Matthew Trueblood

Good hitters manage the count and avoid the ones that favor pitchers. No one can avoid getting behind sometimes, though, so it's important to have success even in those difficult circumstances. The Chicago Cubs' projected leadoff hitter started doing that last year. Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports Of the 218 hitters who saw at least 1,500 pitches last year, Ian Happ was just south of average in the percentage of pitches seen in pitcher-friendly counts (0-1, 0-2, 1-2, and 2-2), at 36.7 percent. He's a patient and intelligent hitter, and he worked hard to get ahead, knowing the benefits of having the count in his favor. That helped him rack up 99 walks, easily a career-high total and second only to Juan Soto in the National League. Importantly, though, Happ got to some of those walks by being a tougher out when he did fall behind--especially from the left side, when facing right-handed pitchers. The numbers tell a clear story. Ian Happ, Behind in Count as LHH, 2021-23 Seasons Swing % Contact % Ball % AVG OBP SLG 95+ EV % 2021-22 54.1 70.4 39.8 0.174 0.187 0.323 36.8 2023 48.3 75 44.1 0.238 0.248 0.393 39.4 Although it feels counterintuitive, it's often beneficial to be more patient when behind in the count. Pitchers start hunting the chase for a strikeout in those counts. They don't give you much to hit. Conventional wisdom tells hitters to protect the plate in these situations, but Happ found success by zeroing in more than ever on areas of the zone in which he could do damage, and letting others go. As that increased ball rate shows, he didn't just produce more when ending plate appearances behind in the count; he also got back into good counts more often by being more selective. As this indicates, it wasn't about hunting any particular kind of pitch. Even when behind in the count, Happ was diligent about using his scouting reports. He sought specific pitches to hit against each pitcher he faced, knowing their tendencies and where a pitch he could handle might be. Until last year, he'd been in a more defensive mode in those counts, and the only damage he had done came when a pitcher made a genuine mistake. You can see this not only in the heat maps of his raw production, but in the way he covered the zone. Without thinking primarily about protecting the plate, he still did so, because he knew where pitchers were likely to try to get him out within the zone. This is a level of maturity and adaptability in the batter's box that eludes many hitters for their entire careers. It only came after several years of inconsistency and failure for Happ, but tellingly, perhaps, it also came after his first highly successful full season, in 2022. For a hitter with the right disposition, a year like Happ's 2022 isn't a platform on which to try to stand flat-footed and hold on as long as possible. It's a springboard. Happ actually had a lower OPS+ in 2023 than in 2022, but things like the above help us see past the raw numbers. He was better last year than the year before, not worse. He's still very limited as a right-handed hitter, and should bat in the lower half of the order against lefty starters for this Cubs team. He did improve his approach from that side last year, too, but not to the extent that he was actually good. Against righties, though, he's their rightful leadoff hitter. Happ's DRC+, which is Baseball Prospectus's flagship offensive metric and which goes a bit beyond the actual stat line (modeling the tradeoffs a hitter makes in terms of strikeout and walk rates, contact quality, etc.) to assess hitter value, climbed from 100 in 2022 to 111 in 2023. That was the best number he's posted in a season with more than 200 plate appearances. He should be expected to stay that productive (or more so) in 2024, because while he's no longer the scary power threat he was early in his career, he's a much, much more well-rounded hitter and a much tougher out than he was even a year or two ago. View full article

Well we're gonna have to clean up that hashtag, at the very least.

What if I told you I could raise a key Cubs contributor's on-base percentage by 10 to 20 points, and all it would cost was the already-crumbling illusion that baseball is a fully functioning sport? Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-USA TODAY Sports Let me throw a couple of facts at you. At first, these will seem odd, disparate, and silly, but I promise to build a convincing connection between them. Josh Gibson, one of the best handful of players in baseball history, used a bat that was 41 inches long. That's a good five or six inches longer than any current player uses, but the rules still permit bats as long as 42 inches. Patrick Wisdom, one of the best handful of players on the 2022 Chicago Cubs, strikes out anywhere from 30 to 40 percent of the time. He wields bats ranging from 33 1/2 to 35 inches in length. In baseball history, there have been 1,763 documented instances of a batter reaching base on catcher interference. Nearly half of those have come in the last 30 years, though. Famously, Gibson (like his contemporary Babe Ruth) used a bat that mirrored his larger-than-life image among players and fans. Ruth's bats weighed in as heavy as 50 ounces, and were often nearly 40 inches long. That wasn't the norm even at the time, though, and in the modern game (with pitchers throwing much, much harder than they did then and a better understanding of the relative values of bat mass and bat speed in creating power), most hitters use something considerably smaller, even though most hitters are at least as big and strong as were Ruth or Gibson. Wisdom swings a good-sized stick, by modern standards, but he's six inches shy of Gibson. That's the game now. However, the game has also changed in other ways, including some fueled by equipment evolution. Above, I mentioned the 1,763 catcher interferences we have in the historical MLB record. Let's break it down further: Through 1946: 157 1947-71: 243 1972-81: 221 1982-91: 200 1992-2001: 191 2002-11: 194 2012-21: 387 2022: 74 2023: 96 For the first 60-plus years of well-documented baseball history (those where we can be pretty sure we're not missing a whole bunch of these types of plays), catcher interference was extremely rare. Catchers were sparsely protected, and their mitts were designed for conservative, close-contact catches right in front of the chest. They weren't eager to get hit by a batter attempting a swing, and they had very little reason to even risk it. In the 1970s, two members of the Cincinnati Reds began to change that. On one hand (literally), Johnny Bench revolutionized catching itself. An exceptional athlete who came along just as catcher equipment was also ready to take a quantum leap, Bench popularized a one-handed catching style and a different type of catcher's mitt, with a more fielder-like hinge and pocket. That, without even many of the involved parties realizing it, invented catcher framing. No longer was a catcher's influence over the umpire confined to politicking and a little bit of subtle leaning from a very inflexible position. Bench and the catchers who came after him began extending their arms forward to receive incoming pitches, and the ability to do that in a fairly fluid motion meant that they could start to sell strikes at the edges of the zone a bit more craftily. On the other side of the ledger stood Pete Rose, the most ruthless competitor baseball had seen in several decades. Rose realized that, as catchers (better protected by improved safety equipment and learning their new way to receive the ball) crept forward in the catcher's box, he could let his bat drag and seek to hit the ball just before it arrived in the mitt--perhaps making contact with that mitt along the way. By rule, when that happened, he got first base. Few players in baseball history have wanted every 90 feet they could get (by whatever means) worse than Rose, so he took it via catcher interference 30 times in his career, including once in the 1970 World Series. That probably sounds like a vanishingly small number, but Rose's total was not only the record at the time, but 10 more than anyone else in the history of the game. A couple of times a year, he would nick the mitt and take his base, and that was an extraordinary frequency for the first century and change of baseball history. Rose played in a different era, though. Back then, opportunities for that kind of collision were virtually non-existent. It was still common for batters to slide up in the batter's box, and still uncommon for catchers to be truly crowding in from behind. That's changed. So has ownership of the all-time record for reaches via catcher interference--to Jacoby Ellsbury, who didn't get there by having one of baseball's longest careers and highest raw totals of plate appearances. Rose and Ellsbury still stand essentially alone atop the career leaderboard, but Josh Reddick had 19 of these. Carl Crawford had 17. Cubs folk hero Tommy La Stella had 16, and another three (the most ever) in postseason play. Memorably, La Stella reached on catcher interference in a two-strike count against Max Scherzer in the Cubs' wild fifth-inning rally in Game 5 of the 2017 NLDS. The Astros' Kyle Tucker already has 12 of these (the same number accumulated by new Cubs manager Craig Counsell). Given his youth and talent, it's very likely that he'll join Rose and Ellsbury, or surpass them by a substantial margin. As the list above shows, the frequency of catcher interference has exploded in the last 15 years. Of the 36 games in baseball history featuring at least two such plays, 22 have come since 2008. The only one ever to include three came on April 15 of last year. PITCHf/x gave us a way to (first) quantify and (next) augment pitch framing, and catchers have responded by encroaching on the hitter's space more with each passing campaign. Hitters are standing closer to the plate, because if you want to hit for the power the modern game requires, you have to. They're also standing closer to the back of the batter's box, because if you want to catch up to 103-mile-per-hour fastballs, you have to. The confluence of those trends happens just behind home plate, where it's just much, much more likely (though still very unlikely!) for the bat and the catcher's mitt to run into one another. On Aug. 1, 2021, just after the fire sale that ended the run for the Cubs' championship core, Wisdom came to the plate in Washington, where the team was tied 5-5 with the Nationals in the top of the ninth. The leadoff man in the inning, he took a strike, fouled off the 0-1 offering, then watched three straight balls. He fouled off the first payoff pitch, and on the next one, his stick caught the side of catcher René Rivera's glove. Wisdom got first base, on what is still the only catcher interference of his career. He was promptly erased on a double play off the bat of Matt Duffy, and the Cubs lost in the bottom of the ninth, but he did start a rally that night. Wisdom's game is power, and it's important that he swing a stick that allows him to get to it. The big question about his bat, though, is whether he can consistently get on base more often than he has throughout his career so far. His lifetime OBP of .298 won't keep him in the lineup, and when the Cubs need him, they won't get much help from him if that's the rate at which he avoids outs. He's plenty strong, though. What if you gave Wisdom a bat six inches longer and a few ounces heavier than his current one and told him to cut it loose, just like he's been doing for the last three years? At the bare minimum, you'd force an opposing catcher to back off, and damage their ability to frame pitches against him. If the league were too slow to make that adjustment, he could get on base an extra handful of times in a short span. This would drive people nuts. It's gimmicky and it's silly. It's also a fun thought exercise, though, because it forces us to confront the fact that baseball's margins have dwindled to zero in one critical zone, and that the impact of that compression is greater than we'd tend to imagine. Wisdom is a good candidate for it because, given his size and his problems with strikeouts and OBP, he's the guy who can make legitimate use of a bat that big and derive the greatest benefits from the stunt. There's an element of physical intimidation in this ploy. There's an element of cheeky rules manipulation. Still, it's hardly playing dirty. Hitters are under attack, in the modern game, and one of the ways we hardly ever notice in which that's happening is that catchers are closing off the space in which they might try to work, from behind. This might create more space behind the plate for Wisdom's teammates, too. It might take away a pitcher's backdoor slider or their just-hang-on fastball at the knees. Forcing a catcher to adjust his depth more than he's comfortable might alter a few things about the interaction of pitcher, batter, catcher, and umpire, which is becoming the essential one of the game. It's very silly. It's also a serious proposal. Patrick Wisdom should start carrying a bigger club to the plate with him. View full article

The Cubs podcast you barely knew existed and assumed had ceased to exist still exists, baby! Image courtesy of Matt Trueblood via Spotify for Podcasters After an accidental hiatus of a few weeks, the gang is back together and TINAR rides again. We spent our return episode discussing myriad Chicago Cubs topics, including: -The return of Cody Bellinger, and the subsequent demotion of Pete Crow-Armstrong -Christopher Morel's work at third base -David Bote's predicament and perpetual place in Iowa -Who will claim the final rotation spot(s) -How good Shota Imanaga and Michael Busch have looked lately -Miles Mastrobuoni We also play a fun little Cubs trivia game at the end. The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you find such shows. Enjoy! Apple Podcasts: Spotify: View full article

Yeah, now that (I think) they've gotten much better on the scouting side and are routinely getting guys with real upside, the next step is to consistently convert that--and you're right, Alzolay is a great exemplar for that.

The Cubs did make a few moves to bolster their bullpen this winter, but they stayed well clear of the elite reliever market. They already have a top closer in whom they trust, and the reason is simple: his slider--er, sliders. Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports Making the full-time move to a relief role in 2022 unlocked a lot of things for Adbert Alzolay. With an extra mile per hour or two on his fastball (thanks to being able to cut loose so much more in short bursts), everything has played up, but Alzolay's breakout 2023 campaign seemed to be primarily about his slider. Opponents whiffed on 40.6 percent of their swings against the slider, leading to 38 of his 67 strikeouts. Superficially, it was a power arsenal, and a neat pairing for the right-handed Venezuela native. In reality, though, Alzolay has developed three distinct breaking balls--his bread-and-butter slider, a cutter (thrown harder, and primarily to lefties) and a sweeper (slower, and primarily to righties). Those lesser cousins to the true slider play underrated roles in helping Alzolay dominate the way he did when he was healthy in 2023. Rounding out and defining that suite of breaking balls was a pivotal development for Alzolay last year. He found a consistent shape for the slider, and swapped out what had been a mostly ineffecitve curveball for the sweeper, while gaining greater utility on the cutter by focusing its deployment on left-handed batters. Unlike many relievers (who confine themselves to one fastball look in the simple showdown of a single inning), Alzolay employs both a four-seamer and a sinker, leaning toward the former against lefties and the latter against righties. The four-seam heater has above-average run to his arm side, so it and the slider pair nicely. For that same reason, though, when Alzolay wants to get up and in on a lefty, the cutter is highly valuable. It stops those hitters from eliminating that quadrant of the zone and sitting on the slider low and in, and it makes them less aggressive in their swings against the four-seamer on the outer half. Against righties, the slider's tight but sweepy shape is a good match for the sinker, but for bigger movement and a change of speeds that can make the sinker more effective inside, the sweeper was a key addition. Alzolay's curveball was, briefly, his best breaking pitch, but see how the sweeper has greater lift? That makes it a much better partner to his sinker than the curve could ever be, and the slider is better with his four-seamer than the curve is. Five-pitch relievers are a rarity for a reason. It can be viciously difficult to sustain the feel for that deep a repertoire, given the constraints of being a reliever. A closer like Alzolay doesn't have the luxury of doing side work on a fixed schedule. They don't get the same opportunities to implement new things or make adjustments. With the four-seamer, the sinker, the slider, the sweeper, and the cutter, though, Alzolay has enough ways to find outs to succeed in all kinds of game situations and against all kinds of hitters. He might not be as consistent as a conventional two-pitch monster with triple-digit heat and a slider with an optimal spin axis, because there will be days when one of his indispensable weapons will not be at full power. He's going to be versatile and impressive, though, and his steady improvement to reach this level of excellence in relief is a credit to both the player and the Cubs' pitching infrastructure, which improves with each passing season. Research assistance provided by TruMedia. View full article

We've all talked at length about the reduced strikeout rate Cody Bellinger enjoyed in 2023. Today, though, let's focus on the one area of the zone where he saw the greatest transformation from his previous period of struggle. Image courtesy of © David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports If Cody Bellinger can hold onto the gains he made in 2023 in terms of strikeout rate, it will certainly boost his production for 2024. On its own, though, putting the ball in play isn't enough. It's perfectly possible to hit the ball meekly and poorly and come up with results not far removed from the ones you'd have had if you'd taken a more fearless swing and just missed altogether. Last year, though, Bellinger did quite a bit more than that. What got attention was that he even touched the ball in many of those situations, but what made him phenomenally valuable was the way he hit it. Specifically, Bellinger started genuinely going with that pitch, rather than being so much in a mode of trying to create power that he rolled over and hit weak ground balls to the pull side. Here's Bellinger from 2020-22, with his exit velocities and launch angles plotted and the expected wOBA (xwOBA) of those batted balls shown by the color of each data point, but only on pitches on the outer third (or beyond). Right away, let's compare that to the same chart for 2023. Again, this is only batted balls on pitches that were at least on the outer third of home plate. There are a fair number fewer lazy fly balls in the 2023 sample, but they've been replaced mostly by weakly hit balls with a launch angle just above 0. That's still not exactly a recipe for much more production. Yet, he did see such a jump, from a sub-.300 SLG for 2020-22 to a .456 mark in 2023, on those outer-third offerings. Is that evidence that he just got lucky last year, after all? Well, no. Firstly, Bellinger put many more balls in that part of the zone (and beyond it) in play than he had previously. He whiffed much, much less often when swinging at outside pitches in 2023 than from 2020-22. It was easy to ignore and hard to fully articulate when he was hitting 40 home runs per season, but Bellinger has always had great feel for contact. That's why he was an MVP, and even over the previous few years (when he was anything but an MVP), he didn't have a disastrous whiff rate on outer-third pitches. In 2023, though, he shored up what wasn't even a notable weakness, per se. Again, we're not talking about a guy solely getting lucky. He got the ball moving. If he'd hit it precisely the same way he had in previous years, though, there might not have been much value in hitting it more. Bellinger made his bones by being great at pulling fly balls, and it's very hard to pull fly balls on the outer edge of the strike zone. His revelation, of course, came when he realized he didn't need to do that. Instead, Bellinger started going the other way more. His average exit velocity on the outer third plummeted last year, but the direction of those hits earned him plenty of value. Here's where his batted balls on pitches on the outer third went from 2020-22. He stopped trying to yank those pitches last year, and the difference was night and day. Whereas the differences between the plots of his exit velo and launch angle were so subtle you had to study them to see them well, these jump off the page. The gray dots that represent launch angles around 20 degrees were the keys; Bellinger was shooting the left-center gap for soubles, even on pitches where hitting a home run or a more traditional double was out of the question. It would come as a shock if Bellinger went out and hit .307 again this year. That's not his history, and after all, he did have some good luck. However, it's equally silly to assume he'll regress into the .250 range, or worse. We know his strikeout aversion should have some staying power. He returns to Wrigley Field, where there's some incentive for him to keep aiming for left-center field, anyway. Mostly, though, this just seems like a welcome maturation at the plate. Bellinger still will (and still needs to) occasionally turn and burn on a ball in order to hit a home run, but he's improved at knowing when pitchers might work the outside edge on him; seeing the pitch out of the hand when they do; and staying on the ball, to take it to the opposite field. Though it never happened in 2023, we could see Bellinger bat second at times for the Cubs in 2024. With his low ground-ball rate and good overall skill set, he's a terrific candidate for that role. If pitchers continue not to be able to get him out away, they'll have to try him inside more often, and thence could come even more power. In any case, he's a newly versatile offensive weapon. Research assistance provided by TruMedia. View full article

When trying to determine whether a team should come in for criticism or praise at the end of a season or an offseason, it's important to have one or more objective standards by which to measure. By mine, the Cubs had a sufficiently strong winter. Image courtesy of © Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports Two winters ago, Jed Hoyer and his staff brought in Marcus Stroman and Seiya Suzuki on multiyear deals. Last winter, they signed Dansby Swanson and Jameson Taillon. In each offseason, they also made smaller, shorter-term, supplemental moves, like signing Mychal Givens and David Robertson before 2022 and bringing in Cody Bellinger and Michael Fulmer (while also re-signing Drew Smyly) before 2023. While those moves were (obviously) insufficient to turn the Cubs into a playoff team in either campaign, I counted both as successful offseasons. As much as every fan base wants their teams to acquire one or three of the top five free agents in any given winter, the reality is that that's possible only in one of every two or three winters, and then only for certain teams. To be sure, the Cubs are among the teams for whom that should sometimes be possible, and we've discussed the possibility that Jed Hoyer's aversion to long-term deals with superstars will be a lasting problem at some length here. However, as I've tried to shape a consistent standard by which to distinguish successful winters from failures, I've circled back repeatedly to a very simple one: Every winter, a team should be acquiring more than one player they project to be above-average and who are under team control for multiple seasons. They should also be acquiring more than one additional player who makes them better for the coming season, without regard to whether they're a star or whether they'll be around beyond that campaign. By that reckoning, this, too, has been a successful winter. Shota Imanaga and Michael Busch were each solid, valuable additions at non-premium prices, and the Cubs can keep them around for up to five and six years, respectively. Bellinger, Héctor Neris, and Yency Almonte are each likely to be shorter-term members of the team, but they all make the Cubs more robust for 2024, and all three could end up being around for 2025, as well. That, obviously, does not mean that the Cubs shouldn't go make another late addition to their roster. They could use a better left-handed reliever, and they could absolutely use Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell, as I wrote yesterday. Understanding the team's desire to maintain a balance between its present and future, though, I think the above markers are the right ones by which to judge every offseason for them, and since they checked both boxes this time around, they've had a successful winter. Very often, especially in the modern sports media culture, we allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. That the Cubs didn't sign Shohei Ohtani or Yoshinobu Yamamoto this winter is undeniably disappointing, because those are generational talents who would have transformed the franchise in a way that none of the players they've brought in (or brought back) do. It's also mildly frustrating that the team didn't cash in some of its trade capital for Juan Soto or Pete Alonso. Notice, though, that each of them would have fallen into the second, lesser bucket of winter acquisition anyway, and recall that the team did use a significant amount of prospect capital to land Busch, and those misses feel much more palatable. There were enough open avenues to asserting themselves as NL Central favorites this winter that the Cubs do have to answer for the fact that they haven't done so. On balance, though, they've checked the right boxes for a third straight offseason. Do that two more times in the winters ahead, and they'll begin to see some of the longer-lasting, sustainable benefits that come from the approach, the way the Yankees, Dodgers, and Cardinals have done over the years. As we turn our eyes away from the winter and toward Opening Day, how would you grade the Cubs' offseason? Why? Comment below. View full article

There is a cycle on which MLB free agency operates, whereby (about halfway between any two CBA negotiations, or about twice a decade) the league engages in de facto, nearly undetectable, unpunishable collusion, as a means of putting the squeeze to the players union. It's happening right now. Image courtesy of © Orlando Ramirez-USA TODAY Sports This was all just this side of cute, until about the beginning of February. It still hasn't definitively worked, because Scott Boras has convinced the first three of his high-profile clients to sign this winter to do so on deals that give them opt-outs after every season. Still, we're at the point where it's inarguably troubling to see the same old playbook being run. The owners are trying to corner the players union, and soften the ground for themselves ahead of the next CBA negotiation fight. As a result, they've dug in their heels, and (as it very often is) it's two starting pitchers who are left somewhat out in the cold. Jordan Montgomery is far less likely to be amenable to signing a short-term, opt-out-laden contract than were Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman, or Rhys Hoskins. Unlike Bellinger and Chapman, he was traded this season and wasn't offered a qualifying offer, and that means he could have one attached to him next winter if he wanders back out into the marketplace. Unlike Chapman and Hoskins, he's coming off one of the best seasons of his career, and can't feel especially confident of being able to go back out there next winter and make any more than this. Some of the same goes for Snell. He does have that qualifying offer hanging around his neck this winter, but he's also coming off his second Cy Young Award in the last six seasons. It would be very difficult for him to raise his stock much from here, and easy to have it sag significantly. For their part, teams aren't likely to like the idea of signing Snell or Montgomery to a Bellinger- or Chapman-type deal, anyway, because those contracts operate very differently for pitchers than for hitters. Carlos Rodón is the illustrative case. He signed a two-year deal worth $44 million with the Giants prior to 2022, but it included the right to opt out of the second, slightly richer season of the pact. At the trade deadline that year, the deal became a poisoned pill. Teams were too afraid that Rodón would get hurt and forego his opt-out, becoming $22.5 million in dead money on their books the following winter, to trade for him, and (since he didn't ultimately get hurt) the Giants lost him via free agency after that season. Snell and Montgomery are both healthier and more established than Rodón was when he signed that contract with San Francisco, too, so they'd have to get something closer to $60 million over two years (or, like Bellinger, $80 million over three) to sign on to such a deal. That's going to be a tough sell on both sides, for all the reasons enumerated above. It's fairly blatant market manipulation. It's in bad faith. In a slightly more just society, the union would be able to make a case to the National Labor Relations Board and get the owners sanctioned for this repeated behavior, which you can also spot in the offseasons entering 2013, 2014, and 2019, always with a dual goal: Put pressure on agents and union leadership by frustrating players and withholding a greater share of their revenues, to establish leverage for the coming negotiations; and Create a false anchor that can then be phonily pulled up in the final offseason before the actual negotiations. This move--giving richer deals right in the shadow (on either side, chronologically) of CBA deals, fighting tooth-and-nail for the last dollar in the years furthest from them--is designed to put the players on the wrong side of public opinion, once conflict (a conflict the owners are inviting, even fabricating) does burble up. Alas, we don't live in that kind of world. So, let's briefly consider a more creative structure of contract for Snell and Montgomery, and ask ourselves whether the Cubs (hardly overcome with great options at the back end of the rotation) are in position to offer them. Instead of a straight opt-out deal, and instead of a traditional long-term deal (which both pitchers deserve, but which sure doesn't seem to be coming at this point), the best solution available to all involved is probably some version of what Boras once dubbed the "swell-opt". In short, these would be deals similar to Bellinger's and Chapman's, but the salaries would be frontloaded, and the team would have the right to void the hurler's opt-out clause by exercising a large, multi-year option instead. To take that from abstract to concrete, let's talk about Snell. He's the one who would give the Cubs rotation a truly different and level-changing new dynamic, but he'd cost a pretty penny. The Cubs could, plausibly, offer a three-year, $67-million deal to the two-time Cy Young winner, but $31 million of that would be paid in 2024. Then, Snell could choose to stick around for $20 million in 2025, or opt out, with the Cubs getting a chance to exercise a five-year, $150-million deal in order to prevent that. After 2025, Snell would also have the right to opt out, or else claim $16 million for 2026. The Cubs could void his opt-out by exercising a four-year, $100-million option for 2026-29. The structure would be different for Montgomery, who is older and doesn't have the QO attached to him this winter, but that's the general idea. It's a deal that includes some substantial risk on both sides, but there's also tremendous upside for both parties. At this point in the spring, it's something Boras should be open to. The Cubs should be willing to simply pay either Montgomery or Snell upward of $150 million for five or six years, but since they clearly aren't (and have the backing of a collusive market in that respect), this is the kind of happy medium place where they could meet Boras. According to Baseball Prospectus, the Cubs' offense is just fine. The PECOTA system projects them for a 102 DRC+, meaning the offense is above-average, as-is. They fall short because they're also projected for a 102 DRA-, meaning the pitching staff is almost exactly as below-average as the hitters are above that line. Montgomery and Snell are the remaining ways they could address that before the season begins. This kind of deal is how that would, in all likelihood, need to look. What do you think of this contract structure as a compromise between the Cubs and the top remaining free agent arms? Do you view the owners' behavior as legitimate? Sound off below. View full article

Having started the Cactus League opener last week, the Chicago Cubs' 2021 first-round pick is clearly on the inside track toward their fifth starter job for 2024. On Wednesday, he took another step toward winning the job, but some yellow flags remain. Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports In his exciting and eventual debut last September, Jordan Wicks racked up strikeouts by leaning on the pitch that first made him famous: his changeup. For much of the rest of the season, though, he didn't miss many bats, with that offering or any other. The most memorable outing of his season might have been the last game in which the Cubs seemed to have a clear and unbreakable hold on a playoff berth, on Sept. 6 against the Giants. That day, he faced 27 batters and got 20 outs, giving up just one run, but he only struck out one batter, and he only got three swings and misses in 97 pitches thrown. His three-inning appearance against the Brewers Wednesday in Maryvale, on the northwest side of Phoenix, rhymed with that Giants game. Wicks only allowed two hits, and he held the Brewers scoreless. He even got two strikeouts. On the other hand, he allowed some hard contact, and the ball was always moving. The Brewers would have scored, had Alexander Canario not come up exceptionally quickly and made an accurate, strong throw to nail Garrett Mitchell at the plate on a would-be RBI single in the first frame. A Matt Shaw error didn't help matters. That was similar to Wicks's first game of the spring, when he himself failed to convert an easy out on a dribbler back to the mound. Each play was a byproduct of the fact that Wicks isn't yet keeping the ball out of play the way high-end starters do, though. It was the same way late in his start against San Francisco nearly six months ago, when a grounder back to him started the rally with which the Giants finally pushed him out of the game. When he works inside to set up a right-handed hitter for the changeup away, it really does devastate them. Wicks did just that to both Christian Arroyo and Vinny Capra in the second frame. As much as anything, he might need to adjust the way he thinks about modulating his pitch mix throughout a start, and begin looking for more of those whiffs right away. Establishing the fastball and filling up the zone early sounds good and like it would allow a hurler to have more success late in a game, but that matters relatively little if he gets hit too hard before turning toward his swing-and-miss stuff. These same Brewers taught Wicks that lesson (or tried to) the hard way in his final start of 2023, launching two homers and scoring six runs in a game that saw the southpaw record just five outs. Wicks did a superb job of coming up to the big leagues and pounding the strike zone. That's no small feat, for a southpaw starter without above-average velocity. He's done the same this spring. When we think of pitchers with good enough control to prevent walks, we tend to assume it comes with a different kind of control--control over the whole game, in the sense that things always feel relatively calm. That, alas, is not yet the case for Wicks. I wrote about how he can change that, earlier this month. Tweaks to his pitch mix and sequencing could help him get more whiffs, because that is possible with his stuff--especially the changeup. He already does a good job of remaining poised and bearing down when traffic starts to pile up on the bases, but there are ways for him to turn another corner. In the early returns from spring training, though, it looks like he'll continue to deal with a certain level of chaos in the majority of starts this year. Quelling that chaos through excellent competitiveness and pitchability is admirable, but to consistently win games in the big leagues, Wicks will have to start nipping that chaos in the bud. View full article

Bringing back Cody Bellinger doesn't turn the Chicago Cubs into a juggernaut, or even, necessarily, into favorites in the NL Central. It also doesn't immediately clarify the roster decisions they've weighed all winter. It just makes everything better. Image courtesy of © Allan Henry-USA TODAY Sports Especially because of the surprising short-term nature of the deal the Cubs and Cody Bellinger struck, it's not fully clear what comes next for the team--or for the player. If the two sides had come to terms for the next five, six, or seven years, it would be pretty easy to envision the team handing first base over to Bellinger right away. That's his long-term position, and both he and the team know it. Instead, though, this deal could keep the best player on the 2023 Cubs around for as little as one more year, and on that term, it makes a little more sense from both sides for him to spend significant time in center field. Of Michael Busch and Pete Crow-Armstrong, it's Busch who is older, Busch whose bat seems more ready for the challenge of regular playing time in the big leagues, and Busch whose upside could have him batting fifth for a playoff-caliber team down the stretch in 2024. Letting Crow-Armstrong start the season with Triple-A Iowa makes a modicum of sense, even if he's the eventual answer in center, and Bellinger makes that easier. Playing out there also helps him sustain and expand upon his case for the megadeal that never quite came together this winter. Before re-signing Bellinger, the Cubs faced a whole bunch of questions about their 2024 roster, especially at first base, third base, center field, and DH. They included: Whether to try Christopher Morel at third base (with Patrick Wisdom, Matt Mervis, David Peralta, and Dominic Smith the best candidates to soak up time at DH) or let Morel be the regular DH and reinstate the late-2023 solution of Nick Madrigal and Wisdom at the hot corner. Whether to start Crow-Armstrong in center immediately, or to have Mike Tauchman and Alexander Canario platoon there while the top prospect completes his apprenticeship in the minors. Whether to platoon Busch with Wisdom at first base, or try the rookie on an everyday basis, and whether to carry Mervis as a matchup-based complement to him. With Bellinger on board, all those decisions get recast under friendlier light. He can move between first and center. When he's at first, does Morel play third, or do he and Busch platoon at DH, while Madrigal shores up the defense and slots in at the bottom of an otherwise thunderous order? When Bellinger is in center, Busch plays first, and it gets easier to justify putting Morel at DH and using Madrigal for his glove. A lineup against righthanders might go: Ian Happ - LF Nico Hoerner - 2B Cody Bellinger - CF Seiya Suzuki - RF Michael Busch - 1B Christopher Morel - DH Dansby Swanson - SS Miguel Amaya - C Nick Madrigal - 3B Having the more robust Bellinger in the middle of the order and the middle of the diamond reduces the urgency of the Morel project at third base, as compared to having the good-OBP, low-SLG Tauchman or the very unproven Crow-Armstrong out there. On the other hand, as the Cubs continued to collect non-roster, bat-first options Sunday, perhaps it's worth wondering whether they've just gained enough confidence to go forward with Morel as the third baseman, In that case, it's a good bet that either Madrigal or Wisdom will soon be traded, clearing the way for the likes of Peralta or newcomer Garrett Cooper (or both). The offensive upside of the team could go through the roof, in that case, almost (but not quite) independent of Bellinger. The re-signed star's versatility just creates more paths to a well-rounded, high-functioning positional roster. Whether the Cubs are done or not remains to be seen. Another move or two could elucidate everything. In the meantime, though, the prevailing feeling from this pact is that the team remains comfortable being uncomfortable. That was the signature of Craig Counsell's extraordinary run as the Brewers' manager, and as things currently stand, his new team will try to leverage that trait. View full article

You can finally stop holding your breath and stamping your feet. The best player on the 2023 Cubs will be back in 2024. For how long? We shall see. Image courtesy of © David Banks-USA TODAY Sports After a months-long staring contest, Jed Hoyer and Scott Boras got together on a deal that will keep Cody Bellinger on the North Side of Chicago for at least the 2024 season, according to Jeff Passan. In some ways, the makeup of this deal makes a lot of sense. Yes, Bellinger wanted his comeback season in 2023 to net him more in free agency, but the Cubs (and clearly other MLB organizations) aren't 100% certain in a complete turnaround. So, instead of something like seven years and $200 million, there was some compromise. Bellinger's deal could be worth $80 million over three years. It also could potentially only cost the Cubs $30 million in 2024, and that's it. This isn't the first time that Scott Boras has worked out a creative deal like this. Two offseasons ago, following the long lockout by owners, Carlos Correa had not yet signed and had just joined Boras Corp. In a 'normal' offseason, he would have received over $300 million, but teams weren't willing to do that with such a short timeline before the season was set to begin. Boras reached out to the Minnesota Twins and the two sides agreed to a three-year, $105 million contract with opt-outs after the first two seasons. No one expected the deal to be more than one season, and Correa did opt-out of it after that 2022 season. A return to the North Side was never a foregone conclusion--not even after the Yankees, Blue Jays, and Giants each ended up filling their needs for left-handed bats in different ways. Bellinger and Boras never really expected that the former MVP would command $300 million in free agency, but they did have a hard line below which they were unwilling to go, and it took a while for the Cubs to decide that the slender slugger was worth that price tag--the heftiest in team history. Still, the fit always made sense, even with Pete Crow-Armstrong nearly set to emerge as a full-fledged big-leaguer. Bellinger is no longer a plus center fielder, and will not even be passable out there much longer, but between Crow-Armstrong, Alexander Canario, and Kevin Alcántara, the Cubs have plenty of potential center fielders in medium term. For now, they'll pencil Bellinger into that spot, and into the heart of their batting order. If Crow-Armstrong is able to assert himself, Bellinger will become a full-time first baseman. Bellinger also will get time at first base where newly-acquired Michael Busch was penciled in. Busch can also play second and third base where he could platoon with Christopher Morel. Regardless, Craig Counsell now has a middle of the order bat and some defensive flexibility. More to come as we sort through the details here, but obviously, this is a very good day (notice the time of Passan's tweets for those who think baseball writing is glamorous). Bellinger, 28, signed a one-year, make-good deal with the Cubs a year ago. He responded by putting up easily his best season since his MVP season of 2019 with the Dodgers. In 130 games for the Cubs in 2023, he hit . 307/.356/.525 with 29 doubles, 26 homers, and 97 RBI. Defensively, he made 81 starts in center field and 44 starts at first base. What are your initial thoughts on Bellinger being back, what you expect his role to be in 2024, and how you feel about the contract that he signed? View full article