Matthew Trueblood

The Chicago Bears hired Ben Johnson as their new head coach Monday afternoon. It's a good reminder to Cubs fans that they also have a much-prized leader in their dugout, and that the team's ceiling might be set in part by a reshaped coaching staff, in addition to their raw talent. Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images It's not apples-to-apples, of course. Neither a manager nor a hitting coach nor a pitching coach can have as great a direct and easily traceable impact on a team's efficacy in baseball as can a head coach or coordinator in football. When the Cubs hired Craig Counsell 14 months ago, though, their hope was that he would engender better performances from his players than David Ross had from his, and that the team could pair continued increases in talent with improvements that go a bit beyond baseline talent level. Even when a manager and coaching staff have such an impact, it's harder to see in baseball than in football, and it's hard to say whether Counsell and his slapdash group did so in 2024. They rebuilt a portion of that staff this winter, though, and it's fairly clear that they believe the changes are for the better. While they've also augmented the roster and will continue to do so, they want to see players outperform their projections, too, and some of that depends on great coaches. Hence the investment they've made, not only in Counsell, but in new faces Quintin Berry, Jose Javier, and last year's top adds, Ryan Flaherty and Mark Strittmatter. They promoted Casey Jacobson from the player-development group to join that field staff, but have backfilled there by hiring Tyler Zombro, and they've also added key voices Matt Talarico and Jerry Weinstein to the front office as player development specialists. The common thread—with Berry, Javier, Talarico, and Weinstein, especially—is not a relationship with Counsell, but an emphasis on excellent execution of the little things. These hires reflect a new dedication to being better at positioning defenders, especially in the outfield; running the bases, especially taking advantage of the rules changes that happened in 2023; and pitch framing. Meanwhile, replacing the departed Daniel Moskos with Jacobson as the lieutenant to Tommy Hottovy is designed to ensure that the team continues to get a bit more out of seemingly low-ceiling pitchers than the numbers forecast. Is any of this an excuse not to spend money, or for the Cubs not to further improve their roster via trades or free agency in the next month? By no means. Because the Ricketts family sets too tight a budget for the front office to bring in sufficient talent to dominate the division or threaten the Mets or Dodgers, though, they do need to be more than the sum of their parts—or at least, more than the apparent sum based on uncertain evaluations of each individual part. That's an important thing to keep in mind in the weeks ahead. We know that the team hired Javier and Talarico to port the Yankees' innovations in base-stealing to a younger, faster club, and that tells us that if they can get Pete Crow-Armstrong on base a bit more, they're going to ask him to steal more than 50 bases. Crow-Armstrong and Miguel Amaya were last year's most obvious wins for the trio of hitting coaches (Dustin Kelly, Juan Cabreja, and John Mallee), but not the only ones, and that group will also be tasked with smoothing out the transition for Matt Shaw as he joins the big-league team. Amaya and Carson Kelly will be expected to improve and excel defensively, not only because Kelly has a reputation as a strong defender anyway, but because Strittmatter and Weinstein are in the fold specifically to upgrade their infrastructure in that department. Counsell, Hottovy and Jacobson will be asked to sift quickly through a ton of options for their pitching staff this spring, and then to position high-upside hurlers like Ben Brown and Nate Pearson to have the greatest possible impact. The Brewers have beaten the Cubs out for two straight division titles, and have been the most successful team in the NL Central over the last seven years. Most of that was under Counsell, and none of it was because they had the most raw talent in the division. On the contrary, Milwaukee dominated partially through superb coaching. Their hitting department is underrated. Pitching coach Chris Hook has enjoyed a good tenure with trusted lieutenants, just like Hottovy, and his staffs have overachieved. They were, arguably, the best team in baseball at teaching pitch framing and at positioning defenders over the last several campaigns. The Cubs needed to close that gap, just as they needed to close the one between the two teams in talent in 2021 and 2022. By hiring Counsell away and bolstering his staff this winter, they've done much of that work. We'll see whether that shows up on the field in 2025, but it will be harder to judge it than it will be to tell whether the front office gave them good enough players to work with in the first place. View full article

We've talked about the Cubs being near their limit for sheer depth options at the fringes of their bullpen, but apparently, they're not quite there yet. On Monday afternoon, they agreed to bring aboard a high-slot changeup specialist who could fit into a situational role near the bottom of their depth chart. Image courtesy of © Jesse Johnson-Imagn Images This move won't make anyone less hungry for a true relief ace, but as the Cubs try hard to avoid the depth shortfalls that exposed and cost them in the first half of 2024, they took another small step toward safety Monday by signing right-handed reliever Trevor Richards. Aram Leighton of Just Baseball broke the news. Richards's fastball is a fairly pedestrian offering, averaging 92 miles per hour. It has a lot of carry at the top of the zone, but from his overhand slot, it doesn't generate much deception or induce many swings and misses. The key to his two-pitch attack, though, is that changeup, with lots of depth and a bit of run to the arm side, to boot. When he's going well, Richards does pile up strikeouts, because the changeup is a swing-and-miss pitch. He nearly always walks more batters than you'd like, though, and of his seven big-league seasons, only 2021 saw him actually run a good ERA and consistently get hitters out. He's a limited pitcher who must be used carefully, but he does have reverse platoon splits, somewhat like erstwhile Cubs middle reliever Mark Leiter Jr. They're funky splits, though. Here are his career numbers: vs. RHH: .248/.320/.432, 26.5% K, 9.2% BB vs. LHH: .221/.315/.372, 24.1% K, 11.8% BB In other words, across samples of more than 1,000 batters faced from each side, Richards has been reliably better against lefties—but he's struck out more and walked fewer against righties. It's only against lefties that he seems able to limit quality of contact. That's bizarre, and helps explain why he's struggled more than he's thrived throughout his career. If Richards makes the roster, he could eventually be some version of what Leiter was for the Cubs, but the ceiling feels lower. In the meantime, he faces a long climb to make the team at all. This is a nice pickup and camp check-in, lest the team can unlock something for him the way they did with Leiter. It's not the big addition they still need to make to their bullpen, though. It only further crowds the competition for the final spot or two on the Opening Day roster. View full article

Sunday's news was a double whammy for the Cubs, who wanted Tanner Scott as the anchor of their bullpen and had built a portion of their spending plan for the balance of the winter around him. Do they still have good ways to use financial flexibility to get better? Image courtesy of © Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images It's always important to remember that spending money is not an end unto itself, unless you're trying to get rid of many so people stop asking you hard questions. (Hello, Marlins and A's.) The Cubs won't throw money around just to say they did so, but they're far below the budget number Tom Ricketts gave Jed Hoyer for 2025, and if they get to Opening Day without using the significant amount of money still available to them to improve the club, it will mean that Hoyer has failed miserably. Luckily, there are still several ways in which the team can leverage their spending power to better position the team to win the NL Central this season. Here are 10 of them, ranked from most to least desirable, so you can understand (at least from my imperfect vantage point) which moves to hope for. Please note, though, that for simplicity's sake, I've taken the relievers discussed yesterday (mostly) out of the equation here. 1. Dylan Cease (and Robert Suarez), Padres RHP(s) I wrote a good bit about Suarez in my piece yesterday, ranking the best ways the Cubs could pivot and land a relief ace after losing the bidding war on Scott. I also laid out the reasons why a one-stop shopping trip to snare both Cease and Suarez could make sense for the team, weeks ago. The Padres are in a pickle. Internecine fights over the future of their ownership group, some foreseeable trouble stemming from committing to several huge contracts in a very small market, and an urgent desire to stay in contention have A.J. Preller attempting a very tricky two-step. The Cubs have pieces (Owen Caissie, Kevin Alcántara, Moises Ballesteros, Javier Assad, Ben Brown, and more) who would have strong appeal for San Diego, addressing some of their key needs, and they'd happily take on the roughly $25 million owed to the pair of Cease and Suarez. This move would give the Cubs one of the five best pitching staffs in the National League and set them up as prohibitive division favorites, although they'd have to cough up a bit of long-term value. 2. Brandon Lowe, Rays 2B/1B The Rays are climate refugees in 2025, and who knows for how long after that. Neither their ownership group nor their municipality seems all that interested in holding onto them, and it will be hard to find excited buyers or viable places to move, if it comes to that. They're already 29th in projected payroll for this season, but they'd like to get even cheaper. Lowe, 30, is owed $10.5 million this year and would make $11.5 million on a club option in 2026. They'd be willing to move him. While Nico Hoerner convalesces, Lowe could be an everyday second baseman. He'd then slide into more of a rotational role, filling in for Hoerner some days, Dansby Swanson (via Hoerner sliding to shortstop) on others, and Michael Busch on still others, including to picking up the odd assignment at DH. He's a reliable 20-homer bat even in a slightly platoon-protected role, and he accepts his walks. His bat speed is terrific, and it's unlikely to fade in the way that gets dangerous for hitters until well after his team control runs out. 3. Yandy Díaz, Rays 1B/3B Lowe's teammate would almost be an even better fit, because (unlike Lowe) Díaz has played a good amount of third base in the majors over the years. He's no longer playable there on more than an emergency basis, but he is a lefty-killing right-handed hitter, making him a good platoon partner for Busch and a fine complement to the DH rotation. Days on which the Cubs face tough left-handed starters could find any of Busch, Ian Happ or even Kyle Tucker getting a day off, with Seiya Suzuki going to the outfield if needed and Díaz at either first base or DH. He'd also be a strong hedge against a sophomore slump by Busch, although the Cubs surely hope that Busch's strong rookie campaign was the beginning of something consistently good. Note the similar overall swing speed and the similar shapes of the distributions for Díaz and Lowe. The Rays very much have a type, and it's one the Cubs could use. These guys generate hard contact (if not always hard contact in the air), putting pressure on the defense and posing a constant threat. Díaz is due $10 million in 2025 and would get another $1 million (paid by the Cubs) if he's dealt; he also has a $12-million option for 2026. It's a high price for the role Díaz would fill, but he'd fill it singularly well. 4. Luis Castillo, Mariners RHP Some of these potential moves complement one another, rather than competing. Acquiring Castillo (who's owed $68.25 million over the next three years, with a complicated but ultimately team-friendly option for 2028) would mean giving up both a young player or two and Hoerner, so it would make the team more expensive and upgrade the rotation, but at the expense of the lineup. However, such a trade would also pave the way for a trade for (say) Lowe, and while the team would end up $25 million more expensive and down some long-term depth, they would get markedly better on both sides of the runs ledger. That said, the fact that it would almost necessitate a second move slides Castillo down to this placement on the rankings, despite his terrific talent and durability in the middle or front end of rotations over the years. 5. Ryan McMahon, Rockies 3B/2B Trading for a hitter from Colorado is always a fraught thought. but McMahon, 30, would be a more comfortable acquisition than most such players. He's a plus-plus defender at third base, and above-average at second. He could start the season standing in for Hoerner, then become a roving platoon partner for both Hoerner and Matt Shaw, bringing good defense in each spot. Signed to a long-term deal that guarantees him $44 million over the next three years, McMahon would be a safe, medium-term, medium-value investment. The risk, of course, lies in his bat. Predicting how any non-elite Rockies hitter will do when removed from both the benefits and the difficulties of playing half their games at elevation is nigh impossible. Yes, their numbers get padded by 81 games in the thin air at Coors Field, but it's also harder to adjust to and hit good stuff when not playing at elevation. To wit, looking only at fastballs with plus or better vertical movement, McMahon had a .408 expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) in 2024 at home—where would-be rising fastballs flatten out because there's less air to catch the backspinning seams—but a .280 mark on the road. It's probably unfair to treat either of those numbers as more telling than the other, but the gap between the two illustrates the problem. Betting $44 million and a prospect or two on such an opaque thing is rarely a great idea. 6. Nolan Arenado, Cardinals 3B Ok, wait. Wait. Slow down. Regulate your breathing. Yes, I know Arenado is in decline, and yes, I know whatever you sent the Cardinals would be an unwelcome loss, because the player in question would go to the team's archrivals. I also know the very idea sounds preposterous. Here's the thing: it wouldn't be so bad, and it isn't so crazy. The Cardinals are being transparent and forthright about their desire—even their need—to trade Arenado. It's almost all they even want to do this offseason, which is getting close to its end anyway. Arenado is owed $59 million over the final two years of his long-term deal, but as we all know, no one is taking on all of that. Instead, any deal would involve a minimal return for St. Louis and anywhere from $14 million to $20 million being sent along to defray the costs. That just leaves the biggest question: Can Arenado still be any good, really? And does he fit with the Cubs? I would argue that he does, although imperfectly. Trading Hoerner for pitching could open second base for Shaw, but another, simpler approach would be to simply have Arenado step in as the regular third baseman and let Shaw start the season at second, in Hoerner's absence. Once Hoerner gets healthy, things get a bit messier, but it's likely that plenty of playing time would still open up somewhere. Arenado has also said he would be willing to play some first base for a contending team, so he can act as a platoon mate for Busch in addition to delivering his signature defensive value at third. After a campaign in which he batted just .275/.321/.394, the key question is whether that was a reversible dip or the latest inflection point in an inexorable and accelerating decline. 7. Alex Bregman, Free Agent 3B It's not a great sign that we're down at No. 7 before we encounter a free agent who can be acquired for just money, but that's the situation here. Were Bregman open to short-term deals structured like last winter's Cody Bellinger and Matt Chapman contracts, as was briefly reported, he'd be higher on this list, but he seems to be focused on longer-term possibilities. That makes him a poor fit, because while he's to be commended for his good swing decisions and feel for contact, he stands right at the edge of the swing speed aging cliff, and he can't afford to lose that bat speed if he's going to generate any meaningful amount of power. On a short-term deal, you joyfully embrace the risks he comes with. On a six-year deal, with Shaw in place as an alternative, it's not necessary. 8. Jack Flaherty, Free Agent RHP Indisputably, Flaherty brings more upside to a starting rotation than do Javier Assad, Colin Rea or Matthew Boyd. Beyond the concerns about his medicals that a few teams have raised, though, there are questions of performance volatility surrounding Flaherty. When he's going right, his slider misses bats at a tremendous rate and he can rack up strikeouts. When he's diminished (which seems to be often), he can get hit hard. If I expected those worries to be accurately priced into his eventual deal, I'd have him a few rungs higher on this list. As it is, though, I expect him to sign either a short-term deal worth $20 million per year or a deal similar to Jameson Taillon's four-year, $68-million pact. On neither term would he be a good use of resources for the Cubs, given the (regrettable) constraints placed upon them by ownership. They have other boxes to check, and spending that much on Flaherty would make it too hard to check them. 9. Spencer Turnbull, Free Agent RHP The price is more likely to be right, but Turnbull's ceiling is lower than Flaherty's, too. He does have a fascinating arsenal, with a cut-ride fastball the Cubs would surely love; two or three breaking balls; and the ability to work to the arm side, all from a low arm slot. In this case, his ceiling is set not by his skills, but by his very ugly injury history. It's unlikely you get even the 120ish innings the Cubs want to get from Boyd out of Turnbull, which makes him a tough fit for this roster, which already has Boyd, Brown, Cade Horton, and some equally exciting but fragile relievers around whom to work. 10. Nick Pivetta, Free Agent RHP At this stage, I wouldn't be surprised if Pivetta takes a one-year deal just north of the qualifying offer's value, or a two-year deal with an opt-out, a la Jordan Montgomery. He's fairly durable, with 623 innings pitched since the start of 2021, and his strikeout rate over that span (26.9%) is also impressive. He just gets hit hard all the time, though, and that's sadly unsurprising. He's a high-slot righty with a dead-zone fastball; those guys give up lots of power. I'd still rank Pivetta ahead of Flaherty or Turnbull, in some other universes, but he would cost the Cubs draft capital, too, because he received a qualifying offer in November. Since those guys wouldn't, they get a slight edge. The need in the rotation just isn't pronounced enough to put any of them especially high on this list. There are even more options than these, but the Cubs need to figure out a good means of turning money into on-field value, and soon. The final month of the offseason is upon us, and the Chicago roster is incomplete. They need to change that soon. View full article

There's no avoiding the bitter disappointment of the latest free-agent news. The Cubs had a clear-cut top target on whom they were ready to extend themselves. Now that they've lost out on him, which is the best of their alternatives? Image courtesy of © Brett Davis-Imagn Images All winter, I've exhorted readers not to get anxious or angry too soon. The Cubs have already added Kyle Tucker, Matthew Boyd, Colin Rea, Caleb Thielbar, Eli Morgan and Carson Kelly, and they fully intend to spend more money and add more talent this winter. However, the team has to come in for some mild but meaningful criticism now, after allowing the Dodgers to outbid them on Tanner Scott at four years and $72 million. As I reported early Sunday, the Cubs made an offer very much in that vein, and they have legitimate reasons for not having wanted to go any further. Still, it marks a failure of imagination and recruitment that they allowed themselves to be beaten out for Scott, who multiple members of the front office coveted. Worse, we're now reaching the stage where the number of good ways to get better is genuinely dwindling. To this point, especially after the Tucker trade, my refrain has been to exercise emotional restraint in responding to each signing or trade that sent a talented player somewhere else, because it's not possible for any team to simply bend players or other clubs to their will, and because there were still other options available to Jed Hoyer and company. That is becoming less true now, both in terms of spending the money and prospect capital they still have at the ready and in terms of meeting their highest stated priority the rest of the winter: upgrading a bullpen that lacks a true closer. Tomorrow, we'll discuss the best ways the team could spend the money "freed up" (if so we choose to think of it) by not landing Scott. For now, let's consider the relievers they could bring in to lead their bullpen, giving that unit much-needed stability and consistency. In fact, to clarify how I'm viewing their predicament, I'll rank the remaining options—by desirability, not likelihood. 1. Jhoan Durán, Twins RHP By no means is Durán unavailable. He's at a similar career stage and hits a similar balance point between value and famousness to Luis Arraez, whom the team traded just two winters ago to acquire now-ace starter Pablo López. Like Arraez (whose skill set makes him delightful and appealing to fans, but whose limitations make him less than a premium player in the eyes of most front offices), Durán is a player who will get expensive quickly via the arbitration process, and whom the team feels they can readily replace. They signed Durán to a one-year, $4.125-million deal to avoid arbitration, but that's just the first season of three for which he'll be eligible. Meanwhile, Griffin Jax (who's at the same point in his service-time progression but has not racked up as many saves, working mostly as Durán's setup man over the last two years) signed for $2.635 million and might be the better pitcher, anyway. Minnesota traded Arraez at a time when they faced no particular payroll pressure, and in fact, they signed López to a meaty four-year extension shortly after acquiring him. Now, however, they're scrambling to trim some money and/or supplement a roster that slouched to the finish in 2024 under a restrictive ownership-imposed budgetary cutback. Moving Durán wouldn't make them much cheaper, but he would command a tremendous package of talent in a trade—or, alternatively, they could look to attach the $7.25 million they owe to Chris Paddack to Durán, still getting solid young players back and clearing about $11.5 million to deploy another way. The Cubs should pounce on Durán, if at all possible. He's not perfect, with a fastball shape that favors armside run over any kind of lift, and he still needs to figure out what he wants to do, exactly, with the pitch he calls a "splinker" a splitter/sinker that hums in at 97 miles per hour but doesn't fall off the table like a splitter. Whatever issues one might take with the heater's shape, though, they mostly smooth out when you sit 100 and touch 103 with that pitch. Even better, Durán's curveball is a filthy power breaker that preys upon hitters' need to gear up for the triple-digit fastball, resulting in whiffs on well over 40% of opposing batters' swings. All told, despite occasional hiccups and the lurking worry about velocity loss or injury that comes with any high-octane reliever, Durán has a career 2.59 ERA, with a 31.9% strikeout rate and 7.5% walk rate. The Cubs would have to give up someone like Kevin Alcántara and a young arm like Jordan Wicks or Brandon Birdsell to get him, but if the Twins are open to it, that should be the first course they pursue. It would leave them money to spend on other things, and give them three years of a fearsome, varied back end of the bullpen. 2. Kyle Finnegan, Free Agent RHP I wrote at length about the path Finnegan took to being non-tendered by the Nationals, last month. He's a hard thrower, but not quite at the premium velocity level where Durán sits, and his fastball has that same lack of rise—although it, too, runs fairly well to the arm side. He hasn't been bad, but arbitration rewards saves so much that he would have been unduly expensive, in the Nationals' view. The good news is, in addition to that high-90s fastball and a splitter on which he leans heavily, he has a slider just waiting to be unlocked. He reshaped it in 2024. Now, he just needs to throw it more—much more—to make it harder for hitters to sit on either his heat or the splitter. Sources said Finnegan's asking price and skill set hit the sweet spot for the Cubs, and that he would be the most likely direction for them to pivot after losing their bid for Scott. It's likely to be a multi-year deal, but nothing close to the term or the salary Scott ultimately extracted from the Dodgers. 3. Carlos Estévez, Free Agent RHP The hulking Estévez landed with the Phillies at the trade deadline, after several years in the Rockies pen and a year and a half as the Angels' closer. He throws 97, with a good, hard slider that has major movement variation from his heater and comes in just under 90 miles per hour. Few pitchers make it harder, in terms of release point, velocity and movement, for a right-handed batter to distinguish the fastball from the slider. That's the good news. The bad news is, you can't get the guy to throw his slider as much as a modern reliever should. In almost all counts, he not only favors the fastball (that much is ok), but throws it something like two-thirds of the time. Of the 186 pitchers who threw at least 200 sliders in 2024, Estévez had the sixth-highest called strike probability (based on the location of each offering) on the pitch. He can throw the breaking ball for strikes, and if he threw it more often and the fastball less so, hitters would be consistently stumped. Yet, he's never really done so. The Cubs have already been in contact with Estévez, and figure to stay in close contact with him with Scott off the board. It's pretty clear how he can become a better version of himself. The concerns are his age, the fact that he would be changing his approach somewhat at a late juncture of his career, and the likelihood that his proven closer status pushes his price tag higher than that of Finnegan. 4. Robert Suarez, Padres RHP This one can be covered in a bit more depth tomorrow, because taking on Suarez and his complicated, player-friendly contract would be a way to both improve the bullpen and spend some of the team's available money without giving up as much young talent as someone like Durán would cost. Like all three of the above, Suarez throws very hard, averaging 99 miles per hour with his fastball. He's a natural pronator, with a sinker and changeup as the only real complements to his four-seam heat, but he stays behind the ball well and achieves good carry on it. It would be interesting to see if Tyler Zombro and the Cubs pitching development infrastructure could help Suarez find a "death ball"-like breaking ball to round out his repertoire, but even without that, his power profile can bully hitters, making him a very good back-end option in the pen. He and Porter Hodge would make a great duo, because their shapes and looks are so different that Craig Counsell could almost play matchups with them in the ninth innings, based on which pocket of an opposing order was coming up. 5. Kirby Yates, Free Agent RHP This one might be lower than many would place him, and indeed, there's a case to be made for Yates to slide ahead of anyone on this list, except Durán. However, his market is well-developed, and the price tag is not to the Cubs' liking. If Yates does settle for a one-year deal, it's likely to be for more than $15 million. He also has a chance of landing a two-year deal, which is an extraordinary risk to take on a pitcher with a checkered health history and a birthday in March 1987. (I'm no happier than you are that that birth date makes a player dangerously old, but that's where we are.) If Yates does sign a straight one-year deal with a salary south of Scott's AAV of $18 million and no escalators, the Cubs will be rightfully interested, but he might not, which has to move him down the list. 6. Tommy Kahnle, Free Agent RHP A famous changeup monster, Kahnle is that rare and fun pitcher whose change thrives not on actually changing up from the fastball (or any other pitch), but by its sheer nastiness. He throws the pitch three-quarters of the time, shamelessly spanning hitters with a pitch that dives and runs more than most pitches and to which no amount of familiarity makes hitters truly accustomed. Kahnle isn't even playing at making the changeup a ghost of the fastball. His release point on the pitch is markedly, noticeably different than on his heater or his pedestrian slider. He just teases hitters with it, inviting them to try to adjust enough and watching them fail to do so. In this graphic (from behind the pitcher, perspective-wise), look at how far his changeup (in green) deviates from his other offerings, right out of the hand. Still, batters whiffed on the pitch 39% of the time, and when they did make contact, it tended to be soft and on the ground. The downside with Kahnle is obvious, though. At 35, he's already relying largely on a trick pitch, and the difficulty of commanding it means he tends to walk over 10% of opponents. That's no recipe for sustained success. Instead, it's a recipe for a lot of late-game heartburn, even if he'll usually get himself out of any trouble he gets into. 7. Pete Fairbanks, Rays RHP Not long ago, it would have been crazy to place Fairbanks this low on a list including the other names here. Now, though, he's due $3.67 million in 2025, with easily reachable incentives that could push that past $5 million even if he isn't very good—and, much more importantly, there are some signs he's heading in that direction. Fairbanks's fastball used to sit near 100 miles per hour, but it dipped over 1.5 MPH last season. His overhand breaking ball has lost much of its deception, popping out of the hand as he struggles to keep that release point high and immediately looking different to a hitter than the fastball does. He got very little chase on that pitch in 2024, and is having a harder time elevating the fastball with each passing campaign. The Rays would be happy to move him in the right deal, but if the Rays would be happy to move someone, be somewhat suspicious of them. 8. Colin Poche, Free Agent LHP For my money, this is the floor. This is as low as the Cubs can go while defensibly expecting to have a stronger bullpen throughout 2025 than they had early in 2024. Poche throws just 91-92 MPH, but his fastball has freakish cut-ride action from an extremely high arm slot. He specializes in throwing that pitch at the top of the zone, inducing maddening, lazy fly balls from hitters and setting them up to get them out with a good-not-great slider. Shoulder trouble sidelined Poche for part of 2024, though, and it's best to be especially wary of shoulder trouble from a pitcher who comes so directly over the top. When he came back, his velocity was down a tick, and if that pattern held, he would quickly become a mediocre middle reliever. Indeed, the Rays non-tendered him, which should tell you something. He's the guy you pick up if you have big plans for the other segments of the roster, yet. It's good to have options. It's better to have solutions. The Cubs have the former, but not yet the latter, when it comes to finishing off a roster that can win the division and push the titans of the NL come October. These eight hurlers would all move them in the right direction, but Scott was a preferable option to all of them. Now, it's about staying opportunistic, so they don't miss out on any more important chances. View full article

Welp. Hope you didn't let your hopes rise too high. Just a few hours after I reported that the Cubs had made a push to land Tanner Scott on a multi-year deal, the Dodgers did what the Dodgers do. This will not make you feel even one iota better, I imagine, but for whatever it's worth to you, the offer the Cubs made was very competitive with this one. Without any further information about opt-outs, deferrals, or other aspects, it's safe to say that Scott basically chose between the two teams based on factors other than money—though, of course, the Cubs may have stopped bidding when it became clear that the Dodgers would match or exceed whatever they offered. View full rumor

This might be the most TomTheBombadil comment ever. Five parentheticals! FIVE! 😄

According to two sources familiar with the negotiations, the Chicago Cubs have made a multi-year offer to the top free-agent reliever left on the board. However, they're not alone in the bidding. Image courtesy of © Denis Poroy-Imagn Images As we told you they would be last month, the Cubs are heavily involved on Tanner Scott, to the extent that they've made him an offer one source called "substantial"—meaningfully larger than the three-year, $43-million Craig Kimbrel deal that currently stands as the biggest investment the team has ever made in a reliever. At least one other team is around that level, too, though, and it's not clear how much further the Cubs are willing to go, They're already positioning themselves to break their own mold when it comes to filling out the back end of a bullpen, but Jed Hoyer's front office never totally throws caution to the wind when operating in free agency. This will not be an exception. Scott isn't quite in a position to command the five-year deals (worth over $18 million per year) that Edwin Díaz and Josh Hader have recently pulled down, so the Cubs are trying to snag him, laying claim to a pitcher they regard as clearly superior to any other reliever available. Scott, 30, has a 2.04 ERA and 34 saves in 150 innings of regular-season work since the start of 2023. Armed with a 97-MPH fastball and a viciously sharp slider, he has a 30.4% career strikeout rate, and that mark is 31.3% in the last two seasons. Opposing batters have hit just .186/.274/.254 against him in that span, as he minimizes hard contact nearly as well as he misses bats. He would become the best-projected Cubs closer to open a season since Wade Davis in 2017, and indeed, it's that kind of impact the team envisions getting from him over anywhere from three to five seasons. He's a uniquely excellent fit for what the Cubs like to do on the pitching side, and for their roster, with its lefty-loaded rotation and right-leaning bullpen. Because the Marlins traded Scott to the Padres in July, he was not eligible to receive a qualifying offer when he became a free agent in November. That has augmented the Cubs' interest; they would not have been willing to give up a draft pick to sign him at the price to which they have already gone in this bidding. A source said that, while there may end up being an opt-out in Scott's deal (depending on where he signs), that is not a major consideration in this particular case. Because he dodged the qualifying offer by being traded in the summer, Scott would be eligible for one if he exercised an opt-out clause, and the draft-pick forfeiture attached to players who receive a QO tends to put a damper on the market for relievers, as Kimbrel found out in 2018-19. MVP Sports Group, the agency founded and led by Dan Lozano, represents Scott and has worked out fruitful deals centered around options and flexible structures before, but it's believed that this deal will end up being fairly straightforward. If the Cubs can't land Scott with this offer, they may pivot next to Kyle Finnegan, whose track record is much less dominant but whose stuff could play up to a similar level. They have some interest in Kirby Yates, Paul Sewald, and others, but Scott is their focus right now, and should he sign elsewhere, it's Finnegan with whom the fit seems to make the most sense. Paying handsomely for a closer is not a novel idea for Hoyer, as he was quick to say when he appeared on the Spiegel & Holmes Show on 670 The Score Friday. "We traded for Aroldis Chapman, we traded Jorge Soler for Wade Davis. We signed Brandon Morrow. We signed Craig Kimbrel," Hoyer said. "We don't not believe in the position ... I do think it has a lot of value." This would be a larger stretch in that direction than the Cubs front office has made in many years, though, and under Hoyer, specifically, the team has leaned toward pursuing internal options and building a bullpen cheaply., Their willingness to go beyond their comfort zone with Scott reflects the way the structure of their roster has changed. With Pete Crow-Armstrong, Matt Shaw, Michael Busch, and Miguel Amaya penciled into the Opening Day lineup and high hopes for the contributions of young hurlers Javier Assad, Ben Brown, Cade Horton, Brandon Birdsell and Porter Hodge, the team has more financial flexibility with which to attack the bullpen. On the other hand, in addition to their unwillingness to bid against much freer-spending teams (most notably the Dodgers) for a player at a position as volatile as relief pitcher, the Cubs feel a pressing need to keep some resources available to address their positional depth. Scott could be a capstone to their pitching staff, with the idea being that the depth of viable options in the rotation will make up for the lack of a true ace. Even if they reel him in, though, they need to do something to upgrade their bench. Thus. if forced to, they will let Scott sign elsewhere and focus on Finnegan, making a richer push for help on the infield to compensate for the less dominant pitching. In their ideal scenario, the Cubs will bring in the highest-profile free-agent reliever they've signed since either Kimbrel or Randy Myers, and do it within the next handful of days. They've made a push they consider aggressive, and Scott is likely to decide between a small handful of teams soon. View full article

Not to be that guy, but I was told they'd ruined their relationship with their new, much-beloved superstar forever. Image courtesy of © Thomas Shea-Imagn Images This, like the non-news that preceded it, means almost nothing. By and large, we should not care whether players make $16 million or $17 million, so we certainly need not care that the Cubs and Kyle Tucker agreed to a deal Thursday to pay him $16.5 million for 2025. That deal does obviate the need for an arbitration hearing to settle the $2.5-million gap that had existed between the two sides' submitted figures of $15 million and $17.5 million, though, and thus, the hand-wringing that went on last week when no deal was struck immediately can come to its overdue end. (Also: Hey, Jesse Rogers. We see you. Don't think we don't see you. You were hoping to catch as many people getting excited with the first handful of words of that tweet as you could, and that's fine. It's all in the game. But we see you.) There was just never anything to the idea that not reaching an immediate accord somehow poisoned whatever chances the Cubs had to extend Tucker, and now we can put those needless fears to bed. That doesn't mean an extension is imminent; the chances of that remain nonzero but small. This deal avoids any tension that might have emanated from an actual hearing, but no actual hearing was ever likely. The team was unlikely to sign him to an extension before, and they're unlikely to sign him to an extension now. That is not to be confused with saying that the chances would have gone to zero if a hearing had taken place, or that they're essentially zero now. They're just small. This is an area of estimating probability where we humans do poorly. When we try to predict whether an event will take place and we feel it's unlikely, we tend to crowd our imagined probability down toward zero, even if the real probability is (say) 12 percent. On the other hand, when we're trying to estimate the likelihood of events that we understand to be improbable but badly want to see happen, we tend to push the number higher, sometimes subconsciously. This, to me, is where so many fans fell into a trap last week. They understand that Tucker probably won't sign a long-term deal without testing free agency, and that the Cubs probably won't shell out the humongous sum that would change that. Therefore, they end up hunting for things that confirm those priors, including the failure to settle before arbitration, and the wired-in pessimism of estimating low probabilities leads them to think that the event they perceive as hurting those chances has actually pulverized them. Working against that, though, is their secret hope that this will be the time things are different, and so they still felt outrage at the organization when they were confronted with what they interpreted (albeit wrongly) as an attack on that bit of wishcasting. If that all sounds like it could be you, good news: you've survived! The Cubs did initially fail to reach a deal with Tucker, which changed their chances of reaching a long-term deal with him from about 12% to about 12%. But now, they've signed him to a handsome one-year deal with which he should be pleased, raising those odds back to 12%. The bad news, of course, is that 12% is still a small number, and that your head will now go right back to steering that 12% down toward 0, while your heart pushes it toward 25% and makes it more likely to hurt if, in the event, they don't cash in on that 12% chance. Again, this was never a story. But at least now, we can all agree on that. There's a chance the Cubs will sign Tucker to a long-term deal. It's just a small one. Now, at least, the team has cost certainty on him for this year, and they can turn their attention to building out the rest of the roster—without, of course, blocking the phone numbers of Tucker and his agents. View full article

Well put. And yeah, you'd like to think they'll make sure they have a true top-flight reliever secured before considering an addition like this. (BTW, though, I'm not sure I wouldn't take Joe instead of Canha. It's close.)

If ever a player needed a change of scenery, and if ever there was a time to ignore the ugly numbers, this might be it. Image courtesy of © Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images The modern baseball analytosphere demands that we have a good damn explanation for why any player who was bad in Year X should be any good in Year X+1. We have all kinds of numbers, all kinds of angles, all kinds of ways to see and to say whether or not a player was good in a given season, and if they weren't, then we expect there to be a concrete, performance-centric, highly data-fied reason why we should believe they'll turn things around. If there isn't one, any argument in support of that player will be met with skepticism—if not outright disdain. Well, admittedly, I don't have an ideal analytics-based argument for the possibility that Jordan Montgomery will turn things around after his woeful 2024. There are some such arguments, and I'll briefly deliver them, but I want to start by putting my best case forward, and I don't think the best case for a Montgomery rebound is rooted in the numbers. I also don't think the truth of his terrible campaign with Arizona last year lives in them. Scott Boras laid an egg when it came to Montgomery's free agency. He was a highly sought-after free agent last winter, but Boras priced his client out of the range of interested teams, until freezer burn overtook him so badly that he ended up signing a highly dissatisfactory deal on Opening Day. The season was a disaster, and it included several discouraging trends. Montgomery lost about 1.5 miles per hour on both of his fastballs, on average—some of which can be put down to his overlong free agency interfering with any organic ramp-up for the regular season. The Diamondbacks also asked Montgomery to make some changes that were ill-suited to his unique skill set and approach, including swapping his cutter for a slider; leaning more on his four-seamer and less on his sinker; and locating differently. As a result, Montgomery lost the strike zone somewhat, especially because he doesn't throw strikes with his four-seamer as reliably as with the sinker. Using the former more and the latter less was an error, in his case, and while it could theoretically have worked and then-pitching coach Brent Strom has a track record of success with that pitch as the backbone of pitchers' arsenals, there was neither the time nor the trust between player and organization that usually comes when someone signs as a high-profile free agent. They didn't get a spring training together, and Montgomery was never happy enough in his place there to be especially open to whatever good suggestions the team did make. Montgomery was genuinely bad in 2024, and there's no one reason to believe he'll be better in 2025, other than the simple, human, psychological one: as long as he's traded sometime this month and can get acclimated to the idea of a new team, then enjoy a normal spring training, he should enter the season as a much, much more prepared, mentally healthy pitcher. Last winter, I thought he was a marvelous fit for the Cubs, and I still think he will be. I think he'll bounce back resoundingly from the frustration and disappointment of 2024. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets that tick on the fastball back and goes right back to being the southpaw workhorse, playoff hero, and mid-rotation fixture he was when he hit the market last year. Plenty of teams would have given him a six-figure deal, if his agent hadn't demanded such a gaudy one until the last possible moment (and beyond). Now, though, Montgomery is available on a one-year deal, which the Diamondbacks would have to subsidize in order to move him. That could mean eating some of the money he's owed, or it could mean sending along a prospect to clear as much cash as possible. Either way, the Cubs would benefit by acquiring him not only because I think he'll bounce back, but because they would have such leverage in a negotiation with Diamondbacks head honcho Mike Hazen. Do the Cubs desperately need Montgomery? No. But he's the type of player who, because of the circumstances of this offseason, should cost far less to acquire than he's really worth, and he'd give the rotation the upside it's lacking right now—along with a healthy dose of stability. Landing him would also free up one or two of the Cubs' young pitchers to be dealt for a high-end trade asset, should that opportunity arise. Many teams and pundits are feeling smug about Montgomery after last season, because they feel vindicated for not having believed in him. I think that's exactly the wrong conclusion. Montgomery wasn't stranded on the market because he was secretly bad, in some way that didn't show up while he was racking up 360 innings pitched over the previous two years and dominating in the playoffs as the Rangers made a run to the World Series. He was bad in 2024 because he'd been so disruptively stranded on the market. As such, he's a good buy-low opportunity at this moment, and if the Cubs have grand plans for 2025, they should prepare themselves to pounce. View full article

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