That makes the two teams good trade partners, even in the specific shape of the right transaction is hard for us to pin down. View full article

In an underwhelming last-minute move, the Cubs gave themselves some stability—but arguably set themselves too low a ceiling—with a bullpen addition to close out 2024. Image courtesy of © Matt Blewett-Imagn Images It's not the kind of move fans were hoping for. It's not a move that charts any kind of new course in the Cubs' bullpen construction. The team announced a one-year, big-league deal with lefty reliever Caleb Thielbar on Tuesday afternoon, just ahead of the end of the year. The signing fortifies the team's middle relief corps, but only in a very modest way. Thielbar, who will turn 38 years old next month, has pitched in parts of eight big-league seasons over the last 12 years. Thielbar first made it to MLB with his hometown team, the Twins, after a sojourn in independent ball, in the middle of last decade. Then (after a fairly forgettable first turn in the bigs as a relatively soft tosser and mediocre middle reliever), he resurrected his career amid the COVID pandemic. He's been a much better, more modern and impressive reliever the second time around, sometimes earning high-leverage work as a lefty who can get out batters on either side of the plate. His highest average fastball velocity of any season in his career came this season, at age 37. That's the kind of career arc it's been, for a pitcher who first made his mark by having a famously, almost secretly high-spin slow curve. It was a cousin of Rich Hill's skyscraping overhand curve, back at a time when Statcast was just beginning to proliferate and spin rates seemed like magical keys to understanding everything. That didn't keep Thielbar in the big leagues all that long, though. What brought him back was hard work to become a harder thrower, to the point where his heater has sat around 93 miles per hour and gotten up to the higher side of 95 more than a few times over the last two years. He pairs that four-seamer with a sweeper and that curveball, and has run respectably even splits for most of this second act of his career. He posted an ugly 5.32 ERA in 2024, but that belies a much stronger performance on a fundamental level. He had to work through a miniature career crisis, as he scuffled badly early in the season and (as people will do) many mused about whether his fairytale career was nearing its unhappy ever-after. He slid across to the third-base side of the rubber at midseason, though, and several things clicked. Thielbar has evolved and survived several changes of style and shape of pitches in his career; this was just the latest. It's well-documented here, but much of the good stuff from Twins Daily author John Foley is behind a paywall, exclusive to our Twins Daily Caretakers. I can share this much of it for you, though: In short, Thielbar changed his alignment and made a slight modification to his mechanics, and it paid off handsomely. He health with injury problems in 2023 and 2024, and will probably be an occasional health question mark in 2025. That's how being an aging pitcher getting every ounce of power from a medium-sized body goes. Still, he strikes out more hitters than his fastball velocity might imply that he would, and when he's got his secondary offerings locked in, he also limits walks well. He's a superb complementary lefty, and we can safely assume he came fairly cheap. Both the curve and the sweeper can be plus offerings when he has them ranged correctly, and he mostly has. The sweeper, especially, can be devastating, even against righties, because it has fairly big, two-plane shape coming from a deceptive delivery. Thielbar's extension isn't elite, but he seems to fly down the mound at hitters, and it adds to the efficacy of both his breaking pitches. The fastball sits in the movement dead zone a bit, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Cubs address that by adding a cutter to his mix as a wrinkle. He's tinkered with one before, and is well-suited to it. The Cubs are a good environment in which to tease that particular adjustment out a bit more. This move will be good for clubhouse vibes and for playing matchups in middle relief. Thielbar has more upside than most pitchers of his age or with his track record; he just can't be your best or second-best reliever throughout a season. He's a great story, a Minnesota native who made good with the home team—twice. The only bad news here is that Thielbar does take up a 40-man roster spot, the only open one the Cubs had at the time of the signing. They can open up more spots in any number of ways, with several fungible players still clinging to the fringes of that reserve list. For instance, he's a marked improvement upon Rob Zastryzny, whatever good feelings spelling 'Zastryzny' right might bring because of his associations with the 2016 Cubs. Zastryzny is out of options, so he was no more flexible a piece than Thielbar, and Thielbar is demonstrably better. Again, you figure the money involved here is limited. This is the first time Thielbar has ever reached traditional free agency, thanks to his adventurous career arc, and he has never made more than the $3.2 million he pulled down via arbitration last year. Presumably, since the surface-level numbers weren't great and he's both old and lacking a top-flight fastball, he'll make around that figure for the 2025 Cubs. As such, the move is fine. It's uninspiring, but it will make the team's bullpen incrementally deeper and better, and doesn't foreclose any of the other moves we assume they're entertaining. It does, however, seem to crowd the bullpen a bit, and make it harder to envision the higher-end relief acquisition that still seems essential. View full article

It's been a quiet four months since we first heard tell of this possible rule change. Let's try to go another four decades without hearing any more of it. Image courtesy of © Brett Davis-Imagn Images I should be clear, though: I don't think we'll be so lucky. Back in the latter part of the 2024 regular season, Whit Merrifield was hit in the head with a pitch, and went on a tirade after the game about what he considered the danger and irresponsibility of pitchers working up and in. Merrifield was part of 2024's MLB Competition Committee, which includes players (among other stakeholders) in discussions of potential rule changes, and he took his grievances there, too. He emerged from a meeting of the committee convinced that a new rule would take effect in 2025, carving out special penalties for hitting batters high or breaking their hands with fastballs inside. Various versions of this kicked around by Merrifield and others included immediate ejections, and (perhaps even more notably) fines in cases of non-ejections. Merrifield is unlikely to find it as easy to actually achieve rules changes as it was to get the other members of the committee to nod along with him, because pitchers are union members, too, and those fines would be a major sticking point. However, the very idea of these harsher punishments demand our attention, because with the new year will come increased discussion of these types of changes. Already, we know the league will experiment with automatic ball-and-strike calling in spring training. Will they also allow the hitter lobby to bully their way into taking the inner third of the plate away from pitchers? Here's hoping the answer is no. Merrifield was way out of line with this suggestion, and true baseball fans should scoff at and dismiss him. That's not to say that player safety shouldn't be paramount; it should. But the notion that unintentional high-and-tight pitches require a punishment in excess of the free base given to a plunked batter is preposterous. Across multiple interviews in his personal media tour, Merrifield pushed blame for plunkings onto pitchers and implied that it should be their sole responsibility to think about safety instead of efficacy when throwing an inside heater. He sounded very much like the pitchers who lamented the augmented enforcement of rules against foreign substances on the ball, a few years ago. Merrifield is used to doing things a certain way, and doesn't think he should have to change. He doesn't think hitters should have to adjust and adapt, or that they should have to have the risk of an errant pitch riding in on them in the back of their minds as they attempt to hit. He's hilariously wrong. The reason batters get a free base when they're hit is to discourage pitchers from throwing too close to them. It's a rule with as profound an impact as a 15-yard penalty in football. It's all about safety. That's the protection hitters get. The rest is their own responsibility, and if it's true that more of them are getting hit, they are every bit as much to blame as pitchers. Hitters crowd the plate more than ever, covering the entire zone with their 'A' swings. They adorn themselves with protective equipment the likes of which Willie Mays never would have imagined during his playing career, and then they expect to also be given deference when it comes to the inner edge of the plate. That—not rising bloodlust from pitchers—is why hit batters are happening more often than at any other time in the game's history. Not giving ground means wearing a bruise, now and then. Hitting is excruciatingly hard right now. Merrifield is an aging hitter, and not a very good one (by MLB standards) at this stage. His frustration is understandable, but to propose amendments to the rules that would materially hurt his fellow players and abdicate his and his fellow hitters' own duty to protect themselves and negotiate the fight for the strike zone is as reckless of him as throwing an inside fastball is of a pitcher with imperfect command. In the past, I've proposed ejecting pitchers who hit three batters in one game. I still think that makes sense. Ejecting anyone on a first plunking (absent external factors like a simmering feud between the teams), though, is a foolish idea, and it reflects an attitude on the part of hitters as derelict as the one pitchers took to sticky stuff over the years. In the new year, we'll hear more about this rule, but I hope we only hear that it was duly considered and then shoved into the back of a junk drawer, where it belongs. View full article

Jed Hoyer traded his would-be second option at first base as part of the multi-piece maneuver that gave the team its new superstar outfielder. Now, he has to bolster the bench with someone who can cover the cold corner in a pinch. Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Michael Busch played 152 games in 2024, starting 135 of them. Quickly, the rookie proved he didn't need to be platooned at first base, and his impressive progress with the glove eventually led the team to eschew using Cody Bellinger there for any meaningful time. The Cubs are so confident about his future as both a hitter and a fielder that they felt no compunction about trading Bellinger earlier this month. Now that they've done so, though, they have to bring in a credible backup for Busch—ideally, a right-handed batter who can provide some matchup balance in addition to rest and injury replacement. There are a handful of viable players who fit that mold on the market right now, but two of them stand out. Connor Joe The ex-Pirates batsman played some first base, some DH, and some right field in 2024, which is a pretty fair reflection of how he's generally divided his time during a career spanning parts of six seasons. It was a mild surprise when the Pirates non-tendered him in November, because he was only projected to make around $3.2 million via arbitration, and he still had three years of team control remaining. Joe, 32, can hit, especially against left-handed pitchers. He boasts a career .254/.350/.415 line against them, with 70 walks, 10 times hit by pitches, 120 strikeouts and 14 home runs in 605 plate appearances. He doesn't hit the ball hard with especially high frequency, but he does lift it consistently, and the raw power is there: Joe swings a quick bat. Joe also makes contact at a below-average but tenable rate, and he takes a good, patient approach. Best of all, he's a plus defender at first, a bit like Busch in that he's not as big as the prototype at the spot but moves better than many of his more hulking counterparts. He's not capable of the same power displays as Patrick Wisdom, but he offers a steadier glove and a much more balanced set of offensive skills than Wisdom did. He's stretched in the kind of role he filled for the Pirates and Rockies over the last three years, as he's averaged 452 plate appearances per year. But if the Cubs could get him on a low-cost two-year deal and pencil him in for more like 250 well-chosen trips to the plate (mostly against lefties), Joe could be a superb addition. Mark Canha Set to turn 36 early in spring training, Canha is a major age risk. He's playable at first base, but not good there. He doesn't have the ability to generate meaningful power, because he neither gets the ball in the air with any regularity nor has a fast enough bat to do so. What Canha does offer, though, is more of that classic line-drive, medium-hard contact profile. He takes walks and is a good situational hitter. He has a long, successful track record in the majors. He would have been a better target for the team years ago, when he hit free agency and signed a lucrative deal with the Mets. He would be a better target if he were a bit more fluid around the bag on defense. Still, Canha is an enticing option. He'll get on base, whenever called upon, and he's one of the game's best off-field personalities: easy to talk to, outgoing without being overbearing, and curious without being distracted from his duty. The Cubs' bench has already seen a bit of an overhaul, but they might turn over one or two of their places on that bench yet again before Opening Day. To fill all their positional needs, they have to be willing to spend some money and shove aside a couple of contingency plans they had created. If they do so, though, they'll be rewarded with a position-player roster capable of really winning something—as long as they also further reinforce their pitching staff along the way. View full article

Way back in early November, we published our Offseason Handbook for the Cubs' 2024-25 hot stove campaign. Included was a piece recommending six minor-league free-agent pitchers the Cubs could scoop up as depth options. Monday, they signed one of those six. Image courtesy of © Philip G. Pavely-Imagn Images In our Caretakers-exclusive look at six minor-league free agents who could help the Cubs' pitching staff in 2025, I ranked the select half-dozen hurlers from most to least desirable. All six had things to recommend them, or else I wouldn't have profiled them, but I felt it was important to put them in a certain order, too. Of the six, Ben Heller ranked second on my list. Monday, the Cubs nabbed Heller on a minor-league deal. I won't share all the details here that Caretakers got to enjoy there, but to run down the rest of the six: Clay Helvey signed a minor-league deal with the Nationals two weeks ago. Jason Alexander signed with the Athletics in mid-November. Joe Record, Janson Junk, and Brad Keller remain free agents. I ranked Heller ahead of all except Helvey as a target for the Cubs, because he has terrific stuff that suits a lot of the things the Cubs like to do, anyway. Here's a portion of what I wrote about him in November: This signing doesn't affirmatively answer those health questions, because those things can always recur or flare back up as a hurler gets ready for the season. If he had been fully healthy throughout 2024, though, it's unlikely Heller would have been available in the first place. The stuff profile is good enough to make him a very strong medium-leverage relief option. Here's the pitch mix he used in 2024, in visual form: The cutter is very much on the slider end of the fastball-slider spectrum of cutters, so think of it more as a breaking ball and complement to the sinker and four-seamer than as a tertiary fastball look, but this is the kind of shape set the Cubs love from righty relievers. It's similar to those of Tyson Miller or Jorge López, the latter of whom is a free agent right now, so Heller could plausibly replace López in the 2025 mix, in a sense. You can bet that there's an opt-out date written into this deal, so the Cubs will have to decide to add Heller to their 40-man roster at some point, or let him pursue another opportunity. He's out of options, so whenever they do enfold him, he'll have to stay on the active roster unless or until they are ready to risk losing him. Still, this is a solid addition. As implied by the fact that I identified him earlier this offseason, I think he's a very strong fit for the group, and he helps make up for the loss of Hayden Wesneski and his potential bullpen contributions. If nothing comes of it, that's fine. Nothing much was ventured, since the deal doesn't cost the team a 40-man roster spot. If Heller is healthy and pitches the way he can, though, this will look like a tremendous investment. View full article

I won't refute the validity of either point. I do think each has a big "but" attached, though. 1. Do you mean a budget crunch for 2026? Because there's really not one for 2025. I would advise looking not at the CBT number (though they'll be careful not to exceed the CBT this year, for sure), but at the real dollars number, and by that token, they still have upwards of $40 million to spend to get to where I think they intend to settle. I think, based on your mention of Tucker, that you mean for 2026, so sure, that's a consideration, but I also think that if 2025 goes the way it needs to for Hoyer to stick around, they'll go a decent way into the tax—maybe even clear the second threshold, as you suggest—in 2026. They know lots of money comes off the books after that anyway (Happ, Suzuki, Taillon, Hoerner, Boyd deals all expire after that season), and spending money now on 2025-27 means they don't have to trade as much from their farm, so they'd be in better shape to replace some of those guys with cheaper internal options come Opening Day 2027 (sooner, of course, in some cases). 2. Yates is the only guy you mention who's on Scott's level, and then (of course) not even he is quite there. Jansen isn't cooked, exactly, but that would be very much a repeat of the Neris experiment. Martin and Robertson are fine, but the idea here is to sign someone who becomes your relief ace. Even when the Cubs signed those guys three years ago, it was to be complementary arms, not The Guy. I'm not saying for certain that I'm right about this, but my feeling is that they both SHOULD and WILL try to get a legitimate relief ace this time, rather than a veteran who can probably be solid in the seventh or eighth. That makes it Yates, Scott, or forget the whole thing and push all those resources toward the rotation and a 10th regular-type position player instead, IMO. So if Yates signs elsewhere....

The Cubs' chief decision-maker doesn't do big multi-year deals for relievers, even elite ones. Then again, he doesn't trade for superstars one year before they'll reach free agency, either. Image courtesy of © Bob Kupbens-Imagn Images At his end-of-season press conference, Jed Hoyer admitted that the strategy he pursued to build a viable bullpen in 2024 was flawed and vowed that he would elect a different one this offseason. While he was right in his diagnosis, I was skeptical of the treatment he claimed to be prescribing. The only real alternative to entering each season with big questions in the bullpen is acquiring elite relievers who stand a bit clear of the natural volatility of that job, and Hoyer has never shown any indication of being willing to allocate his resources that way. It seemed like empty rhetoric. Nearly two months later, though, as I survey the offseason the Cubs have had thus far, I see a spot both in the depth chart and in the budget for just that kind of player. Just as Hoyer seems to have eased his own rules against paying a huge price to acquire a star player for just one season, he appears to have set the stage for a reliever addition that would break his rules about spending money and making long-term commitments in that segment of the roster. It's still possible the team will choose to pay whatever it takes to grab Kirby Yates on a one-year deal. Yates is reliably excellent, when healthy, and because he's in his late 30s already, he can be had on a short-term engagement. Increasingly, though, it seems like Tanner Scott would be a perfect fit for this roster. He'd cost something like $15 million per year on a three- or four-year deal, which is a hefty commitment. Here's why he might be worth it, anyway. Becoming a Strike Thrower It's easy to look at Scott's 12.2% walk rate from this season (and 12.6% career mark) and worry that he's too wild to be a relief ace. That's far more walks than an average hurler allows; it makes Héctor Neris's control look good. You usually don't want a closer walking that many guys. Many Cubs fans remember the Carlos Mármol experience, which could be thrilling—but not always in the right way. It's also a fragile way to thrive, in most cases. There are two reasons not to sweat this as much as you normally would. Firstly, while he still handed out a lot of walks in 2024, he made a meaningful change in 2023 that differentiates him from his prior self. Consider this graphic, showing Scott's pitching approach for 2022: Baseball Savant calls these "Plinko" charts, after the game on 'Price is Right', and I love them, because they have the two most valuable characteristics any information graphic can boast: information density, and easy readability. The thicker the line between any two counts above, the more often Scott threw a pitch that took him from one count to the other. The colored wheels show how he deployed his two-pitch mix in each count. As you can see, in 2022, Scott was a very wild slider monster. He was only slightly more likely to start a plate appearance 0-1 than 1-0, and about equally likely to go from 0-1 to 1-1 as to get ahead 0-2 after throwing that first strike. He was only slightly more likely to go from 1-1 to 1-2 than to go from there to 2-1. In short, the above is the picture of a pitcher without sufficient conviction in his fastball, and without the command of his slider to consistently get ahead in counts or avoid huge walk totals. Now, let's look at the same chart for 2023: The relative thicknesses of key lines here have all swung in positive directions. The first-pitch change is especially noticeable, but it's there for 0-1 and 1-1 pitches, too. I also invite you to see how much thicker the line leading to 0-2 is than the one from 0-2 to 1-2, and how that compares to the 2022 image. Scott was putting guys away much more efficiently once he got way ahead in 2023 than he had in 2022. You can also see him using the fastball more often, especially to get himself back in control on 1-0, 1-1 and 2-1 counts. The ability to recover from 2-1 to 2-2 consistently instead of falling behind 3-1 is immensely valuable, and he improved in that aspect from 2022 to 2023. Scott first put himself on the map as an elite reliever that season, by walking just 7.8% of opposing batters. Here's the 2024 chart: Though his walk rate was similar to his pre-2023 self, this is a clear way to see that he didn't really regress. He still got ahead of hitters consistently and recovered fairly well when he fell behind, and look at how much his pitch usage swung toward the fastball, in all but the deepest counts. This is a pitcher who's found something with one of their key offerings. We'll get to what that was in a moment. For now, suffice it to say that these breakdowns belie the raw walk rate and tell us Scott didn't forget what he learned about attacking hitters and avoiding free passes in 2023. The second reason why you needn't worry about the walk rate for the full season is simpler, but equally important: Scott walked almost 15% of opponents before being dealt from the Marlins to the Padres in July, but just 8.0% of them with San Diego. The charts above show us that he can still command the zone, and down the stretch, Scott did just that, even when looking at his walk rate. An Improving Heater As we saw above, the 2024 season saw Scott lean into more fastball usage, after he'd heavily relied on his slider (throwing it, sometimes, well over half the time) in the previous couple of seasons. There was a reason for that. Scott slightly but importantly lowered his arm slot back in 2022, which began to unlock the pitcher we've seen him become since then. The funky thing is that, whereas most pitchers see the ball run more to their arm side when they lower their slot, Scott has remained a cut-ride guy even after making that adjustment. For a short time, Max Bay was one of the brightest lights in the public pitching analysis sphere. It was a brief time, because he's been snapped up, a couple of times. He now works for the Dodgers. We still have a few of his publicly available resources to help us analyze players, though, so let's avail ourselves of one. Using his Dynamic Dead Zone app, we can visualize the way Scott's fastball moves relative to what hitters expect, based on his arm angle. Here's that chart for 2021: That's an impressive amount of cut, but as you can see, Scott's heater didn't rise much, relative to what hitters would have expected out his hand. Flash forward, now, to 2024: The slightly lower slot alters what the hitter expects to see, which is represented by the blue topographical map behind the circle representing Scott's actual movement. Whereas they would expect an average of about 16 inches of induced vertical break (IVB) and 7 inches of arm-side run with the old slot, they'd be looking for more like 15 inches of "vert" and 8 inches of run after the change. But as you can see, Scott is still achieving the same amount of relative cut—and he's found considerably more relative rising action. He made the change to his arm slot in 2022, but it took Scott a couple of years to figure out how best to fire his fastball from that position. He only averaged 15.6 inches of IVB in 2023, but that rose to 16.8 in 2024. Teams look for pitchers with flat vertical approach angles (VAA) on their fastball these days, and Scott's combination of a lower three-quarter slot and hard, rising heat yielded a stellar -4.1-degree VAA on the pitch in 2024. If a pitcher has movement like Scott's on a fastball that hums in at 97 miles per hour from the left side, they can bully hitters with it. Heck, Justin Steele has a fastball with a slightly more extreme shape but 5 MPH fewer on it, and he bullies hitters with it. Scott's honing of the heater has yielded a steadily decreasing hard-hit rate over the last two years, to the point where he's now elite at suppressing opponents' power, in addition to racking up strikeouts. Most two-pitch pitchers struggle to limit power, but Scott is a unicorn. His stuff is nasty enough to both rack up strikeouts and keep hitters on the defensive, even without a third offering. The evolution of his fastball shape is crucial to that unique ability. It's not the most important ingredient in his success, though, which brings us to the third reason why Hoyer might depart his comfort zone to lock down Scott at the back end of the pen. Pure Filth Scott's slider is one of the most versatile weapons in the game. Among 186 pitchers who threw at least 200 sliders in 2024, Scott ranked: 6th in ground-ball rate 53rd in whiff rate on swings 19th in called strike rate on takes Only four pitchers—Clay Holmes, Bryan Abreu, Chris Sale, and Jason Adam—got more whiffs on swings and more strikes on takes than did Scott. Holmes and Adam only used their sliders sparingly, anyway, and none of the four came close to matching Scott's ground ball rate when hitters put the slider in play. Only Elvis Peguero and Camilo Doval had him beat in both ground-ball rate and whiff rate, and neither came close to besting him in called strike rate. Scott's slider ranks 17th of 187 qualifying hurlers in Baseball Prospectus's StuffPro, and 10th in PitchPro, meaning the characteristics, counts, and locations of that pitch make it an elite offering. Pair it with a fastball that ranks 5th in StuffPro and 17th in PitchPro among 353 qualifiers, and you have one of the most potent mixes in the game. While relievers are inherently volatile and injuries can always cause big trouble, the 30-year-old Scott is as safe a bet to be a dominant closer as almost anyone in baseball, now that he's figured out how to deploy both the slider and the fastball to maximal effect. And One More Thing! There's one more reason to entertain this notion more seriously than you would treat a typical big-dollar closer deal under the Hoyer administration, and it reaches a bit beyond Scott himself. Look around the rest of the Cubs' prospective roster. They have three left-handed starters in their rotation already, and they might end up either acquiring a fourth or using Jordan Wicks in that role for stretches of 2025. When you run out three or four lefty starters every five or six days, you often end up facing lineups stocked with right-handed batters. That's great news for the Cubs' righty-loaded middle relief corps. Nate Pearson, Tyson Miller and Porter Hodge are currently the back end of the team's bullpen, and they're all not only righties, but the kinds of righties who especially dominate right-handed batters. For that very reason, though, teams are likely to run some left-handed pinch-hitters and substitutes into the game in the sixth, seventh, and eighth innings, to neutralize the matchup advantage the Cubs will claim by turning the ball over from Steele, Shota Imanaga and Matthew Boyd to the likes of Miller and Hodge. How can the Cubs counterpunch? In this particular team construction, it might make a special extra layer of sense to have a left-handed closer. Scott can handle batters from both sides of the plate, thanks to his fastball shape and the vertical orientation of his slider, but he's especially dastardly for lefty batters. He put on a show against Shohei Ohtani in the postseason, fanning him four times in the five-game NLDS between the Padres and Dodgers. If a team puts in a lefty who normally starts but was on the bench until the seventh, they'll get a small advantage over Pearson or Miller. Two innings later, though, that guy will be locked into his spot, and Scott will eat him alive. Lefties had a .587 OPS against him in 2023, and that number plummeted to .415 in 2024. Spending big money on Scott remains a risk, because relievers are always risks. The team still needs to substantially bolster their starting rotation, and fans will be understandably uneasy if they don't also add something to their bench mix before Opening Day. Giving Scott a multi-year deal with an eight-figure annual salary might make it harder to check one of their other empty boxes this winter, so it would have to be the right deal, and it might need to come once Hoyer and company know what else they want to do. He's a unique pitcher, though, and his value to this team would be immense. It might be enough to move Hoyer off one of his most firmly held positions on team-building, in an offseason that will determine his future with the team. View full article

The most important year to properly understand the career of the Cubs' greatest slugger is one many Cubs fans have forgotten. It's understandable, but it's a shame, because once you remember it, everything about his career looks different. Image courtesy of © RVR Photos-Imagn Images The 1996 Cubs season began with a lot of hope. They had established stars Mark Grace and Sammy Sosa, and there was a certain measure of excitement and perceived momentum attached to the return of team legend Ryne Sandberg. After retiring once and missing all of the 1995 season, Sandberg came back for 1996, and although no one was expecting him to return to the extraordinary heights he attained in his peak seasons, the club had missed him dearly, and getting him back created a buzz around the team. Early on, it looked like they might pay off those expectations, too. Their cleanup hitter and most dangerous slugger was Sosa, and if there had ever been anything to the specious charges that he was an accumulator of empty stats in meaningless games and moments, he bashed them over the head that spring. There was a walk-off home run in the 10th inning against the Reds on Apr. 17, his second of the game. Then there was another one on May 3 against the Mets. Two days later came the trifecta: another walk-off bomb to beat the Mets, this time in the 10th. That blast, too, was his second of the game. It was a remarkable string of huge homers, and that wasn't even the whole story. Sosa had a game-winning 10th-inning single in Los Angeles at the end of April, and a game-winning ninth-inning double in Atlanta in the third week of May. The team wasn't actually deep enough to be all that good, absent a true level jump from Sosa, and that showed up in between Sosa's heroics. After that third walkoff homer, they fell into a 5-16 May Malaise, even with Sosa delivering another win in that game in Atlanta. They then treaded water until July, with Sosa going through his then-customary streaks and slumps and no one else providing much of a spark when he struggled. Heading into the All-Star break, though, they found some momentum again, with a couple of wins heading into it to pull to 41-46. Sosa delivered the game-tying hit in a two-run ninth-inning comeback in the final contest of the first half, leading to a 13-inning victory. It was after the break, though, that Sosa really took over. That level jump I alluded to above happened. From the season's resumption on Jul. 11 through Aug. 20, Sosa batted .310/.371/.648, and swatted 13 home runs in 159 plate appearances. The Cubs went 21-16, fueled in large part by that breakout. This was the more balanced, lethal Sosa so many had waited for over the previous few years. He'd already been an All-Star, but this version of him was a very real MVP contender. He would probably have eclipsed 50 home runs that year, given the way he was hitting and the fact that he'd reached 40 by the third week in August. If he had, we would certainly remember his 1998 outburst less as a product of chemical enhancement and more as the natural outcome of a ferocious, highly accomplished home-run hitter getting to face expansion-emaciated pitching staffs. We'd also probably remember the 1996 Cubs as a lesser version of the 1998 team, because the way things were going, they had a real chance to win the weak NL Central. They were five games behind the leaders in a tight cluster on Aug. 20. That day, though, Tommy Hutton broke Sosa's wrist with a high and tight pitch, and the budding superstar was out for the year. The Cubs went 14-24 the rest of the way, including a heinous 3-15 within the Central. They finished 12 games out of first place, and while (from a wins above replacement lens) it's foolish to suggest that having Sosa could have made up that kind of gap, things didn't have to go anywhere near as badly as they did. Sosa was such a dynamic presence that his became an equally unsurvivable absence. The idea that Sosa was un-clutch was always silly. It's not as though there's a dearth of examples of him coming up with huge hits later in his career, either. When trying to really grasp what kind of player he was and the extent of his importance to the teams of which he was a part, though, it's that 1996 season—the way he carried them and kept them vaguely relevant early, and the way he exploded after the break and gave them a chance to compete until being taken off the field by a bad-luck injury—that best elucidates things. Sosa was a flawed player and teammate, but he was no creation of the juice, and he was no cancer in the clubhouse. He was an elite power hitter even before 1998, and but for an errant fastball amid the hottest streak of his career to that point, we might have comprehended that better. View full article