Matthew Trueblood

This has to go on your radar. Just don't get your hopes up too high. On the eve of the opening of the 2025 international amateur free agency period, FanGraphs lead prospect writer Eric Longenhagen shared during a radio interview that he heard a tantalizing rumor: the Dodgers might have a deal lined up to send top outfield prospect Josue De Paula to an unidentified team, in exchange for $3 million in spending power in the IFA market. That, of course, would be a major move. In Baseball Prospectus's Top 101 Prospects list released earlier this week, De Paula ranked 9th, right behind fellow Dodgers outfielder (and ex-Cubs draftee) Zyhir Hope. The two are different in profile, but similar in upside, with De Paula having less actualized power right now but (perhaps) an even higher ceiling than Hope. He's a tall, lanky, athletic outfielder with a pretty left-handed swing, and though he won't even turn 20 until late May, he's likely to start the season in High A. He could very well be in Double A for the second half of this year and knocking on the door of the majors by the start of 2026. This is noteworthy for Cubs fans, because if it turns out to be true (and if they were that mystery team), it could explain why they have yet to execute the deals to which they had agreed with several high-ranking members of this international free-agent class, as most other teams have done since it became kosher to do so Wednesday morning. The Cubs' bonus pool (roughly $6.3 million) is just large enough to allow them to trade $3 million to Los Angeles, if they so choose; you're not allowed to trade more than half your pool. The motivation for the move, of course, would be to allow the Dodgers to give more money to Roki Sasaki, and they would only want to do it if they win the bidding for Sasaki. As such, if this wild rumor is true, we won't hear more about it until Sasaki signs, and then only if he signs with LA. This bears watching, though, because De Paula is (obviously) a far better prospect than anyone the Cubs could sign with those dollars, and would immediately become the team's top prospect. Adding him (at a level of the farm at which they don't have as much quality depth) would also make it a bit easier for the team to part with one or more of their prospects much closer to the majors, in a separate deal to bolster their big-league roster. View full rumor

The bread crumbs are piling up on the path. We're right on top of the truth here. Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy appeared on the Mully and Haugh Show on 670 The Score Wednesday morning, and when the hosts asked him about who he thought might close for the team in 2025, he laughed. "I love that we're at January 15th, and it's like, 'Who's the closer?'" Hottovy said. He did then hem and haw a bit, but he finally landed on his real sentiments here: "I think if we sat here today and said our team is a finished product, we'd be doing us and everybody else a disservice. We're still very active in trying to raise our floor, especially in the bullpen." In other words, whatever fatalism you've encountered about the team standing pat and leaving their roster underpowered for the fight to reclaim the NL Central, don't give into it. Hottovy did go on to praise Porter Hodge and the job he did late in 2024, but if the team were even half-seriously considering having Hodge be their relief ace this season, that would have been at the top of Hottovy's mind when asked the question. It was, instead, an afterthought. Hottovy confidently expects the team to add a significant back-end reliever, and while he talked explicitly about the floor for the pen, the move he's hinting at would do just as much for their ceiling. Jed Hoyer did a sit-down interview with David Kaplan and Gordon Wittenmyer Wednesday, too, and when asked about their remaining designs for the offseason, he explicitly said both that the team is "not done," and that their focus is primarily on the bullpen and the bench. He mentioned being active in both the trade market and free agency, but in a sharp contrast with his remarks earlier this winter, he leaned toward the latter in his tone and his answers. Put those puzzle pieces together, and the picture you'll end up with is clear: the Cubs expect to sign one of the big remaining free-agent relievers, with Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates and Kyle Finnegan as the most obvious candidates. We've written at length about each of those hurlers, so for more details, click here, here, here, or here. In short, though, any of those three could be very strong closers, and the only real drawback to any of them is that they're likely to come with a substantial price tag. That's not as great a drawback for the Cubs as it might be for others, though, because they have money to spend and relatively few other good ways to use it. The Cubs don't believe their closer for the coming season is currently in their organization. It's hard to read that as anything but good news. If it does turn out to be a trade that fills that need, there are good players who could fit, too—guys like San Diego's Robert Suarez (more on that possibility here), Minnesota's Jhoan Durán, or Tampa's Pete Fairbanks. In the fact that they still intend to upgrade the top of their pitching depth chart, we can see evidence that they understand they sold themselves short in previous seasons. When building the team for 2023 and 2024, they didn't invest enough in contingency plans, on either side of the roster sheet. Hoyer sounds resolute about doing better this time. He promised to take a different approach to building the pen at his end-of-season press conference, and he's one relief ace from delivering on that promise. Already having added Eli Morgan and Caleb Thielbar to the big-league mix and snagging some promising non-roster invitees, he's created better depth in the relief and starting units. A closer would make good on all that work. Finally, we should attend to the fact that Hoyer sounded equally committed to improving his bench, rather than having any of their top prospects cast in bench roles in Chicago. That points in the same direction as the desire to add a closer—toward an understanding that they have to construct a deeper roster than they have in the past. It's worth watching over the next several days, because it's unlikely that this process will drag out as much as the team's courtship of Cody Bellinger last winter. In the next fortnight, we should expect to see the team add two key pieces to round out a contending roster for the coming season. View full article

Is he as sexy as a two-time All-Star with 25-homer power? No. But he's probably a much better fit. Image courtesy of © Brad Penner-Imagn Images In a perfect world, the Cubs would sign Alex Bregman this month, as he accepts the reality that no long-term deal is forthcoming and becomes more open to a short-term one with player options attached. They'd create a few small problems for themselves, like giving up draft capital and international free-agent bonus allotments (plus needing to move another player's salary, to keep space open for further pitching investments), but that would be a fun way to finish off a promising but not yet thrilling overall offseason. Alas, this is no perfect world, and it's still more likely that Bregman lands with one of the powerhouses out east—the Mets, the Red Sox, or the Yankees, all of whom could (in various ways) fit him into their roster with one or two fewer hiccups. Meanwhile, with the money they do have left to spend, the Cubs seem more focused on bolstering their pitching staff, and with good reason. Who, then, would be the right fit on a much lower-dollar free-agent deal, to give the team the depth and versatility they still need on the bench? I'll give you a hint: Like Bregman, he owns two World Series rings. Enrique Hernández isn't an especially good player anymore. That's ok. He's also not a bad player; his utility depends more on the needs of the team who signs him than anything else. If you need a starter, or a player with dynamism and upside, Hernández is not a good fit. If, however, you need an absolute gem of a teammate who can also play plus defense at multiple positions, moonlight at even the toughest places on the diamond, and hit just a little when the lights get bright, then he's perfect. He'll turn 34 this August, and since the start of 2022, he's batted just .230/.287/.356, making him something like 20 percent worse than an average hitter. He used to be more patient and have more power, but those skills have faded. He does make contact at a solid rate, but hot streaks and grind-it-out at-bats are getting rare for him. When called upon, though, Hernández plays his very best defense at third base, where he might be most useful to the 2025 Cubs. He can still get by in center field or at shortstop, on a short-term basis, and he's solid at second base or in either outfield corner. Plus, when October comes, he lights up like a jack-o'-lantern. He has a career .874 postseason OPS, and that hasn't fallen off even as his overall performance has declined. Beloved with the Dodgers, Hernández left for a bit as a free agent, but has been back there the last year and a half, and it was widely assumed he'd like to return there again this winter. Now, though, they've added Hyeseong Kim to their infield, committed to playing Mookie Betts there, and still have Miguel Rojas, Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernández, Michael Conforto and Andy Pages. There's no obvious place for Hernández on their projected roster; he might have to seek a new home again. The Cubs would be a perfect fit. They're an upstart team with a good mix of veterans with whom Hernández figures to have much in common and younger players on whom he might be a positive influence. They need someone who can step in if catastrophe strikes, in the form of Matt Shaw being unable to make the major adjustments left before him fast enough to succeed in MLB as a rookie, and a backup center fielder for Pete Crow-Armstrong. Hernández also brings a little bit of something else the team currently seems to lack: a good-natured red-ass intensity, coupled with some earned swagger. It's becoming a tiresome refrain, I know, but the Cubs still have a lot of options for finishing off their winter shopping well enough to enter the season as heavy favorites in the NL Central and viable competitors with at least some of the NL's Big Five. They have to spend some money or some young talent to add top-tier talent to their pitching staff, but when it comes to the position players, they can afford to prioritize fit, cost, and intangibles, unless a better opportunity presents itself. The lingering possibility that Bregman might fall into their laps has slowed the front office's move toward any commitment to that 10th regular or first bench role, but if he goes elsewhere, Hernández should get the team's first call. View full article

After the Cubs hired Tread Athletic's Tyler Zombro as a pitching guru early this offseason, you had to figure they would take special interest in some of the clients of that development facility this winter. Tread is a competitor to Driveline, more or less—a place pitchers can go to revive and reinvent their careers, and Zombro played a prominent role in that endeavor before joining the Cubs front office. Sure enough, after Tread held a public Pro Day to showcase some of their pro-caliber clients, the Cubs were one of the first teams to snap up a promising arm. This kind of deal will absolutely be a minor-league one, and probably not even with an initial invite to big-league spring training. Goldmann's progress and the arsenal described above are awfully impressive, though, so he'll be a project worth monitoring as he tries to find a foothold in pro ball with the Cubs in 2025. Zombro was hired for the expertise he can directly provide, but if the organization also becomes a bit more appealing to some Tread alumni in the short term, so much the better. View full rumor

The potency of the 2025 Chicago Cubs' lineup hinges quite a bit on the power production they're hoping to get from their new right fielder. Can they actually count on it? Image courtesy of © Troy Taormina-Imagn Images Kyle Tucker was a very, very good hitter even before 2024. From 2021-23, he emerged as a superstar, with a .278/.353/.517 batting line and an average of 30 home runs per season. If he had merely reproduced those numbers last year, he would still have been a perfect target for the Cubs when the Astros decided to trade Tucker before he hits free agency. Instead, though, he went a little crazy—albeit in just half a season. In a campaign truncated by a broken shin, Tucker hit .289/.408/.585. He swatted 23 home runs in 78 games, putting him on pace for well over 40. It was a power breakout that, in one sense, makes a lot of sense; plenty of very good hitters have become truly great sometime around age 27. That the forward leap would come in the form of a power surge was only natural. Was that newfound pop sustainable, though? That's the only relevant question now, as the Cubs turn their attention toward 2025. If Tucker becomes the first left-handed batter to hit 40 homers while calling Wrigley Field home since Billy Williams did it in 1970, the Cubs are going places. If he hits 25 in a full season, the picture is a lot muddier. The first thing you might want to know, if you're trying to forecast Tucker's power output, is this: only free agents Anthony Santander and Enrique Hernández had a bigger difference between their raw home run total and their xHR (expected homers, based on the balls they hit that had any chance of becoming a homer, anywhere) than Tucker's. He hit 23 homers, sure, but he only had 16.7 xHR. I'm highly skeptical of data like these, but there's a threshold beyond which they become compelling, and Tucker is beyond that threshold. He missed half the season, but he pointedly did not miss the Mexico City Series between Houston and the Rockies, when the extreme elevation of that venue turned two well-struck but lazy fly balls Tucker hit into long homers. As you know, he also played in a very hitter-friendly home park, which I'll call continue to call The Juice Box until we can all agree on a non-corporate name for it, and that helped him further outperform his expected slugging production. However, you might also want to know this: According to Statcast, this batted ball would have left just one park in MLB, but that park is Wrigley Field. R1pSUG9fV0ZRVkV3dEdEUT09X0RnRlhCUUFDQkFzQVdRUlVWZ0FBQVZSZkFBTlJXbElBQ2xWWFV3UldBZ1pYQkFGUw==.mp4 And you might also care to know that the same is true of this fly ball. MVlEZDlfWGw0TUFRPT1fQjFkVlVsWldVRk1BV2xRRUJ3QUFWQU5VQUFOUVd3UUFVVk5YQlFVR0F3b0dVUU5m.mp4 This one would have left a whopping two parks: Wrigley and Shea-Under-the-Airport in New York (I'm not using corporate names for stadia today; not sure why). WGczVjNfWGw0TUFRPT1fQkZjRUFWVlZBZ3NBREFkWFVBQUFDRlVEQUZnQUJsY0FCRklHVmxaVUFWVlNWZ1pY.mp4 This one would have left both in Lakeview and in Chavez Ravine, but nowhere else. b25lS1dfWGw0TUFRPT1fVlZOU0JnVUZWUUlBWEZGUlZBQUFVbFFFQUFOUldsY0FDbE5YQ1ZZQ0J3dFZWZ0VG.mp4 Now, again, I'm a skeptic about these claims by Statcast, and I invite you to share in that skepticism. Their estimates of whether the ball would leave the park claim to incorporate the trajectory of the ball, but the other factors they name are the distance it traveled, the distance to the walls of all 30 parks to that specific angle, and the heights of those walls. I believe the last three, but am slightly dubious of the claim that trajectory is fully accounted for—and they don't even pretend to account for the weather or the exit velocity of the ball or the tendencies of the ball to carry well or poorly to various parts of the field in various venues. So, would all of these really have landed in the basket in left-center? I'm not sure. It probably depends on the weather, and we just saw a whole year of unfriendly weather for hitters at Wrigley. On the other hand, though Statcast doesn't think this ball would have left any stadium in the league, I think it probably leaves Wrigley. TndlNGtfWGw0TUFRPT1fQndNQUFsUU1BZ0FBQ2dFS1ZnQUFVQVJRQUZsWFYxUUFCd01GVkFBTkNRY0JCQUJU.mp4 You get the point. Tucker might have gotten lucky and found some power down the lines last year that he won't find when playing at home in 2025, but only half the games are at home; the other NL Central parks (especially Milwaukee and Cincinnati) seem very inviting for his power; and he has an abundance of power to left-center field, the very place where Wrigley is most hitter-friendly. In this admittedly flawed analysis, there's room for both optimism and pessimism about his dinger count for the coming year. Let's do some more robust analysis, though. Where, exactly, did Tucker find his power increase in 2024? If it was a conscious change of approach, maybe we can infer that it has some staying power. If (on the other hand) it was just a matter of getting a bit lucky and hitting in conducive environments, we should prepare for heavy regression as he joins the Cubs. Here's a pair of charts showing Tucker's average exit velocities and launch angles by pitch location for 2023. This is about what you'd expect to see. Tucker hit the ball hard when it was down the middle, and when it was either up and away or low and in. Most lefty batters' charts for exit velocity look like that. Most hitters, too, lift the ball when it's high in the zone and when it's inside, but tend to hit grounders more often on pitches low and/or away, which shows up in the average launch angle for each spot. This is a snapshot of a very good hitter with a standard-issue contact profile, based on location. Here's the same pair of charts for 2024. Aha! There's been a major change here. Tucker dedicated himself much more to lifting the ball in 2024, and in particular, look how hard he hit pitches low and in (and how successfully he lifted them). That's not normal, and it requires a conscious adjustment. Taking pitches in the lower inside corner of the zone and those outside the zone down and in as one big group, you can see a huge change in Tucker's contact profile in 2024. This approach was only undertaken for one half-season, disrupted by an injury suffered when Tucker fouled a ball hard off his own leg—a vicious swing on a misplaced Kyle Gibson cutter, down and in. He might not stick to that approach in 2025, out of self-preservation or because it wouldn't have stuck, anyway. If it does, though, then there's a full-fledged slugger here, with that very real 40-homer upside. Tucker has another level, above the one we've seen to date (at least over a full season), and Wrigley Field might help him attain it. View full article

ESPN published its Sunday Night Baseball schedule for the first third of the season on Wednesday, and the Cubs show up twice on the docket. They'll visit the Dodgers on Apr. 13, and then host the Phillies under the Wrigley Field lights on Apr. 27. The Mets and Dodgers will, unsurprisingly, show up four times in this early phase of the season, as ESPN chases the ratings delivered by the likes of Juan Soto and Shohei Ohtani. The Padres and Phillies are each listed three times already, and the Cubs join the Yankees and the team from Cobb County in Georgia as clubs who will appear twice in this first segment of the season. The matchup with the Phillies is especially juicy. Depending on how the first month goes, that could well be a matchup that testa the early success of an upstart Cubs team against a team with three straight playoff appearances, and one whom they might be battling for Wild Card position by the end of the season. While I don't have ESPN, I love when the Cubs are on Sunday nights, as it affords an opportunity to tune in either to Pat Hughes or to Boog Sciambi (who calls those Sunday night games on ESPN Radio) and not to feel pressured to watch on TV. Baseball is still good on the radio, but the modern environment often tells us we missed something if we merely listened to a game. Here are two instances where I'll have no choice; I look forward to them. View full rumor

The juicy rumor du jour came from Bruce Levine Tuesday evening. The Cubs are in touch with Scott Boras, and whenever that happens, things have a chance to get weird. Image courtesy of © Thomas Shea-Imagn Images It is, on one level, incredibly simple. Don't overthink this. One of these potential lineups is much better than the other. Current Lineup # Lineup w/ Bregman Ian Happ 1 Ian Happ Seiya Suzuki 2 Seiya Suzuki Kyle Tucker 3 Kyle Tucker Dansby Swanson 4 Alex Bregman Michael Busch 5 Michael Busch Nico Hoerner 6 Dansby Swanson Matt Shaw 7 Matt Shaw Pete Crow-Armstrong 8 Pete Crow-Armstrong Miguel Amaya 9 Miguel Amaya If the Cubs were to sign Alex Bregman to a short-term, high-dollar deal, they'd achieve the formidable top half of the lineup they've been chasing for years, and they'd still have youth, athleticism, and defense throughout the team. Whatever concerns some might have about his tough first half in 2024, Bregman remains one of the most balanced hitters in baseball, capable of controlling the strike zone as well as anyone while still producing average-plus power. Even a fully healthy and functional Nico Hoerner is not as good a player as Bregman, and we don't know to what extent we can expect to see the fully healthy and functional Hoerner in 2025. Notably, though, this move would mean getting rid of Hoerner, which is a complication in and of itself. We've already discussed at length where the Cubs stand financially and why they might need to be careful as they go about spending the rest of their budget, so you already know the drill: if they sign Bregman, they're likely to trade Hoerner to make financial room for him. That wouldn't be because they can't afford both players, but rather, because they still fully intend to upgrade their pitching staff, and they can't afford Bregman, Hoerner and that missing, high-end arm on the budget the Ricketts family has imposed upon them. Even that is a slight oversimplification. Because of the positional fit, trading Hoerner is the most immediately obvious option, but the Cubs do have enough pitching depth to consider trading Jameson Taillon instead, then replacing him with a higher-octane arm using the money they free up. That's a lot of moving parts in a system that doesn't demand the changes, though. What about the possibility of trading Seiya Suzuki, after all? I'm not necessarily advocating this. Suzuki is almost as good a hitter as Bregman, and losing him would diminish the team's lineup, even after adding Kyle Tucker and Bregman. It's theoretically viable, though, if they can find the right trade partner. Moving Suzuki would resolve whatever tension exists over the fact that he's penciled in as the DH this year, and it would let the team rotate Bregman, Ian Happ, Tucker, and others through that DH spot, maintaining fluidity and positional flexibility. Hoerner and his defensive and baserunning value could stick around, and they would have much more functional infield depth. The paths to eventual playing time for Kevin Alcántara, James Triantos, Moises Ballesteros or Owen Caissie would open. Trading Suzuki to make room for Bregman would be a risky move. I'm reasonably confident that it would mark an upgrade, though, because of the options it would open up for the team. A lot of things have to fall right to make it make sense—Bregman actually being interested in joining the Cubs, on a palatable deal; a good destination being found for Suzuki; a right-priced pitcher being available to spend the budget space created by the Suzuki trade on—but it might be the way the team balances their desire to make way for their top position-player prospects with their desire to be a very good or great team in 2025, rather than a merely good one. View full article

We've discussed this as a remote but fascinating possibility all winter. Now that it's mid-January, those vague possibilities are taking on more definite forms. Alex Bregman and the Chicago Cubs could end up turning to one another in a moment of need as the endgame of the offseason sets in, according to 670 The Score's Bruce Levine. The specific structure that Levine mentions is a three-year deal with opt-outs after each season, akin to the deals signed by Matt Chapman and Cody Bellinger last winter, and by Carlos Correa prior to the 2022 season. The Cubs aren't interested in a long-term Bregman commitment, Levine reported, but would be open to some version of this deal. They're just one of a handful of places where Bregman might land if he fully embraces the idea of such a contract, and there's still no guarantee that he will end up doing so, but you can start to see how this would work. Bregman could play second base very early in the season, with Nico Hoerner (perhaps) still recovering from his offseason forearm surgery. He and Matt Shaw would cover for Hoerner as needed, and the Cubs would also be relieved of their dependence on the risky proposition of handing the rookie Shaw a full-time gig right away. Bregman's skill set is well-rounded, and he'd fit gorgeously between Kyle Tucker and Michael Busch in the lineup. All that is easy to grasp. There are some complications, though. Doing this might require the team to move money from elsewhere on the roster, in order to make room for the expensive, high-ceiling pitching help they still need. Bregman is unlikely to sign for an AAV even as low as Bellinger's $26.7 million, so there would be wrinkles to smooth out even if this came to fruition. Nonetheless, it's an enticing option. View full rumor

Much in need of a utility man with athleticism and upside, the Cubs have been linked with the cash-strapped Twins and their out-of-nowhere All-Star. For multiple reasons, though, they should turn their attention south instead. Image courtesy of © Jim Cowsert-Imagn Images Two years ago, the Minnesota Twins caught a huge break. The then-backward Detroit Tigers non-tendered talented but frustrating utility man Willi Castro in November 2022, paving the way for Minnesota to swoop in and sign him to a minor-league deal. Castro, then 25, hit a messy .241/.284/.367 in 392 plate appearances for the 2022 Tigers, and that adjective isn't just a euphemism for 'bad'. Castro was obviously talented, with a plus arm, plus speed, average-plus defense at multiple positions, the ability to hit the ball over 111 miles per hour, and a feel for hitting it on a line. His approach, however, was a literal mess. He swung at everything, and it interfered with his talent so badly that the Tigers gave up on him. After signing him to a non-roster deal but squeezing him in quickly, the Twins immediately fixed that. They got him making much better swing decisions, and the results followed perfectly. For the last two seasons, Castro has been a high-volume, average-plus hitter, to go with his valuable legs and glovework. At first, Castro gave up some of his aggressiveness within the zone in order to avoid expanding it, but as you can see, he even reclaimed some of that in 2024. He's still chaotic, as a player, but he's no longer truly messy, and his numbers are downright pretty. One of the league's most versatile defenders, he's a perfect Cubs target, because he could be the injury stopgap for Nico Hoerner, the insurance policy for Matt Shaw, and a capable backup and rest provider for Pete Crow-Armstrong, all at once. As the offseason has progressed, an increasing number of denizens of the Cubs-loving internet have begun pining for Castro. Alas, the window to get him might have already closed. Initially reported to be fairly desperate to cut salary, the Twins now seem to be in a more comfortable situation. They could trade Castro, but it doesn't seem like they truly have to. Getting him would probably be annoyingly (and therefore prohibitively) expensive, un;ess he were enfolded in a larger trade that also included one of Pablo López, Griffin Jax, or Jhoan Durán—and at that point, we're really stretching toward fantasyland. Besides, Castro becomes a free agent this fall. That's no dealbreaker; it's fine if he merely rounds out the positional side of the roster for one season and then hits the market. However, it would be nice to find a player who could be acquired more cheaply than Castro—not to save money, though it would do that, too, but to avoid forking over the young talent Castro would cost—and who would be around longer than he will be. He's such a good fit, though. It would be hard to find someone else who checked the same boxes, right? Well, yes. But we found one anyway. Ezequiel Durán is almost exactly the same age Castro was two years ago. Castro turned 26 in April after signing with the Twins; Durán will turn 26 in May. He's coming off a season in which he hit a messy .246/.288/.321, but he, too, has shown the capacity to hit the ball very hard; is a plus runner and defender; and can play all over the diamond. Like Castro in 2022, his problem so far is a consistent track record of swinging way, way too much. That chase rate on pitches outside the zone, hovering around 40%, is one of the highest in the league, and sometimes, hitters simply can't fix that. In this case, though, it's hard to ignore the fact that Castro was having the same problem at the same stage of his career—and then almost instantly fixed it. The Rangers were not as foolhardy as the Tigers this fall; they didn't cut bait on Durán. Before you heap them with praise, though, know that it's really only because he's yet to hit arbitration eligibility. Durán has four years of team control remaining, and he can still be optioned to the minor leagues for one more year. The Rangers really don't need him, though. They have Marcus Semien and Corey Seager on the middle infield; Josh Jung and Josh Smith at third base, with Smith an exceptionally versatile utility option, to boot; and a full complement of dynamic starting outfielders, with the athletic Leody Taveras available to back up all three. They even have extra depth on the 40-man roster at the spots where Durán is most valuable. He's not in line for much playing time in Texas. Therefore, the Cubs should try to pull their own swoop, offering the Rangers a prospect or two or one of their bevy of depth arms to realign some things and snare Durán. Whether he'll ultimately turn out to be as adaptable and savvy as Castro or not is tough to forecast, but Durán's tools are extremely comparable, and he's a controllable player with youth and the suite of skills the Cubs need most. When you identify a player you'd like a team to trade for, it's often advisable to pivot away from them and find the guy most likely to become the next version of him, instead. This just might be one of those times. View full article

Do you have a strong opinion on how his pitches should be classified? I keep circling back to that, and I suspect not even he is sure right now, because the shapes and speeds have changed so much since he entered the org. There's even a fairly legit case for classifying his fastball as a cutter, which I guess would push the harder breaker to slider and the other to curve..? It's weird.

PECOTA (111 DRA-, -0.1 WARP, 18.6% K, 34% GB) hates him, too, doesn't think he'll miss enough bats and that he'll give up too many fly balls. I think there's a case to be made that his pitch mix changes altered that even within this season, in a way the projections won't catch because of the noise created by older results info? But yeah. There's a chance I'm on an island here, or that me and Jason are, at least. Haha.

When we talk about what shapes the 2025 Cubs' starting rotation might take, there's one player we talk about far too infrequently. He should be higher on prospect lists already, and his stock could rise sharply this spring. Image courtesy of © Mattie Neretin / USA TODAY NETWORK After being a fifth-round pick in 2022 out of Texas Tech, Brandon Birdsell didn't officially make his debut in the Chicago Cubs farm system until 2023. Since doing so, though, he's done nothing but affirm the team's faith in him, and as they've counseled him on some ways to rebuild and adjust his repertoire, he's added polish. Birdsell has made 50 professional starts and pitched 243 innings, with a 3.41 ERA and solid strikeout (22.8%) and walk (6.2%) rates. He made 18 starts for High-A South Bend, then 20 for Double-A Tennessee (spanning 2023-24), and he took the ball 12 times for Triple-A Iowa to finish 2024. Birdsell's best stats came in the highest league, despite the hitter-friendly strike zone and ballparks of the International League. He's showed flashes of brilliance, touching 97 miles per hour seven times and comfortably sitting 95 even as he set a new personal high for innings pitched in a season. The fastball has an unusual shape, one the Cubs have partially effected: Rather than focused on riding, rising action, it's more of a cut-ride pitch, boring in on left-handed batters more than they expect such a hard pitch to do. It's a right-handed answer to Justin Steele's similar (but slower) heater. Birdsell also has a cutterish slider and a hard curveball, with the former offering sitting in the upper 80s with good vertical separation from the fastball and the latter down in the low 80s, with even more depth. He even sprinkled in a changeup with good arm-side run while with Iowa, though he doesn't command that pitch especially well. Think of the above graphic as being from the batter's perspective. Birdsell pitches from a fairly vanilla three-quarters slot, but uses a modestly deceptive short-arm delivery, so that fastball can be remarkably tough to distinguish from the slider and curve (shown above as a cutter and slider; I disagree with Brooks Baseball about their classifications in this case). Birdsell isn't yet especially consistent with his vertical release point, but he doesn't give away any of his offerings by changing his arm action or release point noticeably for one of them. I'm not here to tell you that Birdsell will run a 2.50 ERA and strike out 10 batters per game, or anything. For one thing, I'm not yet sold on the big-league utility of the changeup, and without that, he might need another pitch or a change in the relationship between speed and movement on that hard slider/cutter. A bit of a sweeper would be a good way to attack righties, but lefties could vex him if he doesn't corral the change, unless he can locate the heater to all quadrants and maintain enough velocity not to get hit hard when he uses the outer half with that pitch to set up the bigger breaking ball. However, I think Birdsell has upside few have properly grasped, and is very close to realizing it. He could yet be trade bait this winter, but assuming he's still around, I wouldn't be at all surprised if he got the call to the Cubs before fellow 2022 Draft prize Cade Horton. Birdsell will turn 25 in March. He's built up naturally and nicely, in terms of workload, and he's already spent almost half a season in Triple A. I think he can be a mid-rotation starter almost right away—certainly by the second half of 2025, should injuries or poor performance force him to be called upon. Birdsell's viability should give the Cubs extra confidence about trading any of Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks, Ben Brown, or Horton, if the right trade option is out there. Other teams are unlikely to value Birdsell the same way the Cubs (presumably) do, since they've got him throwing a set of pitch shapes that they love and several other teams hate. At least 10 other pitchers at various levels of the Cubs organization get more attention, but I think Birdsell could be the surprise impact guy for the coming season. View full article

Tuesday brought the release of Baseball Prospectus's 2025 Top 101 Prospects, an annual source of intrigue for those who love tracking the progress of the farm system. This year's will both excite and frustrate some fans. The two highest-ranking prospects with Cubs ties here are Zyhir Hope (No. 8 ) and Cam Smith (No. 20), whom the team traded for Michael Busch and Kyle Tucker, respectively. Then again, BP is going to end up much higher on Hope (and a bit higher on Smith) than anyone else, and the good news begins thereafter. Matt Shaw comes in at No. 25, making him the highest-ranking prospect on this list to be penciled into the Cubs lineup for a coming season in recent memory. It's a good reminder that he's a legitimately excellent prospect and a solid choice for third base. After that, three Cubs cluster into the back quarter of the list: Moises Ballesteros, No. 73 Owen Caissie, No. 77 Cade Horton, No. 85 These guys are lower here than on some other lists you've likely seen recently, but the rankings feel fair. At the same time, they're obviously not gospel. FanGraphs's list of the top Cubs prospects lists Kevin Alcánatara second, behind only Shaw, which is a good reminder of the volatility and room for debate around all of these players. The Cubs don't have an elite farm system, but they sure do have a collection of intriguing players in the uppermost levels of the minors. View full rumor

The crew here at North Side Baseball is always trying to serve you content, even beyond our written work. Here's a roundup of three recent podcasts on the state of the Cubs at this critical juncture of the winter. Image courtesy of Matt Trueblood via Spotify for Podcasters Firstly, late last week, three-fourths of the crew of the This is Not a Rebuild Cubs podcast convened to discuss the team's oddly eventful week, albeit at a frustratingly unclear moment in the progress of the hot stove season. It began as a rumination on the possibilities for how they can still upgrade the roster, and why the offseason in MLB works so differently from that of the NBA and NFL. After the random Cub of the week, though, it veered into a new direction: a lament about this organization's maddening failure to establish long-term competitiveness. When will it change?! On Sunday night, I also recorded an appearance with Paul "Crawly" Dzien for 670 The Score's "Fly the W" podcast. Crawly and I talked about the nuances of the team's payroll situation, why they haven't yet made that second big move this winter, and why I remain firm in my expectation that they will. The pull quote, though, is one of the last things I said: "If the team doesn't make another big move before Opening Day, then, yes, they have failed you, as Cubs fans." Finally, check out the latest episode of Bricks Behind the Ivy, from our very own @CandidCubs. This week, he brought on Brewer Fanatic writer Jake McKibbin, to study and dissect the ways the Cubs currently match up with the two-time defending champions from Milwaukee. It's a jam-packed episode. It's the deepest part of the winter, and we can sometimes get lost in the sauce when we sit and mull and type and read, all with our eyes alone. It's good to get some human voices involved in the conversation at this complex stage of things; digest one or two of these and keep yourself grounded and warm while you await that next big Cubs move. View full article