Matthew Trueblood

In a move that could radically alter the future of the franchise, the Chicago Cubs have pulled the trigger on their most aggressive trade in nearly a decade. They now have the star slugger their lineup has been missing since 2016. Image courtesy of © Erik Williams-Imagn Images After multiple days of heavy rumors, the Cubs and Astros finally wound their way to an exchange on which they could agree. The Cubs will receive All-Star right fielder Kyle Tucker, set to turn 28 in January, on the heels of four seasons in which Tucker batted .280/.362/.527, made three All-Star teams and took home both a Gold Glove and a Silver Slugger. In return, Chicago will send third basemen Isaac Paredes and Cam Smith to Houston, surrendering the jewel acquisition of their trade deadline this past summer and their first-round pick in the 2024 MLB Draft. It's not a light package. The Cubs gave up Christopher Morel and two young pitchers to get Paredes, and Smith represents the least renewable resource in baseball: a first-round pick with star-level upside and some proximity to the majors. Wesneski, first acquired two and a half years ago for reliever Scott Effross, is a dynamic arm who still has a chance to mature into (if nothing more) a high-strikeout, high-leverage reliever. However, Tucker is the perfect target at the perfect time. He's been metronomic over the first several full seasons of his career, with between 23 and 30 home runs in each of the last four campaigns—even 2024, when he missed a long stretch of the second half with a fracture in his shin. Tucker maintains a very low strikeout rate, especially for a player with so much power. He showed the ability to accept his walks as soon as he arrived in the majors, but over the last two years, his walk rate has shot up, to a new level. He has a career OPS of .883 against right-handed pitchers and .840 against lefties, so he's essentially immune to the platoon disadvantage. He plays above-average defense in right field, and is both efficient and aggressive on the bases. He's one of the 10 best hitters in baseball, and perhaps one of the five or six best. This is just one move, in a series. The Cubs will trade Cody Bellinger to the Yankees in a related (but separate) trade for right-handed starting pitching prospect Will Warren, but it now appears that they'll retain Seiya Suzuki, thereby cementing Tucker and Suzuki as the core of their offense. They'll further add to the roster, because with this move, they push many poker chips into the middle of the table. Being very, very good in 2025 is now essential, because Tucker is likely to depart after the season as a free agent. The Cubs can and should try hard to extend him for a decade beyond the end of 2025, but traditionally, they haven't spent the kind of money that would take. Then again, until today, Jed Hoyer has not traditionally taken swings as big as this trade, anyway. View full article

While there remain several paths forward for the Cubs this winter, their priority appears to be a trade for the All-Star Houston outfielder. Meeting the Astros' asking price will be tricky, though, and might require mutual creativity. Image courtesy of © Jerome Miron-Imagn Images Although the reports are just confused and confusing enough to leave everyone bickering about the real nature of the demands, all indications are that the Astros want both Seiya Suzuki and Isaac Paredes in a trade for Kyle Tucker, whom the Cubs would then control for just one season before he hits free agency. Tucker might be worth those two, in an emerging paradigm of player value that disproportionately elevates stars at the expense of average-ish players, even though they're under team control for longer than he is and are solid contributors themselves. Houston (understandably) also wants to get a longer-term benefit from giving up such a superb player in the short term, though, and that has led to a long negotiation. The Cubs don't want to give up Matt Shaw, or even Cam Smith, in exchange for Tucker, at least without holding onto one of Suzuki and Paredes. While one report Thursday night juiced a new round of speculation and excitement, the chances that these two teams are unable to bridge the divide and end up deciding not to do business together is still significant. The path out of this encroaching stalemate could go through the Houston bullpen. Earlier this winter, multiple reports suggested that the team was looking to trade reliever Ryan Pressly, to whom they owe $14 million in the final year of his most recent contract extension. After Houston signed Josh Hader to a massive deal last winter, they have a surplus of talent in the bullpen, and with Bryan Abreu available to act as Hader's second in the relief wars, Pressly has gone from one of the game's elite closers to an expendable set-up man in short order. Because he's owed so much and because he's declined somewhat sharply over the last two years, Pressly has negative trade value. To move him in a separate deal, Houston would have to attach a prospect or eat as much as $4 million. Pressly struck out 31.9% or more of his opposing batters every year from 2018-22, but that figure plummeted to 27.6% in 2023 and 23.8% in 2024. His velocity has similarly flagged, from an average fastball at 95.4 miles per hour as recently as 2021 to 93.8 MPH in 2024. That's not a great case for the Cubs acquiring him, of course. Still, it could help balance the scales. With Tucker and Pressly going to Chicago and Paredes (but not Suzuki) going to Houston, the Astros would save something like $25 million for 2025. The Cubs would be taking on significant money, but they'd also have their lineup anchors in place, and they'd rebalance their books by trading Cody Bellinger—which they're treating as a prerequisite for acquiring Tucker, anyway. Meanwhile, bringing in Pressly would lighten the pressure to make any further additions to the bullpen, so it would effectively free up the money they would otherwise have had to earmark for that item on the to-do list. Under those circumstances, they'd probably be much more amenable to trading a top prospect—even if it be Shaw. Another structure could emerge, too, where the Cubs would send Owen Caissie, Cam Smith and Paredes to Houston, allowing them to retain Shaw and James Triantos with an eye to having one or both of them play third for the next several years. To circle back to Pressly, despite the dipping velocity and strikeout rate, this isn't exactly a Héctor Neris situation. For one thing, Pressly has a deep arsenal. As he's aged, he's added a sinker and a changeup to that mix, which included an elite fastball, slider, and curve at his best. Now, according to pitch modeling ratings, the fastball has sagged badly, to about average—but the curve and slider are still among the best in the game, and the changeup he just found in his early 30s is turning out to be an average-plus offering. The smart money says that, despite losing his ability to overpower and befuddle hitters, he can still get them out at a solid rate. If we assume the Cubs would go on, after this trade, to get Carson Kelly sewn up, we can loosely project a roster for 2025 based on the things we understand the team to be trying to do. Starting Lineup Ian Happ - LF Kyle Tucker - RF Seiya Suzuki - DH Michael Busch - 1B Dansby Swanson - SS Matt Shaw - 3B Pete Crow-Armstrong - CF Carson Kelly - C Nico Hoerner - 2B Bench Miguel Amaya - C Gage Workman - IF Alexander Canario - OF Miles Mastrobuoni - UTIL Starting Rotation Shota Imanaga Justin Steele Jameson Taillon Matthew Boyd Javier Assad Bullpen Ryan Pressly Porter Hodge Tyson Miller Nate Pearson Eli Morgan Julian Merryweather Luke Little Daniel Palencia This includes a trade of Cody Bellinger, but excludes any player received in exchange for him. It also leaves undreamt any dreams of adding another starter to the front end of the rotation, rather than to the back end (via the acquisition of Will Warren, perhaps). From this position, the Cubs could try to package more young talent (Kevin Alcántara, any of several strong pitchers just off the fringes of the MLB roster) or find a way to land Nico Hoerner in Seattle and get back Luis Castillo. The latter option would further risk the team's fortunes on the performance of young players, since Triantos would then need to come up and help the team almost right away. Not quite a juggernaut, the team above would nonetheless be markedly higher-ceiling and more dynamic than the one the Cubs have now. It would have to be accomplished by accepting some suboptimal arrangements and stretching the team's expected 2025 budget near its breaking point, and there is always a very real risk that this front office will back off when faced with that set of choices. However, if bringing Pressly into a Tucker trade could keep Shaw and/or Suzuki out of it, the Cubs have to explore that possibility. One way or another, we're likely to know by the end of this weekend whether anything will come of all that big Winter Meetings week talk. View full article

Though no consequential hot stove news broke Thursday, below the surface, there were indicators that the Cubs were moving toward something big. One new name reached the public sphere, and it's one that has come up in connection with the team before. Image courtesy of © Bill Streicher-Imagn Images It's become clear, over the last two days, that the Cubs' major focus is to complete a trade for Houston Astros right fielder Kyle Tucker. They have sidelined multiple negotiations with free agents for the time being, hoping to get a deal done and have more clarity about their roster before needing to add a new signee to that group and create a space by designating someone for assignment, at what could be an inopportune time. All their energy is going toward big swings in the trade market, and Tucker is the prize. However, they view it as important to trade Cody Bellinger first, since Houston does not value him highly enough to warrant his inclusion in a Tucker deal. Thus, the linchpin of the team's tactical approach to grabbing Tucker is sending Bellinger to one of the other interested teams. The most likely of those, by far, is the Yankees, where Bellinger could fit at multiple spots and would reduce the Bombers' uncertainty in the lineup, without foreclosing any of the other options they're pursuing. That makes the reports of progress between Chicago and New York Thursday evening important ones, and the inclusion of pitching prospect Will Warren in those discussions is especially compelling. Warren, 25, has been on the Cubs' radar for a while. He's primarily a sinker-sweeper guy, and his stuff is nasty. He struck out 28% of opposing batters, even in a season in which he posted an ERA just under 6.00 in Triple A and a mark over 10.00 in the majors. Warren doesn't overpower hitters with sheer velocity, but his location of both the sinker and the sweeper is superb, and the movement on the two pitches combined with that command makes for a devastating attack. He also has an average four-seamer, a changeup, and a cutter, making his arsenal deep enough and his swing-and-miss sufficient to slot into the middle of a starting rotation at his best. As you might expect from someone who works east-and-west the way he does, Warren has a fairly low arm slot. He also has a bit of crossfire to his delivery, with a closed stride that forces his body to sweep around his front leg. That puts a lot of pressure on his four-seamer, when it comes to getting lefties out. To his credit, after a very rocky start to the season in Triple A, Warren did figure that out, emphasizing the four-seamer more after Jun. 1. Because his changeup separates from his sinker only in velocity, and not in terms of movement, he needs that four-seamer to set it up to lefties. The sinker does a fine job of putting right-handed hitters into a fork as a partner to his sweeper, but as the season progressed, he even ratcheted up the usage of that four-seamer to righties. He also virtually scrapped the cutter mid-season. This is adding up to rather a lot of changes. Did they help him pitch better as the year went on? In short: yes, but it still looks a bit messy. His season breaks down thusly: Through 5/31 (AAA): 205 batters faced, 44 1/3 innings, 48 strikeouts, 19 walks, 13 home runs allowed, 8.53 ERA, .918 opponent OPS Jun. 1-Jul. 25 (AAA): 220 BF, 51 1/3 IP, 67 SO, 16 BB, 5 HR, 4.03 ERA, .656 opp. OPS Jul. 30-Aug. 31 (MLB): 104 BF, 21 2/3 IP, 26 SO, 9 BB, 4 HR, 9.55 ERA, .985 opp. OPS Sep. 6-18 (AAA): 61 BF, 14 IP, 21 SO, 4 BB, 1 HR, 4.50 ERA, .662 opp. OPS After all that, he did make one more forgettable and meaningless appearance in the big leagues to finish the season, but it's not worth further muddying that water. Suffice it to say this: Once Warren tweaked his pitch mix, while he was in the minors, he had a ton of success. However, he's prone to the home run, and hasn't yet solved some of the more complex problems posed by high-level hitters. At least one scouting report also indicated that Warren's sweeper is a pitch uniquely ill-suited to the automated strike zone used for much of the season in Triple A, so he might have been even better than these numbers look once he sorted things out in the minors. Obviously, Warren is an intriguing arm, with plenty of potential bullpen utility if the starting thing doesn't work out. Predictably, he has significant platoon splits. He would slot somewhere in with Javier Assad, Brandon Birdsell, Ben Brown, Cade Horton, Hayden Wesneski, and Jordan Wicks, the Cubs' gratifyingly deep stable of back-end rotation arms with upside either in the middle of a rotation or the bully portion of a bullpen. Where he fits is a matter of scouting preferences and other considerations, but he'd increase the team's ability to trade from that sector of their roster, which might come in handy, be it in Tucker negotiations with Houston or in pursuit of Dylan Cease from San Diego. The Cubs hope not to have to eat more than $5 million in the Bellinger trade, to give themselves as much financial flexibility as possible when they turn their attention to other necessary moves. If they succeed in getting the Yankees to take on nearly all the money, Warren would probably be the only piece they get back. That's fine. He has clear flaws, just as the other pitchers in the mix he would join do. However, he'd be a strong return in a trade primarily motivated by the need to free up other options. View full article

The San Diego Padres are on the horns of a payroll dilemma. They want to contend in 2025, as usual, and they have a significant shopping list—but their proverbial bank account is overdrawn. Can they and the Cubs help each other? Image courtesy of © David Frerker-Imagn Images It's not time to break up the Padres just yet. They have a championship-caliber core, and they intend to continue leveraging it, chasing and pressuring the Dodgers. There's a problem, though: they don't have Dodger money, and right now, they have nearly Dodger-level financial commitments on the books. With Joe Musgrove out for the coming season following Tommy John surgery, San Diego needs another starting pitcher. They also need a starting catcher and a left fielder. How much do they have to spend in the pursuit of those needed pieces? How does -$3 million sound? From that situation has come a torrent of rumors about how the Padres can solve problems via the trade market, rather than signing players to fill all of the roles listed above. Two names have been mentioned most often, because each is under team control for just one more season and each is likely to make more than $14 million via arbitration: Luis Arraez and Dylan Cease. Trading Arraez would clear some money for San Diego, but that amount isn't enough to make up for the new hole it would open in their lineup—because Arraez's skill set and lack of defensive value don't leave him with much trade value. In other words, while a team might take on his money for 2025, finding a suitor who would give up one or more useful players or prospects in exchange for him is likely to prove impossible. The Padres need to find enough excess value in a deal to allow themselves to make a second trade, or some younger players they can insert directly into their lineup, as well as clearing money to spend on one key free agent or expensive trade target. Thus, Cease is drawing more attention, and is more likely to be dealt. He's set to make as much as $15 million in his final season before hitting free agency, after a first season with the Padres in which he was (for the fourth year in a row) a high-strikeout workhorse starter. He bounced back from a quietly weak 2023 with a terrific 2024 campaign, fueled by a much-needed tweak to his slider and the introduction of a sweeper that got him out of his traditionally vertical pitch shape profile. He's as durable as any starter in baseball, and he's learning to pitch more intelligently as he matures. His fastball also hums in at just under 100 miles per hour, even as he nears 30. Any trade for Cease would involve shedding his salary, but also getting San Diego multiple controllable pieces. The Cubs are perfectly positioned to be that kind of trade partner, depending on what happens with the Kyle Tucker trade rumors still percolating as of Thursday morning. They could send San Diego a big-league-ready bat like Owen Caissie for Cease, or they could gorgeously fill the Padres' need for a left fielder by trading them Seiya Suzuki, solving their own problem of player satisfaction and roles in the process. There are a couple of problems with each potential deal, though. Firstly, with the Suzuki version, the Cubs would want more back than Cease in exchange for Suzuki, who has two years of team control left instead of one. Suzuki is also going to be more expensive than Cease, so that trade would fill one spot while vacating another, but it wouldn't save San Diego money the way they would want. If San Diego added Wandy Peralta to the deal (rounding out the Cubs' bullpen with a fairly inexpensive and accomplished lefty) and the Cubs agreed to send a bit of money with Suzuki so that the net money in the trade was a savings, would it work for both sides? It's hard to say. In the other version of the trade, sending the ex-Padres farmhand Caissie back to San Diego in exchange for the ex-Cubs farmhand Cease, the issue would be whether San Diego views Caissie as sufficient compensation for Cease. They probably wouldn't. The Cubs could throw in a controllable, low-cost hurler (Javier Assad? Ben Brown? Jordan Wicks?), but would that tilt the balance too far the other way? It's probably a fair deal if the Cubs give up Assad and Caissie for Cease, but it applies a lot of pressure on the front office. Such a deal would dramatically raise the stakes of winning in 2025, for a team for whom those already feel very high. Pairing a Cease acquisition with a Tucker deal would be the most appealing way to justify each trade, since both of them feel like they could require slight overpays. The concept is, you let a little extra value go because you're adding these two superstars to the roster for a pivotal season. You're pushing all-in. It's a maneuver as difficult to pull off as it is risky, though, so if the Cubs even consider it, they should also consider simply widening their budget and bulking up via free agency. View full article

You can't just mash a bunch of bad players into one body and come up with a useful bench piece. What the Cubs' Rule 5 choice asks us is: what if you can? Image courtesy of © GREG WOHLFORD/ERIE TIMES-NEWS / USA TODAY NETWORK The Cubs found a market inefficiency, here. Ever since the players union got its butt kicked in the negotiation of a new collective bargaining agreement for the 2007 season and eligibility for the Rule 5 Draft was pushed back a year for all players, it's been virtually impossible to find honest-to-God toolsheds worth taking in that annual ritual. Anyone with major upside, especially on the positional side, gets added to their organization's 40-man roster before they become eligible. But the Cubs found a workaround, by being willing to pick a player who is an extremely unusual level of messy. Gage Workman was the Tigers' fourth-round pick in the truncated 2020 MLB Draft, out of college. Like many players taken that year, his development was disrupted before it even really began. Unlike many players, that played a special kind of havoc for Worman, because he had fascinating tools but a whole lot of adjustments to make in order to become a viable high-level hitter. Unfortunately, he never found his way to those adjustments. Workman played third base in college but has mostly been a shortstop in pro ball, even though he stands 6-foot-4 and is solidly built. He's rangy and athletic, and there's some measure of raw power in his frame and his swing, especially from the left side. He entered the pros as a switch-hitter, but his right-handed swing was so hopeless that he now bats solely left-handed. Workman's hit tool has never come together. Without it, his value is extremely limited, which is why he was available to the Cubs in this draft. He struck out a discouraging 27.5% of the time in Double A this season, and that was after a half-season at that level (with a truly calamitous 38.8% punchout percentage) in 2023. He did also accept his walks, though, and he showed burgeoning power. For the year, against right-handed pitchers, he batted .290/.380/.509. His approach is emerging, and with it comes some mitigation of his major swing-and-miss issues. Still, Workman is a thoroughly weird prospect. He's a superb defender all around the infield, and a lefty bat, which makes him superficially appealing as a bench piece. In those ways, he's a bit like Nick Madrigal or Miles Mastrobuoni. Yet, he'll run a strikeout rate that looks like Patrick Wisdom's, and that's the size of the body here, too. Wisdom was a similarly scrapheap type of pickup for the Cubs, and he worked out gorgeously, really. Even he had demonstrated a much greater capacity to hit for power and attack high-level pitching than Workman has, though. This feels like a roll of the dice on a player who found some developmental momentum in the second half of this season. He batted .317/.398/.550 after Jul. 1 this summer. When something like that happens, especially for a player with an acknowledged baseline of impressive athleticism, there's always a chance it's highly auspicious. If that turns out to have been a toolsy player turning a corner, the Cubs will look like geniuses. If (as sure feels more likely) it was just a good stretch for a flawed prospect going past 600 plate appearances at one level, they'll probably return Workman to the Tigers org in the middle of spring training. All it costs to find out, for now, is a spot on a 40-man roster that has plenty of chaff to cut away, so it's worth a shot. This is a high-ceiling shot in a low-ceiling market. For that very reason, though, it has only very remote chances of working out. View full article

It's probably gotten easy to lose track of the Cubs' spending power, as rumors distorted by imperfect information have muddied the water with regard to their 2025 payroll plans. Let's reset a little bit. Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-Imagn Images Firstly, and this is not an estimate the team has put out publicly but I've talked to several people and am comfortable giving this general range: the Cubs intend to spend between $220 million and $235 million on their total payroll for 2025. They also want to stay below the competitive-balance tax threshold, but in this case, that won't be the main focus. The high end of their budgetary range is a bit south of the $241 million that marks the first threshold for the tax anyway, so they'll expect to come in below it. That's important to know. Here's the next key fact, in sequence: As things stand right now, including projected arbitration salaries and the Matthew Boyd deal from last month but not including the as-yet-unconfirmed Carson Kelly deal, the Cubs project to have a payroll right around $175 million. It's probably safer to call that $180 million, but that's the range. In other words, they can comfortably add anywhere from $40 million to $50 million more in 2025 payroll from here. If we assume they do get a deal done with Kelly and that he'll make somewhere just south of $10 million, we can say they have a solid $40 million with which to work, but probably no more. To get from here to where they want to be on $40 million isn't quite as easy as it sounds, though. Public remarks by Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins have made it fairly clear that the team still wants to add a starting pitcher and at least one solid reliever. We also know they are aware of the need to upgrade the offense, partially because Seiya Suzuki might not be willing to act as a regular DH. Those are high-dollar menu items, and obviously, they do not intend to just throw cash at the problem. Let's sketch out what they might do, though. We know they're in heavy on Kyle Tucker, should that trade actually materialize. While the possibility of that remains slim (and while visions of Brian Roberts and Jake Peavy should dance in your head today, as a prophylactic against premature excitement), it's a real possibility. That would be a coup, not least because it would end up being something like cash-neutral. The team would send out either Cody Bellinger or Suzuki in the process, and even if they gave up both Suzuki and Isaac Paredes and took back Ryan Pressly along with Tucker, that would add very little to their total payroll. It would cost them a lot in young talent, of course, but it would still be a game-changer, because it would leave that $40 million untouched. It could then be directed toward the aforementioned starter and reliever. Imagine, even, that the Cubs end up spending an eight-figure sum on Kyle Finnegan, as we're roughly guessing they will with Kelly. That would still leave them positioned to absorb as much as $25 million in order to bring on board a starting pitcher to complete their depth chart. There are any number of ways to do that, and they'd probably like to do it cheaper, but that amount of money would give them endless paths forward. A deal that nets them Luis Castillo of the Mariners would still be on the table in such a scenario, for instance. Assuming the Tucker deal remains just a nice dream, the needle needs some more careful threading. Any alternative move would come with some amount of added cost, and would mark a smaller upgrade to the positional corps. In such a case, though, they could turn all their attention and their expendable prospect capital toward acquiring Garrett Crochet, after all. He's cheap enough monetarily to have the same liberating effect on the rest of their key to-do list items as landing Tucker would have, but in a different way. The only substantial risk here is that, of the huge web of possibilities the team has cultivated over the last few weeks, they fail to bring any of the big things to fruition. The hurdle there isn't money; that's the good news. While the Ricketts family could and should spend much more money on the team each year, this offseason will be defined by what the front office does next. As this review should tell you, they won't be held back from anything they're seriously interested in by finances. Instead, they'll succeed or fail based on their ability to convert the possible into the actual, rather than letting these cool rumors turn into the next round of excruciating and (eventually) boring hypotheticals. View full article

Resist the temptation to rage against the universe after an NL Central team soared up into the top five for the second year in a row, while the Cubs once again stayed right in the middle of the first round. It's bad luck, but that bad luck is the residue of the team's lousy designs. Image courtesy of © Tim Heitman-Imagn Images The third-ever MLB Draft Lottery was held Tuesday afternoon in Dallas, and the Cubs got no help, again. For the third year in a row, they were in the mix to slide up and claim a lottery pick, but instead, they'll end up drafting 17th, after picking 13th in 2023 and 14th in 2024. Meanwhile, after the Reds caught a huge break and landed the second overall pick via the lottery last year (despite similar odds to do so to the Cubs'), the archrival Cardinals landed the fifth pick this time around, despite identical odds to the Cubs'. In short, three years in, this system has done nothing to change the Cubs' expected fortunes, except sliding them back a slot or two each year. Meanwhile, two divisional foes have gotten access to elite talent. It's a bummer, even if it's ludicrous to imagine that the process is somehow fixed or unfair. It's bad luck, but that bad luck sure feels cruel. Don't feel bad for the Cubs, though. This is their own fault—not only because they haven't built a team good enough to reach the postseason since 2018, but because they keep proving that they're capable of doing so, but don't take a sufficient interest in doing so until after the season gets going. In 2022, the Cubs hit the halfway point on pace for 66 wins. They won 74. In 2023, they were on pace for 76 halfway into the campaign, but ended up winning 83, and this season, they got to the same final number from an 81-game pace for 74. It's a good thing when your team wins games, and we shouldn't be in the business of chiding the team for winning more in the second halves of those campaigns, but doing so cost them draft position. It's not as clear—it's not guaranteed, like it used to be—but the team's odds to get high picks would have been far better if they hadn't played winning baseball in all those second halves. They've probably cost themselves about $2 million in spending power over the last three years by coming on strong after sluggish, sloppy starts that betray poor offseason roster construction—all of which might be tolerable, except that in none of those seasons have they ultimately been good enough to reach the postseason. The lesson Jed Hoyer and company should take from that is simple: they need to get aggressive, right now, rather than wait around and rebuild their bullpen on the fly next Memorial Day weekend. They need to enter the season with a 90-win projection, the way Craig Counsell demanded that they do, rather than hedge and hope. And if they don't do so, but rather flop out of the gate and seem headed for another 90-loss season at the midpoint of 2025, Hoyer should be fired, and the team should sell aggressively at the trade deadline, the better to avoid repeating the pattern of self-defeating victories late in lost seasons. There's a little bit of random chance in the distribution of wins throughout a season, of course. Even so, it's clear that the Cubs are spending too much of the first half of each season figuring out how best to align and adjust their roster in order to field a winner. They need to do that work now, in December and January, even though trying to do so comes with some added risks. Otherwise, they might end up attending another lottery next December, with similarly lousy odds to acquire game-changing talent. View full article

The MLB Winter Meetings are bringing the hot stove to a full boil now, but as the temperature and the pressure rise, the Cubs seem to be staying cool—maybe too cool. Maybe frozen. Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images We got some newfound clarity about the options box the Cubs are trying to unpack this winter on Tuesday—but all we learned was that they enjoy no real clarity or simplicity at all. Seiya Suzuki's agent, Joel Wolfe of Wasserman, spoke to reporters and revealed that the team has already approached Suzuki with a list of teams, trying to ascertain to which of them he would accept a trade. The impetus for this bizarre exploration process, it turns out, is that Suzuki does not want to be an everyday designated hitter, which is the role in which he finished 2024 and for which he would project most neatly on the 2025 Cubs right now. To accommodate Suzuki without trading away a big bat, the team would have to put him back in right field and turn Cody Bellinger into a full-time DH, which would hurt the defense and could dampen the team's offensive production, as well. That, we can now see, is why the team has seemed so focused on trading Bellinger all winter, and why the last week has brought reports that they're considering parting with Suzuki instead. They aren't delusional. They know they need to improve their offense, not weaken it by trading away one of their best bats without adding someone in exchange. But the challenge of executing this difficult maneuver—of either trading Bellinger for positive value and acquiring a DH who can outhit him, or dealing Suzuki and finding anyone to deliver value commensurate with his superb bat, all without exceeding a budget that provides flexibility but is far from limitless—seems to have paralyzed them. They're pursuing huge ideas, like acquiring Houston's Kyle Tucker. They might also have their eyes on other targets, too, like Angels outfielder Taylor Ward (rumored to be part of a deal that didn't get completed Tuesday but might still be in progress) or one of the Rays' increasingly highly-paid veteran infielders, Brandon Lowe and Yandy Díaz. The problem is, these big ideas and the complicated series of options they need to evaluate are costing them time—and a sudden abundance of moves throughout the rest of the league is making that time costly. Max Fried signed with the Yankees Tuesday evening, for a price the Cubs were never going to match. Later, though, Nathan Eovaldi agreed to a three-year deal with the Rangers that the Cubs (once mentioned as a possible destination for Eovaldi) might have found much more palatable. The Guardians traded second baseman Andrés Giménez to Toronto, alleviating payroll pressure that would have made it easier to strike a deal with them for first baseman Josh Naylor. The Marlins swapped right-handed slugger Jake Burger to Texas, removing one option the Cubs might have pursued to assure themselves of sufficient power on the infield corners and platoon with Michael Busch. In most cases, you can't afford to kick yourself over every move made without you. The Cubs, as they so often have under Hoyer, are being excruciatingly patient, trying to work the right move and resisting any sense of panic about their ability to work one at all. Right now, though, understanding the pickle they landed in when Bellinger opted in for 2025 and Suzuki adopted this stance about his position and usage, the team needs to find a decisive strike, and soon. As alternative paths to the improvement they need in all four departments of the roster—starting lineup, bench, starting rotation, and bullpen—are foreclosed by other teams and players making their committal choices, the difficulty of doing enough to avoid another season of maddening averageness climbs. Wednesday will be pivotal for the Cubs. If the action slows down again league-wide, they can afford to take a deep breath and continue surveying options. They need to keep some suboptimal but appealing choices ready, though, because if a certain sequence of things unfolds on the final day of the Winter Meetings, they might soon be fighting their way out of a tough corner. View full article

Well, to give my own reporting to it, I feel pretty sure they will stay below the CBT 1 line. But they still have plenty to spend. Think $230 million, in real money not CBT value, and you're close. But yeah, I feel more confident that they're not dipping down into the $215 million range or something than I did before, because I was having a hard time squaring what I was hearing about their willingness to spend with the urgency of their interest in these trade possibilities. This reconciles those two things for me.

One partial, still-valid explanation of the Cubs' somewhat puzzling behavior and messaging this offseason is that they face constraints related to the payroll, imposed by ownership. On Tuesday, another, much more completely explanatory fact came to light. Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images If we're being honest, it didn't make that much sense for the Cubs to take an interest in trading Cody Bellinger this winter. Sure, you could squint and see it, if they really wanted a major shakeup of their positional corps and/or if they believe they need a major infusion of pitching talent but need to stay budget-neutral. On balance, though, it's a confusing reality to which we've all been reconciling ourselves since Bellinger opted in to his deal after the World Series. It seems like Bellinger playing right field, with Seiya Suzuki at DH, Pete Crow-Armstrong in center and Ian Happ in left, was a really nice configuration. We even saw Suzuki find a gorgeous rhythm as the everyday DH down the stretch in 2024, batting .326/.433/.500 in 37 games and 171 plate appearances to finish the season after moving into that role. It's harder than a casual baseball fan might guess to find guys who can thrive as the DH. Suzuki, who was a disastrously bad right fielder beginning in early 2023, made the transition seamlessly, and it seemed like all parties should be fairly comfortable with keeping that good thing going. Now, we can all understand what was happening, and why the team has seemed so unsure of what to do for the last month. Ohhh. If Suzuki didn't like being a DH, it's a lot easier to see why some alternative arrangements would need to be explored. If it was difficult to grasp why the Cubs would want to trade Bellinger under our old understanding of the situation, their recently reported openness to trading Suzuki (and specifically, the idea that they were dead-set on trading one or the other) was downright inscrutable. If one tossed out the idea that they were just being extraordinarily cheap, it was inexplicable. Now, it's extremely explicable. A situation in which Suzuki is unwilling to be the everyday DH is a totally different set of problems than we thought Jed Hoyer was trying to solve. His bat was more than good enough, for the bulk of last season, to write him in at that spot and bring him back, shopping only for the player who might allow him to be clearly second-best in the lineup, rather than its anchor. However, if he feels he has to play the outfield (and, although his agent does not explicitly suggest this to be the case in the above, if he wants out unless he can be given that chance), then the Cubs have to do something big. Trading Bellinger is one solution, because then, Suzuki goes back to right field. Clearing the money owed to Bellinger gets important in a hurry if you think the Cubs have to replace his bat with a DH like Pete Alonso, Anthony Santander, or J.D. Martinez, in addition to spending young talent on further help for the starting rotation. Before that could happen, though, you'd think the Cubs would want some concrete reason to believe that he'll be better there than he was for the last year and a half he spent in that position. Moving Suzuki to left is not an option. Ian Happ has a no-trade clause he's much less likely to waive, and too much of his value comes from his superb defense to obliterate that value by sliding him to DH, all the while risking a big downgrade if the sun of right field turns out not to have been Suzuki's problem. That leaves the possibility of trading Suzuki himself. In light of this new information about his preferences (which sure sound strong), that feels much more plausible than it did a few days ago. Certainly, the team can't keep both Bellinger and Suzuki if the latter is unwilling to be the regular DH from here on out. Suzuki would have more trade value, of course, because he's a better hitter and is on a less expensive, less player-friendly contract. However, he'd also leave a bigger hole in the lineup and force you to do something bigger to replace him. It's a big dilemma, and now, we can well understand why the team has proceeded cautiously all along. This is bad news, I think, because the best version of the 2025 Cubs I foresaw before learning this had Suzuki as the DH almost all the time. Now, it seems like multiple major moves need to be made to get to a version that matches or betters that one. Still, it's enlightening, and thus something of a relief. Why have the Cubs acted a little weird all winter? This is why. And this could explain some of the really exciting possibilities being floated through the rumor mill, as neatly as it explains the more maddening notes. View full article

The Cubs are reportedly interested in the hard-throwing ex-Nationals closer. Based on his profile from 2024, that would be a mistake—but his profile in 2025 doesn't have to look anything like the one from 2024. Image courtesy of © Rafael Suanes-Imagn Images My big problem with Kyle Finnegan is this: dude throws his splitter for strikes too much. It's a strange-sounding complaint, when it first hits your ear (or your eyes, here), but it's legitimate. Last season, almost no one in baseball gave up more hard contact than Finnegan did, and the reason was simple: his splitter (a pitch that must dive and invite chases and rack up whiffs to be maximally effective) just hangs in the zone too much. Only three pitchers who threw at least 100 splitters this season had a higher Called Strike Probability on the pitch, on average, and all three of them were at least able to consistently induce grounders with theirs. Finnegan throws a lot of hittable, in-zone splitters, and while the pitch misses a tolerable number of bats per swing, it also gets hit hard when batters guess right—often, with some air under it. He makes up for this deficiency, principally, with a fastball that sits 97 and touches 99. That pitch can bully hitters and limit hard contact, such that he doesn't give up home runs at a truly calamitous rate. Because the splitter doesn't fool hitters enough or get out of the zone often enough, though, he throws a lot of heat. That limits his upside, because it keeps him to a below-average strikeout rate. Having (functionally) just two pitches and throwing them in this proportion is a recipe for giving up too much contact to be a closer, which is why Finnegan was non-tendered by the Nationals last month. He doesn't have the elite batted-ball profile or the elite command you'd need to see to expect dominance from a pitcher with subpar punchout percentages, and if a guy can't dominate, he shouldn't be a high-leverage reliever. Why, then, am I smiling at the idea of the Cubs signing him? I wasn't, as recently as a few hours ago! What's changed? In short: I looked harder at his slider. Here are Finnegan's pitch movement plots for the last two seasons. His splitter command was pretty shaky in 2024, which surely didn't help with the problem of insufficient whiffs. The more important data, though, are the yellow dots on the left here. Those depict Finnegan's slider, which underwent a huge change last season. In 2023, it was basically a cutter, humming in just under 90 miles per hour with some lift but little glove-side movement. This year, he cut four miles per hour off of it and reshaped it into a true gyro slider, with much greater depth. This pitch is miles better than the former version of itself. Finnegan's slider went from a 95 Stuff+ to a 112 when he made this tweak. His StuffPro and PitchPro numbers on the pitch at Baseball Prospectus (which reclassified the new slider as a sweeper) made a similar leap from 2023 to 2024, almost into elite territory. His breaking ball is a legitimate weapon, now. He just didn't throw it like he knew that. Finnegan commanded the pitch fine and executed it as or more consistently, relative to his splitter. Yet, he didn't ramp up his usage of the slider. I'm not sure why, and the Cubs should get an answer to that question before they commit to him. If he's open to busting out that pitch about three times as often in 2025, though, he could become one of the best relievers in the game, and the team should be all over him, even on a multi-year deal. View full article

Jed Hoyer doesn't shell out prospect hauls for one-year rental stars, any more than he ponies up $300 million for free agent studs. Does that mean you should count the Cubs out if this superstar hits the trade block? Image courtesy of © Troy Taormina-Imagn Images One year ago, the Yankees traded for Juan Soto, giving up a handsome package in exchange for a single season of the services of one of the best hitters of his generation. It was a less daunting deal than it could have been, though, for the simple reason that there was just that one year of control to be had. Soto was, as everyone knew, headed for a highly lucrative free agency, and he and Scott Boras were not going to be dissuaded from that path. That dampened the trade market slightly. For instance, it chased the Cubs away from any serious effort to sign him, before they even considered one. As cautiously as Jed Hoyer approaches huge outlays for top-tier free agents, he's even more reluctant to splurge in the less renewable currency of young talent, by trading top prospects for players over whom he'll have only short-term control. Some players come at a discount because they won't be around long, and such players can hold some appeal for Hoyer and the Cubs, but they're not looking to deal for players at steep prices if they stand to lose them in short order. As the Dodgers eventually did, the team would surely have sought an extension with Tyler Glasnow as a condition of the trade, had they been the ones to pry him away from the Rays last winter. All of that is to say this: If Kyle Tucker of the Astros is not open to an extension this winter in lieu of hitting free agency next fall, then the Cubs are wildly unlikely to acquire him. Reports from the Houston beat at the Winter Meetings indicate that the Astros are lacking clear marching orders from ownership in terms of their 2025 payroll (wonder what that's like, sounds terrible), and that they're open to moving one of Tucker and fellow impending free agent, left-handed starter Framber Valdez. Both players are due significant salaries in their final year of team control, anyway, so moving them would give the team at least a modicum of financial flexibility, but the Astros also have one of the league's worst farm systems, and a blockbuster deal involving either Tucker or Valdez could help them replenish it, This is not, in other words, a Mookie Betts-type situation, where clearing salary will be the sole motivator in a trade and it might be possible to acquire a superstar at a deep discount. Tucker, should be traded, will command a top prospect or two in exchange. Still, it's possible to imagine the Cubs jumping into that fray. Tucker is not a Boras client; he's represented by Excel Sports Management. Quietly, that group can also be tough to hammer out pre-free agency extensions with. They've taken clients like Dansby Swanson, Jason Heyward, George Springer, and Andrew Benintendi all the way to free agency recently. Then again: Dansby Swanson, Jason Heyward. Another couple of Excel clients: Jameson Taillon, Joc Pederson. The Cubs have a solid relationship with that group. Plus, there are counterexamples to the above. Paul Goldschmidt and Pablo López are Excel clients who recently signed extensions with teams shortly after being acquired by those clubs in trades. So, let's imagine Tucker is open to an extension if traded to a team willing to spend big enough to keep him. What would such a deal look like—the trade, and then the contract attached to it? The Astros have a tall, slugging left-handed right fielder who will turn 28 in January; who has made the All-Star team in each of the last three seasons; who owns a Gold Glove Award and a Silver Slugger Award; and who has batted .280/.362/.527 over the last four seasons, with 112 home runs and 80 steals in 91 attempts. He's not Soto, but he's a better player than anyone on the Cubs. In fact, he's better than anyone the Cubs have had since the peaks of Kris Bryant and Javier Báez—but he's younger than Bryant was at that stage of his career, and has a much more well-rounded skill set than Báez did. In short, Tucker will cost whoever trades for him a hefty return. The Cubs' only refuge from the high expected cost is that they might be able to cover part of the value by swapping him out for a similar (though clearly inferior) player. Cody Bellinger has already been linked with the Astros in trade rumors, and while Houston's uncertain payroll situation makes it impossible that they would take on the bulk of Bellinger's contract, the Cubs could offer them a square deal: Bellinger and $15 million, such that they effectively take Tucker at the price of Bellinger and give Houston Bellinger at the price of Tucker. Then, they can add value from there to compensate Houston both for the difference between the projected production of the two players and the risk Houston will assume of Bellinger opting into his 2026 salary. That extra cost wouldn't be small. We're still talking about one player from the top four of the Cubs' top prospects list, and another from the third tier of the system. Houston could get more than that, maybe, from the right buyer without an onerous contract swap to include, and there's always a risk that they would prefer the cleaner deal. The theory here, though, is that Houston would pounce on this structure, because they're not looking to reload, retool, or take a step back in 2025. They want to continue their dominance of the AL West and push toward another World Series; they just acknowledge that they might need to trade one of their soon-to-be-free-agent stars to ensure the staying power of their hegemony. Bellinger is a better player for 2025 than they'd be likely to get from any other suitor in a Tucker trade. There is a clear difference favoring Tucker in terms of projections for 2025. Here are Steamer's forecasts for each: Bellinger: 582 PA, .258/.320/.430, 109 wRC+ Tucker: 669 PA, .276/.366/.510, 148 wRC+ Tucker is also the better defensive right fielder, even if Bellinger is probably the player you'd rather have if forced to use them in center field or at first base. Tucker is the better baserunner, too. There's a substantial gap here. Still, you wouldn't want to give up (say) Matt Shaw and Brandon Birdsell for one year's worth of that upgrade, especially given that you'd take on the heavier financial burden in that one season. Houston could get good talent elsewhere, though, so to get them engaged on a deal that clears Bellinger's money for 2026 and gets you the bump from Bellinger to Tucker in 2025, you'd have to offer a deal at that painfully high level. To justify that, naturally, you'd need to have Tucker not just for one year, but for the long run. Getting Tucker to eschew free agency would be an extremely expensive business. He has just one good comparator In the recent past, as a left-hitting outfielder playing at such a high level from ages 24-27: Christian Yelich, who signed a nine-year deal worth $215 million with the Brewers in early 2020. Yelich, though, was two more years from free agency than was Tucker, thanks to a previous extension signed with the Marlins before he was traded to Milwaukee. We can loosely peg the deal the Cubs might cobble together to the one Yelich signed almost five years ago, but it would have to be scaled up significantly. In all likelihood, a deal that would keep Tucker in Cubbie blue beyond 2025 would end up running 10 years and $340 million. He'd get roughly $16 million in 2025, then $35 million per year for nine more seasons, followed by a mutual option with a bulky buyout to push a little extra money out to the end of the deal. Yelich's contract included deferrals, but Tucker is in a strong position to resist those. The Cubs would have to be willing to go far beyond what they've done for any player in the past. Tucker and his representatives would have to be willing to forego the possibility that the Yankees would give him closer to $450 million one year later. If this all sounds wildly unlikely, you're getting the right idea. Tucker and the Cubs make a smart fit, but an improbable one. The tendencies of the Chicago front office, the fog of uncertainty under which Houston is working, and the multiple player evaluations the two sides would have to match up on make the logistics of a deal difficult. The Yankees might just trade for Tucker, instead, the same way they dealt for Soto last winter. They're not as fussy about keeping control when the opportunity to land a superstar arises as the Cubs are. Still, unless and until moves that preclude this one take place, it'll be worth keeping an eye on the Astros and the Cubs. They make strange but potentially fruitful bedfellows this winter. View full article