Matthew Trueblood

With just five days left before the MLB Winter Meetings get fully underway in Nashville, trade rumors are picking up steam. Here's why the ones around the Cubs continue to center on the Rays' gawky ace. Image courtesy of © Gregory Fisher-USA TODAY Sports By now, you've probably heard about Tyler Glasnow's gaudy strikeout rates. That's the selling point for him. It's why he's drawn so much interest, despite his lack of durability and the fact that he becomes a free agent after 2024, a season in which he'll make $25 million. Every team, especially in 2023, loves pitchers who strike people out. There's not much subtlety to it, but it's the way of the pitching world. As the Rays have shopped Glasnow and rumors have intensified, though, the Cubs are standing out (along with the Dodgers and Reds, and a couple presumed dark horses) from the field. They clearly have an interest that runs deeper than the sheer strikeout stuff, and an attraction to him that chips away at the conservatism that has historically led Jed Hoyer to prefer safer, sturdier, lower-ceiling starters. What fuels that? Some of the answer is in Glasnow's unique physicality and delivery. Only a handful of other pitchers in MLB get further down the mound and release their pitches closer to home plate than does the long, fluid Glasnow. This can sometimes feel like a small thing, but compare these overhead 3D visualizations of two pitchers' pitches. First, here's Glasnow. Now, here's Justin Verlander--another tall right-handed hurler with mid-90s heat and two breaking balls that work off of it. From this digital bird's eye, you can see how big a difference extension can make. Glasnow's hand is a foot and a half closer to home than is Verlander's on an average fastball. Note the white and pink dots along the flight paths of the pitches, too. Because of the greater extension Glasnow achieves, hitters can't recognize and differentiate his offerings with as much distance between them and the ball (and thus, with as much time to decide on whether to attack) as they can against Verlander's stuff. Glasnow pays a kinetic price for the intensity of his delivery. His injury history makes that clear. However, he also gets a real benefit from it. Of the 506 pitchers who threw at least 200 fastballs last year, Glasnow ranked 72nd in raw velocity, but 25th in perceived velocity, according to Statcast. That he throws that hard with that much extension also helps engender swings (and especially swings and misses) on his breaking stuff. The Cubs don't generally go wild for extension. Whereas Glasnow's Rays ranked first in MLB in that regard in 2023, Chicago was 26th. It's something they've been trying to balance out a bit, though, and as Craig Counsell comes down from Milwaukee to take the helm, he might also bring along his predilections in these small things. The Brewers ranked second to Tampa in extension this year. One thing for which the Cubs already do go wild, though, is cutting action on four-seam fastballs. Famously, some sources reclassified Justin Steele's fastball as a cutter this year, and that's with good reason. If you count that heater as a four-seamer, though, the Cubs had more cut (or less armside run, to flip things around) on their four-seam fastballs in 2023 than any other team in MLB. Of the 359 hurlers who threw at least 200 four-seamers this year, Glasnow ranked 11th in cut on the pitch. In that way, he would fit their pitching philosophy perfectly, and Tommy Hottovy would love working with him. None of this means Glasnow is a perfect trade target. The injuries that have plagued him throughout his career should give any team pause about trading significant talent to get him, but it sure seems like the price tag will be substantial. That's the nature of the marketplace for starting pitching throughout MLB over the last few years, as the proliferation of guys like Glasnow (great, but fragile) has created an artificially high level of consistent demand for starters. In all likelihood, what he gets traded for will make fans of whichever team lands him wince. Still, there are clear matches between the Cubs and this particular hurler. They have the organizational depth to trade for him without that wince being too long-lasting, too. While Glasnow is a deeply imperfect pitcher, his unique characteristics make him alluring in a way few other available starters are. View full article

Aha! But you can't. 😄 We do have to be careful not to make the perfect the enemy of the good here. There are a lot of tremendous fits for the Cubs who (like Tucker) are absolutely, positively unavailable, or who (like Yamamoto, to pick one) are simply gonna sign elsewhere instead of with them. I like Bregman as a (yes, certainly imperfect for this roster, but) very good answer at a position where they have the opening, at a reasonable cost.

The early trade buzz around the Cubs took a turn for the somewhat bizarre last week, when they were tenuously connected to an All-Star-caliber American League infielder. This week, there's a more plausible candidate with very similar credentials. Bregman is a good candidate, in terms of striking the delicate balance between having substantial trade value, not being locked in beyond the coming season, and having a lot of real dollars attached to him. Because of the structure of his deal, trading him would only clear $20 million from Houston's books for tax purposes, but the difference between that and his real salary (so, $8.5 million) could become a cushion that Jim Crane would use to pay any bills if the team just edged over the threshold for this year. After 2024, it's not just Bregman who leaves. So, too, does Justin Verlander, for whom the Astros are on the hook for over $18 million next year. They'll have the flexibility to duck right back under the threshold, but in order to be willing to clear it even for one year, Crane might ask his front office to save him money en route. Because the push factors making Bregman (theoretically) available are stronger than is the case with Bichette, the asking price would be lower. He's older, more expensive, and will hit free agency again sooner. He also has a lower ceiling than Bichette, who has been very good but not yet a true superstar in his time in MLB, and who will be just 26 years old in 2024. The Cubs wouldn't be getting as dynamic a player, but the certainty and the smaller transaction cost with Bregman matter. Bregman is already a third baseman, and a fine one. The Cubs wouldn't need to make a position change and hope it went well, and they wouldn't be asking for someone's house so they could use it as a car. While his power has sagged slightly since his peak, Bregman controls the strike zone as well as any hitter in baseball. Of the 201 batters with at least 750 plate appearances since the start of 2022, Bregman has the 12th-highest walk rate and 10th-lowest strikeout rate. Arguably, there's no one in baseball who puts together tougher at-bats. Unlike many other players who are almost as good at those plate-discipline skills, he also gets the ball in the air at a high rate. That doesn't mean he's without risk. Again, his power is diminished, relative to his best seasons, and it's fair to wonder if some of that power was more about the extremely aerodynamic ball the league used in 2018 and 2019 than about Bregman himself. He pulled the ball much less last season than in the past, which had something to do with an intentional change in approach but might also indicate that his bat is starting to decline. Nonetheless, the fit here is obvious. Bregman does well the things the Cubs prize most from their hitters. In the Killer Tofu lineup they keep threatening to build (lethal, but without beef), Bregman would make a lot of sense. The question is what the Astros would want in return for him, but even there, a match might be found with relative ease. Houston is suddenly in need of some upper-level pitching depth, and the Cubs have that to spare, given an opportunity like this. What do you think of Bregman as a potential Cubs acquisition? How far should the Cubs go to make this happen? Let's chop it up. View full article

We're nearly to the end of November, and the Cubs haven't yet checked off any of the major items on their winter shopping list. It's not time to panic, but perhaps now is a good time to clarify their hierarchy of needs for 2024. Image courtesy of © Isaiah J. Downing-USA TODAY Sports It's not especially hard to list the things the Cubs most need in order to be a competitive team next season. Because of their offensive and defensive strength on the middle infield and in the outfield corners, those positions are spoken-for. Catcher is a slightly more complicated story, but it sure doesn't seem like they will (or need to) make improvement there a priority. Positionally, they have some degree of need for five things: A third baseman A first baseman Center field depth Starting pitching Relief pitching They also have a couple of needs that are orthogonal to position, but which can be viewed as equally important: More power (especially left-handed power) in their lineup More swing-and-miss from their starting pitchers It's hard to argue that they're already adequate in all of those ways, or that they're seriously deficient in any other one. This is clearly the checklist for Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins this winter. Since checking that many boxes in one offseason walks the line between difficult and impossible, though, the front office needs to do some triage and address the most glaring and valuable needs most aggressively. Thus, it's worth trying to put all of the above in order. I'll tackle this task by addressing the issues in the order of urgency and magnitude of needed improvement I perceive, from greatest to least. You can offer your own opinions on that ranking, though, and prescribe your own solutions. 1. Starting Pitching (with an emphasis on whiffs) Right off the bat, I'm cheating a bit. This item combines one of the positional needs with one of the production-oriented ones. That's the nature of upgrading a roster, though: you get better at various skills and in various areas by acquiring new players at various positions. To that end, I'm focused most on how well the Cubs can deeper their rotation this winter, without sacrificing upside to raise their floor. Obviously, a number of names have already swirled through the rumor mill this month. The Cubs don't seem to be frontrunners for Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and (by Scott Boras's design, I think) no one is talking much yet about what specific shape Blake Snell's market will take. The most intriguing (though that's an importantly different thing than 'best') names who have come up in close connection with the Cubs are trade candidates Tyler Glasnow and Shane Bieber. Glasnow is a baseball Tantalus, with strikeout rates that make any starter this side of Jacob deGrom blush--but a health record not even deGrom would envy. He gives up a lot of hard contact, but that's only when hitters actually make contact, and he's thrown enough strikes to be dominant for most of the last half-decade when he's been able to take the ball. The problem is that he's owed $25 million, would still cost something valuable in exchange with Tampa Bay, and has never thrown more than 120 innings in a professional season. Like Glasnow, Bieber has a troubling recent injury history. Like Glasnow, he's a free agent after next season. Like Glasnow, he pitches for a team strapped for cash and uninterested in paying him big money in 2024. That's where the similarities end. Bieber is one of the best in baseball at pounding the strike zone, but (though he's only 28 years old) he's no longer the strikeout machine he could be at his best. He would be a solid upgrade at the top of the Cubs' rotation, but it seems very unlikely that he'll ever regain the form that garnered him a Cy Young Award in 2020 and serious consideration for the same in 2019 and 2022. His stuff is diminished. To me, neither Glasnow nor Bieber is an ideal solution. The ideal solutions to this twinned problem are hugely expensive, though, so the Cubs might shy away from them. The good news is that, though doing too little is a real danger and doing nothing would be a dereliction of duty, the Cubs do have sound depth in the rotation already. Javier Assad doesn't miss as many bats as you'd like. His ceiling in the rotation is relatively low. Still, his stuff is good enough to frequently induce soft contact, and he has a blend of athleticism and competitive intellect that allows him to outpitch his raw talent. If Assad is the fifth starter entering 2024, the Cubs needn't feel badly about it. 2. (Left-Handed) Power Here's where, pointedly, I'm not being position-specific. The Cubs need a great hitter to round out their lineup, and ideally two of them. It would be best if their best offensive addition were a left-handed hitter. It's fine if they're just a DH, though; the team doesn't need a premium defender at any position as badly as they need an elite hitter at any position. Yes, that sounds a lot like Shohei Ohtani. It also sounds like Juan Soto. Their costs would be very different, in that you'd have to trade talent (baseball's least renewable resource) in order to get Soto, whereas Ohtani would cost (almost) only cash. Because Soto is a free agent next winter, though, his price tag might be lower than Ohtani's by a wide enough margin to make paying in the more valuable currency worth it. By ranking this need above the need for a first baseman, I'm nodding in the direction of those extremely lofty targets, and away from Cody Bellinger. As serendipitous as their season together was, Bellinger and the Cubs are an imperfect fit going forward. I'm not sure whether or not the front office realizes that. They like Bellinger's playing style, and they've seemed wary of power-over-hit guys ever since the championship core went to seed due (in part) to their all-or-nothing tendencies. Bellinger is the antithesis of that, at least among guys who hit for some power. I've wrestled with the underlying batted-ball data on Bellinger for months now, and while I think the narrative that he doesn't hit the ball hard enough to consistently generate power going forward is flawed, I'm forced to acknowledge that there's a lot of real risk there. What we saw last season was a mixture of good performance and good luck for Bellinger, but crucially, it was also a season of very good health. We've seen how bad things can go for him when his body breaks down. That his expected stats were underwhelming even when he stayed healthy only reinforces the argument that he's a risk to get hurt again and lose a lot of his value in short order. 3. First Base While he's not left-handed, Pete Alonso would solve a lot of problems for the Cubs, if only in the short term. His numbers at Wrigley Field are something out of a video game, and that's not pure coincidence. The close fences in the power alley in left-center field mesh perfectly with Alonso's skill set. I would still surrender more to get Soto than to get Alonso, but because of the positional fit, the gap in what I think it would be appropriate for the Cubs to give up for each is very small. Failing that big a get, though, I still think the team needs a stabilizer at the cold corner. Unlike the other side of the diamond, first has no clear short-term solutions in place. That (not a genuine belief that he's a good fit for it, offensively or defensively) is why the team has asked Christopher Morel to pick up a first baseman's mitt this winter. I'm not out on Morel's bat (though I tend to agree with the growing feeling that his greatest value to the Cubs is as a trade chip, because he could play a fine second base somewhere else in the league) or ready to give up on Matt Mervis entirely, but the Cubs need to set a much higher floor at that position than they have done so far. 4. Relief Pitching Depth How much do you want to bet on the health of Adbert Alzolay's elbow and elbow-adjacent structures? That's the key question here, for me, and the answer I give is: as little as possible. Alzolay was a joy to watch in 2023, and his talent is beyond doubt. His durability is much more suspect. You can enter a season with a relief ace who poses this much injury risk when expectations are low or when your depth is superb, but neither of those things is true of the 2024 Cubs. They need someone who will at least co-captain the bullpen with Alzolay and Merryweather. They probably need to land two trustworthy relievers, all told, shoving the likes of Mark Leiter Jr. and Jose Cuas (with their impressive talent but inconsistent results) down toward the end of the bullpen bench. 5. Third Base Assuming they find a big bat elsewhere on the diamond, I think the Cubs have an adequate assemblage of talent at third base. To many, that will sound a bit optimistic, but the facts are that Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom (between them) do a lot of things well. On a rate basis, no one in baseball was a better defender at third than Madrigal in 2023. That doesn't quite compute, but even the eye test would tell you that Madrigal was very good with the glove--surprisingly so, given his below-average raw arm strength. Madrigal's contact-centered approach and dearth of power make it tough to stomach him as an everyday corner infielder. Wisdom's power can make up for that, though, if the two are used optimally. David Ross deserves a modicum of credit for occasionally finding a good balance between them last year, but I trust Craig Counsell to do so in a more complete, yearlong way. Add Matt Shaw, B.J. Murray, and James Triantos to the list of possible contributors, and this team has a nice mixture of depth, upside, and certainty at third. It shouldn't escape your notice that, whereas the Cubs only kept Wisdom at the non-tender deadline once he agreed to a deal to avoid arbitration in advance, the team unblinkingly tendered Madrigal a contract. 6. Center Field This one should be non-controversial. With Pete Crow-Armstrong almost sure to claim the bulk of the playing time by midseason, the need for this buttress is limited to the early portion of the season. In my opinion, though, it's further curtailed by the fact that Mike Tauchman is a capable bridge starter, himself. By the end of 2023, the magic of the Summer of Mike Tauchman had faded, but again, the team tendered him a deal earlier this month, so they believe he can be a solid contributor in the right role. According to Baseball Prospectus's Defensive Runs Prevented (DRP), Tauchman was a slightly below-average defender in center last season. He acquitted himself fine, though, thanks to an arm that nudged him back toward average and good offensive value. His power was fleeting and seems unlikely to return in 2024, but he still has on-base skills. Notably, Tauchman also racked up 4.2 Baserunning Runs (BRR), making plays on the bases once he got there. If the Cubs are going to make an external addition to this mix, it should be either very inexpensive, or someone versatile--like Bellinger was last season. It's clear that the Cubs need to make multiple high-impact moves this winter, and tack on a couple of smaller but vital ones to finish off a division-winning roster. It's just not clear which ones they'll actually make, and that question depends greatly on how they sort out these needs and opportunities. What do you think of my ranking? Let's keep the stove warm while we wait for the floodgates to open. View full article

Gosh, the Cards are betting heavily on having four twos, rather than a three and three fours, with all this. I can't believe they didn't go bigger--Snell or Yamamoto would have been the guys, for me. And Gray is so reliant on called strikes! And [gestures at Willson's framing numbers]!

As the Cubs look ahead to their first season with Craig Counsell at the helm, one key question is whether (and to what extent) they can weaponize his brilliance with regard to bullpen management. One of his key assets for 2024 will be the slender, slider-slinging sage who struck out 98 batters in relief in 2023. Image courtesy of © Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK In a lengthy appearance on the Elite Baseball Development Podcast, Julian Merryweather told the story of his development as a pitcher and a person, how his mentality and arsenal have evolved, and what he did to achieve the breakout we saw from him this past season. The Cubs recently tendered Merryweather a contract for 2024, alongside fellow arbitration-eligible relievers Mark Leiter Jr. and Adbert Alzolay, so everything he had to say feels important. First of all, Merryweather's demeanor on the show was exactly what you'd expect, given the one he assumes on the mound. There, he always looks stoic (lower-case 's'), like he regards retiring opponents as a grim duty, although perhaps not a regrettable one. On the show, he was affable and engaging, but there was no hint of goofiness or irrepressible energy to him. On the contrary, in talking about his personal development, he mentioned spending time reading books about Stoicism (capital 'S', belonging to the famous philosophical tradition). He came off as the same even-keeled, intelligent creature he seemed to be when the Cubs called upon him so many times at key moments throughout the season. Interestingly, while Cubs fans quickly became familiar with him as a slider maven, he and host Eric Cressey recalled that Merryweather was primarily a fastball-changeup guy in his amateur days. Merryweather explained that he just didn't much need anything else, at those levels. Since he's been in pro ball, though, he's typically been a four-pitch pitcher, which is unusual for relievers. As the two noted, Merryweather's move to the bullpen had as much to do with the pressure the Blue Jays felt to justify acquiring him for former MVP Josh Donaldson as with anything else, and some of his injury issues stemmed from that transition, rather than the injuries forcing the move. Now, he seems to have full command of his three most important offerings. He threw his slider more often than any other pitch in 2023, but he not only utilized the changeup to great effect, but expressed his continued faith in it as a weapon--including in right-on-right confrontations with hitters. That's not unwarranted confidence. Last year, there were 386 offspeed pitches thrown at least 50 times by their owner. Merryweather's spin-deadening changeup yielded the sixth-lowest expected weighted on-base average (xwOBA) in that cohort, according to Statcast. The pitch might have limited utility, now that he's a reliever and will be asked to face righties more often than lefties, but it remains devastating. So is his slider, which has almost unbounded value. The challenge for Merryweather in 2024 will be to locate his fastball better. That was the pitch on which he got hit hard, and that's always been his problem. He throws hard and generates good spin on the pitch, but it flattens out at times and gets hammered. It doesn't yield significant numbers of whiffs, especially for such an aesthetically impressive offering. That was the one topic Cressey and Merryweather neglected a bit during the show. However, they lent some wonderful insights into the difficulty of being a big-league reliever, and into how Merryweather made both mechanical and training changes to become more durable in 2023. With some changes to his delivery (especially in his lower half), Merryweather felt that he got stronger and more efficient in his movements, which helped avoid a kinetic chain reaction that contributed to oblique injuries in previous campaigns. Even more interesting, though, was the long conversation between the two about the routines Merryweather developed to deal with the vicissitudes of being a reliever and having to be available every day. Merryweather spoke specifically about doing daily work, without wanting to be spent when the call came down to the bullpen. He's wired well for the gig he now has, in that he doesn't like to go more than a day or two without getting on a mound to make some pitches, anyway. However, he had to learn (as most big-league relievers do) how to stay fresh on a daily basis. His regimen and his thought process in creating it were fascinating to learn about. Check out the whole show here. What do you think of Merryweather as a co-ace of next year's relief corps? The insights he shared here allow for a little greater confidence that he can repeat 2023's success, but there's always risk around a hard-throwing reliever. Let's chat about the Chicago bullpen. View full article

There are reasons to pause a moment before pouncing on the idea of signing Shohei Ohtani as a free agent this winter. If you're worried about the prospect on the basis of his salary and the Cubs' budget, though, stop it. Image courtesy of © Wendell Cruz-USA TODAY Sports It sounds outlandish, but this weekend, 670 The Score baseball insider Bruce Levine reported that the Angels' internal estimate of the annual revenue Shohei Ohtani generated for them was $100 million. I can't confirm that figure, but everyone to whom I have spoken puts the number between $70 million and $90 million. Having Ohtani not only raises the national profile of any team, but instantly creates huge marketing and advertisement opportunities in Japan. There's a feature-length documentary about the man on ESPN+ and (outside the US) Disney+ right now. This is not a normal free agent. Given all that, this shouldn't surprise you, but it's an important thing to know: For many teams, there are two budgets for 2024 right now. There's one number the front office knows they need to stick to, and then there's another one, anywhere from $20 million to $40 million higher, that they need to stick to if they sign Ohtani. Entering the offseason, the Cubs know they're likely to exceed the first threshold of the competitive-balance tax rules in 2024. To stay below the second threshold, though, they would need to spend no more than $257 million. That's probably their de facto cap. If they sign Ohtani, that changes. The new ceiling is the third threshold, at $277 million. Beyond that, the penalties get especially draconian, so it's unlikely that signing Ohtani would earn Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins any more wiggle room than that, but they would be given the flexibility to go all the way to the third threshold if they reeled in the biggest fish to hit open water since Alex Rodríguez. Part of that is the knowledge (held by all parties) that Ohtani has massive leverage, and that he will want to see evidence of a team's willingness and ability to field a consistent contender before signing. Another part, though, is the simple math described above. Realistically, he has no chance to get more than $55 million per year, and a relatively small chance to get even $50 million per year. That would just break baseball's salary scale too badly. If he's worth (taking a moving average from uncertain sources) $80 million per year, then merely having him on board is worth over $20 million each season. Again, there are legitimate concerns here. The Rickettses might be willing to spend that way on an Ohtani-led team in the short term, but spuriously claim major losses and snap the purse shut in a few years if things don't go perfectly. Either way, Ohtani is a massive investment, and even for a team spending $300 million per year, a $50-million player is as big a problem if he's hurt or ineffective as he is a boon if he's playing as advertised. The threat that he'll be permanently diminished as a pitcher by this second elbow surgery is real. So is the danger that he'll age quickly at the plate, given all the extra energy he's put into the two-way project over the last half-decade. On balance, though, those are gambles well worth taking. The bonus any team gets by being the ones to take it almost offsets all the downside, anyway. View full article

It's Thanksgiving Week, and the big-name free agents are finally starting to find homes. Let's wrap up our ranking of the top 50 fits for the Cubs, specifically, in MLB free agency. Image courtesy of © Rhona Wise-USA TODAY Sports For those who haven't read the first four posts in this series, you can catch up (and read some brief remarks on my approach to this exercise, including how it differs from a global, standard-issue ranking of free agents) by perusing them now. Nos. 41-50 Nos. 31-40 Nos. 21-30 Nos. 11-20 Now, however, it's time to dive in and round out this countdown. 10. Josh Hader, LHP Spending big money on a closer in free agency? That's the argument against it, in a nutshell. The argument for it is equally simple and clear, though: Hader is an exceptionally good left-handed reliever. He'd be the Cubs' best closer since either Carlos Marmol or Lee Smith, depending more on how much agita Marmol gave you than on anything having to do with Hader himself. As he embarks on his 30s, we can expect another crisis or two--another enforced change in approach or stuff, akin to the one he had to go through in 2022. That's happened to Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, Craig Kimbrel, and every other elite reliever this side of Mariano Rivera, and it's likely to happen to Hader again, too. Yet, he's already survived one of those crises, which plenty of relief aces don't manage to do. He still has incredible carry on that fastball and the little brother of Randy Johnson's slider. Last year, opponents struck out 36.8 percent of the time against him. He issues more walks than you'd like, but his ability to miss bats and manage contact sets him apart from all but the best handful of relievers of this generation. One more drawback bears mention, because it's an important caveat to my recommendation here: Hader has not pitched even 60 innings in any regular season since the pandemic began. In fact, he's averaging just under 55 frames per year since 2021. In this day and age, it's not unusual for closers to be used lightly and carefully, but this is extreme. Edwin Díaz, to pick one superficially similar stud, had 62 innings in each of the last two seasons in which he pitched. The difference sounds small, but if there are five or eight fewer games a year in which Hader is available relative to other top closers, that has to matter. For that reason, I expect Hader to have an unexpectedly hard time matching Díaz's contract from last winter. I think the qualifying offer and the lack of flexibility or volume in his track record will limit his market, perhaps to something as manageable as four years and $76 million. In that range, he makes plenty of sense. If he does get something north of $100 million on a five-year deal, it won't be with the Cubs, and I will lose no sleep. It's only if his price tag gets the markdown I'm forecasting that I advocate reuniting Frankenstein and his monster. 9. Sonny Gray, RHP Imagine, for a moment, a right-handed Justin Steele, only with six pitches instead of two. That's what Gray has grown into over the last two seasons, with summering in the northern climes of Minnesota. His fastball has become extreme in its cut, at the expense of some of its former ride. He milled and polished a sweeper, to go with the high-spin curveball that used to be his calling card. Blending veteran intellect and hard experience with great raw stuff and hard data, Gray had his best year to date at age 34. The qualifying offer hanging off several of the guys at this level does pose a complication. The Cubs won't want to lose a draft pick unless absolutely necessary, and Gray is right on the line where you catch yourself asking whether the necessity is absolute. His athleticism and his arsenal allow him to throw strikes consistently and manage contact well, but Gray lacks the transformational whiff power that the team should be trying to add to its starting rotation this winter. He can still be a huge boon, but he's probably only a fit if he ends up signing a three-year deal. 8. Matt Chapman, 3B 'Gilding the lily' is meant as a derisive expression. You can't improve upon the glory and beauty of nature by brushing it with gold. There's an argument to be made that the gorgeous, seemingly organic defensive wizardry of last year's Cubs infield can't be improved upon by throwing a nine-figure financial commitment at it. After all, the middle of that infield is already gilded: Dansby Swanson and Nico Hoerner both hauled in Gold Glove awards this year. On the other hand, consider: Chapman, one of the best defensive third basemen of this generation, could complete a long-term defensive phalanx as strong as any in recent memory. Nick Madrigal has gorgeous defensive metrics last year, and the eye test more or less matched that, but Chapman is on another level. He doesn't have any of the athletic limitations that apply to Madrigal. He doesn't have any of the limitations that apply to most third basemen, it seems. He's a fast, strong-armed, feline outs machine at third base. Moreover, unlike Madrigal, he brings a well-balanced offensive profile. Chapman has been wildly inconsistent at bat, and his chief asset (plus power) deserted him for much of 2023. With strong exit velocities and a non-catastrophic whiff rate, though, it's a good bet that he'll remain an above-average contributor for most of the life of whatever deal he signs this winter. That will probably be five or six years, which is a bit daunting, but Chapman would lengthen the lineup and give this team built on the premise of elite defense a truly, well, elite defense. That's awfully valuable. 7. Aaron Nola, RHP We needn't spend too much time on Nola, since he became the first high-end free agent off the board Sunday morning. The amount for which he re-signed with the Phillies ($172 million, over seven years) is right around what was projected, representing no great bargain or major overpay. He'd have been a strong addition to the Cubs' rotation, but if they're going to spend that much, they should do it on one of the guys in the top five on this list, instead, giving them greater upside. His return to Philadelphia is no great miss, in that sense. 6. Jordan Montgomery, LHP Everything about Montgomery--his mechanics, his arsenal, his stuff--looks normal, but nothing is. He's a big guy with a clean-looking over-the-top delivery, but his primary fastball--at least since the start of 2022, and especially this past season--is a sinker with a ton of arm-side movement. His changeup was the pitch that really came along as a weapon in 2023, but peculiarly, that was mostly because he traded in so many four-seamers for sinkers. Of the 49 southpaws who threw at least 200 changeups in 2023, only three utilized seam-shifted wake effects so well that the pitch rose, relative to what its spin implied that it would do. Austin Gomber and Ryan Yarbrough aren't similar to Montgomery at all in arm slot, though. They have lower slots. The way Montgomery throws, it's odd to see the change sort of float, and hitters can't quite adjust to it. That's always been true. His changeup has been missing bats for a few years. The thing that made the effect more complete, though, was leaning away from the four-seamer and into the sinker, because Montgomery's sinker actually sinks more than his change. The relative effect of the two pitches, then, is even more extreme than the interaction between spin and movement for the change would imply on its own. It's the curveball that gets everyone talking with Montgomery, though, and that's not without cause. Few pitchers manipulate the hook as well as he does. He's been chaining curves together and moving them around the strike zone since he was a rookie with the Yankees, years ago. The curve, too, defies batters who think they've spotted its spin, because it tumbles more (kind of like a changeup, ironically) and moves less horizontally than its spin axis promises that it will. Coming from that slot and situated in the arsenal he's created, the curve is a versatile and nasty weapon. After Montgomery's run to the World Series title with the Rangers, none of this is a secret. He's going to sign a huge deal somewhere this winter. The Cubs are an organization that facilitates much of the above especially well, though, and he suits their needs this winter gorgeously. It makes some sense for the Cubs to be the ones who make that splash. 5. Shota Imanaga, LHP There will be so much attention paid to two other ballplayers from Japan this winter that Imanaga is almost certain to end up underrated and underpaid. Last winter, Kodai Senga signed a five-year deal worth $75 million to come over from NPB, and he immediately garnered not only strong Rookie of the Year support, but an All-Star nod and some down-ballot Cy Young Award votes. Imanaga is left-handed, and he's a bit smaller (worryingly smaller, if you're inclined toward injury anxiety) than Senga, but he has every chance to be at least as good. Even more than Senga, too, Imanaga is fascinating and fun to watch. He has a high-energy delivery, with a high arm slot and a lot of moving parts. He starts on the far first-base side of the rubber, which is smart, because his four-seam fastball (a pitch that, if anything, cuts a little more than a typical one) is the pitch that needs the most room to move to his arm side. That's a radically unusual trait. Imanaga utilizes a splitter heavily, but the pitch actually cuts, rather than fades, relative to his four-seamer. You never see that. He also has a good slider, which is his primary non-fastball offering against lefties. No matter what type of hitter he's facing, Imanaga can change eye levels as well as any pitcher on Earth. His fastball has more rising action than that of any big-league pitcher had last season. Forcing hitters to try to get on top of that kind of pitch makes them helpless against the splitter and slider, and his curve represents yet another huge vertical variation. Not everything he's been throwing in NPB will translate perfectly and work in the same way in MLB, but Imanaga has all the makings of a high-strikeout, low-walk top-of-the-rotation starter. That's where he departs sharply from Senga; he will fill up the strike zone. Unless he ends up receiving seven-year offers or someone wants to give him $25 million per year over six, Imanaga should be a priority for the Cubs. He could be their ace for the next few years, and it wouldn't take a 90th-percentile outcome. 4. Blake Snell, LHP I don't think the Cubs have any greater need than for a front-of-the-rotation starter this winter. Yet, I'm ranking a defending Cy Young Award winner who had won the prize another time in the past fourth on this list. That's the furthest I'm willing to go in my protest of Snell's style, which includes a bizarre amount of nibbling and strikeout fixation from a pitcher with good enough stuff to go straight after hitters. Snell's command genuinely isn't great, but he doesn't need to walk hitters at anywhere near the clip at which he's done so throughout his career. He just tries to make every pitch perfect, and it's maddening. When he's good, it's also mercilessly effective. You don't win two Cy Young Awards with a bad approach. You can win them and still have an annoying approach, though. Annoyance isn't a good enough reason for me not to support the team signing Snell. He's just not my preferred pick for them, because he's going to make a massive amount of money and he does struggle to work deep into games. If a pitcher is going to cost you $200 million, you should be able to send them to the mound with a reasonable expectation of six or seven innings most of the time. That's not an archaic notion, no matter how many dweeby hyper-modern analysts decry it. Snell doesn't do that, and his approach leads to a piling-up of pitches that smells like arm trouble to me. Nonetheless, on sheer talent and accomplishment, he gets a place in the final four here. 3. Cody Bellinger, 1B/CF In one of the more polarizing free agencies I can remember, Bellinger has been projected for everywhere from $144 million to $264 million, on deals between six and 12 years in length. I think he'll fall right around $200 million, and if I'm being honest, that kind of investment would make me tremendously uneasy. Bellinger is fun. He has good power, and that power plays up because everything is hit in the air and most of what he hits in the air is pulled. I trust that skill to age well, and it should assuage some of the concerns people have developed based on oversimplified looks at batted-ball data. I also loved, from both an aesthetic and a value perspective, watching Bellinger emulate Mark Grace so often in 2023. With two strikes, he not only modulated the aggressiveness of his swing, but altered his entire physical sequence. He did the old, ungainly but beautiful Grace thing, letting his legs lock out and leaning forward at the waist to scoop and flick the ball into the outfield. All that said, if things work out the way the Cubs hope they will, Pete Crow-Armstrong will be their long-term center fielder, starting almost immediately. Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki are already locked in at the outfield corners. Bellinger would be almost exclusively a first baseman, and once you wrap your head around that, the urgency and seriousness of skepticism about his offense come into focus. By 75th-percentile exit velocity (the best mark for assessing power rigorously using that data set), Bellinger was 271st of the 328 batters who had at least 250 plate appearances this year--right between Zach McKinstry and Paul DeJong on that leaderboard. To reinvest in him at the required level, the Cubs would have to believe fervently in the staying power of those adjustments and those emergency hacks. 2. Shohei Ohtani, DH/RHP No issues with exit velocity, at any percentile, here. The only thing you're surprised at is finding him here, instead of one spot higher. He's one of the best hitters in baseball, and one of the best athletes of the 21st century. When he returns to the mound, he'll instantly return to enjoying default MVP status. It will take a player having a historic season and a bunch of writers getting much too excited about it to unseat a full-strength Ohtani from his rightful MVP perch, so if you can just survive one year in which he's merely the best DH in baseball, you can look forward to a few more years of having the best overall player, without a close rival. Obviously, it's not that simple. Even regular pitchers face some real risk of permanent degradation or further injury once they undergo a second elbow surgery. Ohtani's latest wasn't a full-fledged revision of his previous Tommy John operation, but it's still major, as indicated by the fact that he won't return to the mound before 2025. Once you reach that point with a player who also hits every day and whose stuff is so intense, it's inescapable: there is some chance Ohtani will not ever be the same pitcher he's been for the last three years. Whether he does manage that unfettered recovery or not, though, Ohtani is the most valuable baseball player--off the field, to say nothing of his unprecedented on-field contributions--of this century. Signing him would make signing other free agents easier, for multiple reasons. Signing him would alter the identity of the franchise. All of that would happen even before he emerges from his latest chrysalis. 1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, RHP How can anyone be a better fit for a team like the Cubs than a superhero in cleats, like Ohtani? It certainly takes a rare beast. That's what Yamamoto is. Having just turned 25 in August, Yamamoto has already pummeled and demoralized NPB hitters for years. He's struck out 587 batters and walked 110 of them since the start of 2021. Opponents have scored just over 1.70 runs per nine innings against him over those three seasons--not 1.70 earned runs, but 1.70 runs total. Stateside hitters will score more than that. The level of competition in NPB is closer to that of MLB than many people want to believe, but at the bottom end, NPB has many more players who can be exploited and dominated by its best talents than does MLB. Still, Yamamoto is not one of those guys about whom anyone needs to worry, in terms of success overseas translating to the majors. He's diminutive, like Imanaga and Gray, but he sits at 95 miles per hour and can touch 97 or 98. He has multiple plus secondary offerings, in his curveball and splitter, and all the requisite feel to modulate or expand that repertoire is there. Yamamoto will shatter the previous record for money committed to a player joining MLB for the first time. Aces do not become available at this young an age, and the small worries of his not having faced such uniformly strong competition and having thrown a lot of pitches this young will only be enough to keep him south of Gerrit Cole money. He's going to get a deal lasting 10-12 years, paying $200-300 million. That's an extraordinary investment. If the Cubs can sell Yamamoto on Chicago and their plan for the future, they should gladly do it. There you have it. That's a long post, to end a long series, but we've now kicked around my top 50 free-agent fits for the Cubs. Who did I miss? Who's far too low? Who's a little too high? Let's keep the stove warm while Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins prepare to cook. View full article

Today, we continue our countdown of the top 50 fits for the Chicago Cubs in MLB free agency this offseason. This isn't a ranking of pure talent or projected production; it's specific to the Cubs. Even so, we're getting into the range where most of the names are big ones. Image courtesy of © Ed Szczepanski-USA TODAY Sports For those who haven't caught the three previous posts in this series, feel free to go back and peruse them. There are many, many players who could help the Cubs on the market this winter. Nos. 41-50 Nos. 31-40 Nos. 21-30 Without further ado, though, let's jump into the next 10 names on my (highly subjective) list. 20. Michael Brantley, DH/LF This name might catch a few people by surprise, this high on the countdown. Don't be fooled, though: Brantley is going to bring great value somewhere. A severe shoulder injury ended his 2022 season prematurely, and he didn't make it back until late in 2023. Between the regular season and the playoffs, he only came to bat 89 times this year. Even so, he made a huge impact on the Astros. At age 37, he remains a joy to watch at bat, with as smooth a line-drive swing and as superb a command of the strike zone as any hitter in baseball. He's actually a fine defender in left, on a limited basis, so he could help Ian Happ stay fresh. He's also one of the great leaders and clubhouse presences in the game. The Cubs should be all over him. 19. Wade Miley, LHP Again, this one will seem unsexy, but every teammate of Miley talks about the positive impact he has just by being around. In his lone season with the Cubs, he was hampered by injuries, and he clearly pitches through pain almost every time he takes the mound. Yet, he had a 3.14 ERA in 23 starts last season with the Brewers. His underlying stats don't support that number, and he's only getting older, but there's a certain alchemy in the partnership of Miley and Craig Counsell. On a reasonable, short-term deal laden with incentives, the Cubs should have interest in reuniting the two again. 18. Yariel Rodriguez, RHP There are some who envision Rodríguez as a starter, but the smart money is on the Cuban-cum-Japanese import working in short relief. Even so, he can be a massively valuable weapon. Though not hulking or capable of throwing triple-digit heat, Rodríguez is nasty. He'll turn 27 in March, and comes over to the States after a few years as one of the dominant relief pitchers in NPB. He dazzled in the World Baseball Classic this spring, then sat out the Japanese season to set himself up optimally for this chance to cross the pond. Though it's just treated as a four-seamer in most reports, Rodríguez throws what is really a 95-mile-per-hour cutter, and pairs it with a nasty two-plane slider. In Japan and in the WBC, he used a splitter with crazy armside run as his third pitch, but he might mill all of this into a slightly different repertoire as he comes Stateside. The stuff and the feel for it all is so good, though, that it should be easy to trust and invest in him even without knowing quite what he's going to evolve into. 17. Justin Turner, DH/1B/3B If Rodríguez is uniquely enigmatic for such a high-profile free agent, Turner is the epitome of transparency and predictability. He's been metronomically solid at the plate over the last decade. You no longer want him playing the field with any regularity, but his bat would be a welcome addition to the middle of the lineup and a stupendous fit for Wrigley Field. Turner is also a recent Roberto Clemente Award winner and a beloved teammate everywhere he's been. He'd add to the solid group the team already has in terms of leadership and experience with big moments. 16. Robert Stephenson, RHP Stephenson is a former top prospect, but he flopped as a starter and was a fairly forgettable journeyman reliever until the middle of 2023. That's when the Rays got him, gave him a cutter, and transformed him into a whiff monster with closer upside. The cutter is a perfect gyro-spin headwrecker of a pitch, and everything else he does works much better thanks to its implementation. He's already had his breakout. This wouldn't be the kind of bargain-bin project signing the Cubs love for the bullpen. It could, however, be the kind of high-impact relief help that unlocks the full potential value of having Counsell on the top step of the dugout. 15. Seth Lugo, RHP Back at the dawn of the Statcast Era, Lugo became one of the first pitchers famed for the high spin rate on his breaking ball. He retains that feel for spin, although it never did translate into genuine stardom. For a long time, he was primarily a reliever, but after a season as a successful full-time starter for the Padres, he hits the market looking to find the team willing to bet on his stuff in a bigger way than they have until now. That rough sketch might give you frissons of Tyler Chatwood, but there's more to like and less to fear here. Lugo also tweaked his changeup in 2023 (as many Padres did), making it a more vertical offering that plays off his fastball better, and he got many more whiffs from it in the bargain. He's not the top-of-the-rotation arm that should be the Cubs' priority, but he's exactly the kind of average-plus back-end stabilizer they also need to find. 14. Mitch Garver, C/DH I wrote about what makes Garver so appealing earlier this offseason, so I'll be brief this time around. Suffice it to say that, even in a post-David Ross world in which the Cubs are much less likely to carry three catchers at once, Garver would be a solid complement to Yan Gomes and/or Miguel Amaya. He'd also add an element of patient, lethal right-handed power that the lineup still needs. 13. Rhys Hoskins, 1B/DH Sometimes the narrative connections between a recent move and another potential one are so obvious and lovely that rehearsing them becomes tiresome. If Hoskins signs with the Cubs, we're all going to be sick of hearing his name connected to Cody Bellinger even before spring training begins. Last spring, Hoskins tore his ACL in Grapefruit League play, cutting short his Phillies career in tragic fashion. That injury and the one suffered by Bryce Harper the previous season--the one that forced Harper to first base, first on an interim and now on a permanent basis--are the reasons why Hoskins is available this winter on what could be a similar basis to Bellinger: no qualifying offer attached, no long-term commitment, just an opportunity for a team to get big production and one for a player to rebuild and prove their value before a full-fledged plunge into free agency a year later. Hoskins is streaky, but his hot streaks are more than enough to offset his cold snaps. His plate discipline steers his strikeout rate higher than his actual hit tool requires, but it also ensures that he draws plenty of walks and retains some value even when he's not quite connecting with his power. It's hard to project how he'll bounce back from a serious injury, but before it, he was a fine defender at first base, too. 12. J.D. Martinez, DH I was a loud advocate for the Cubs to sign Martinez last winter, instead of settling for Trey Mancini. They get another shot at him, now, with one more All-Star game on Martinez's resume but one more year on his odometer. He's probably in line to command a two-year deal this time around, after slugging .572 for the Dodgers, but that's fine. His power is awesome and adaptable. Even as he traded more walks for it and struck out at a slightly scary rate in 2023, he reminded everyone that great sluggers find ways to balance and manage those tradeoffs. Eventually, he will decline sharply, but it's not especially likely to happen in 2024, and embracing the risk that it will in 2025 or 2026 might be the avenue to acquiring him at a manageable annual salary. 11. Eduardo Rodriguez, LHP He's the least of the true top-of-the-rotation options, in my opinion, but Rodríguez is a legitimate one. The Tigers and Rodríguez weren't good for each other, and the opt-out in his contract felt like a blessing for both sides. He's likely to try to replicate the five-year commitment he got when he hit the market after 2021, but he might find that difficult. His surface-level numbers aren't overly impressive, and he doesn't have one elite pitch or the velocity that makes every modern executive a little more comfortable ponying up for a hurler. What he does have is unusual command of multiple pitches. He can locate his cutter on both sides of the plate with equal aplomb. He throws his sinker glove-side, for the most part, which is a weird habit that both speaks to his feel and hints at an opportunity to better utilize his arsenal. Tommy Hottovy would do some cool things with Rodríguez, if he came in with an open mind. Whether that's a plausible pairing depends a little on Rodríguez's attitude and a lot on how high his price tag gets on the open market. Which of these guys are favored targets for you? Who do I have too high on the list? Chime in now, before the signings start rolling in fast. View full article

The Cubs filled their 40-man roster to bursting earlier this week. That made it inevitable that they would cut a few players loose at the deadline to tender contracts to players under club control today, and they did just that--but they also held onto some notable names. It's disappointing to say goodbye to those three hurlers. Roberts was such a feel-good story at the beginning of 2022, but he never seemed likely to work back into the team's plans once his elbow trouble started. Heuer was such an important part of the Craig Kimbrel trade with the White Sox in 2021, but he's suffered multiple enormous injuries since, so he, too, was an obvious candidate for this treatment. Hughes is the one who most makes one feel the violent vagaries of this game. Coming into 2023, he was rightly viewed as one of the team's high-leverage relief options, after he burst onto the scene in 2022 with a slider that sliced through opposing hitters. It always feels especially cruel when a pitcher is derailed by a non-arm injury, but Hughes's knee trouble was so persistent and intractable that he went from promising to unwanted in barely six months. Cutting these three nicely balances the scales, after the team added Michael Arias, Porter Hodge, and Bailey Horn to their roster Tuesday. Those guys aren't positioned to immediately take up significant big-league roles for the team, but with a new manager who is famous for the construction and deployment of dominant bullpens made of unheralded arms, the team is choosing to maximize new blood and turn over a few names on the edges of the roster. This is also a reflection of the depth of their farm system. Without the risk that Arias, Hodge, and/or Horn could have been taken in next month's Rule 5 Draft, they wouldn't have been added to the roster, and the team might have chosen to try to weather the injury storms with at least one of Roberts, Heuer, and Hughes. Releasing those three creates room on the 40-man roster for potential additions via trade or free agency, but the team could have created even more of that. They affirmed some level of faith in guys like Nick Madrigal and Mike Tauchman by bringing them back, and showed what we could have guessed: that Wisdom is wanted, but was the closest of the position players to their cut line. Signing deals ahead of the tender deadline signals that a team was unwilling to keep the player unless they could find that common ground, so by striking this agreement, Wisdom and the Cubs stayed committed to one another, but the Cubs avoided the uncertainty of going through the arbitration process with a guy who has clubbed 76 home runs since the start of 2021. This ends a week of important but essentially procedural moves. The offseason is off to a fairly slow start, throughout MLB. As we head into the holiday week, we'll see more significant moves start to take place, and the Cubs now have a bit more clarity and a bit more flexibility with which to act. View full article

Jesse Rogers dropped an article this morning loaded with a lot of juicy rumors, including a repeated, seemingly thematic return to Shohei Ohtani as the focal point of the Cubs' offseason. That's awfully juicy, in itself, but Rogers also mentions that the Cubs are much less likely to retain Cody Bellinger than to sign Ohtani. That sentence, with the embedded implication that they have some measurable, significant chance to sign Ohtani at all, is exciting, but it's also newsworthy for the implication that Bellinger and Scott Boras are more likely to find their payday elsewhere--an idea on which Rogers then expands quite a bit. Already, there's more smoke than I might have expected there to be around the Cubs and Ohtani. That doesn't mean we should sound the fire alarms yet. No one is saying they're the favorites for him. It's just becoming clear how much they will try, and that their offseason could very well turn on their pursuit of him. Other notes in here, by the way, address Pete Alonso's potential availability (with Christopher Morel as a centerpiece going the other way; that seems improbable to me, but it's compelling) and the notion of a Cubs-Brewers trade involving Corbin Burnes (whoa). It's a fun little digest of rumors for a Thursday morning. Photo credit: © Kevin Jairaj-USA TODAY Sports View full rumor

We've already covered 20 players I think would be good fits for the Cubs (on various-sized deals, and in various ways) in MLB free agency this year. Now, we're into the top 30 on this team-specific ranking. Image courtesy of © Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports For more information on the specific nature of this exercise (and how it differs from, say, rankings of all free agents via MLB Trade Rumors or other news outlets), and to catch up on the names already bandied about, check out the first two pieces in this series. Once you've done so, you're ready to read up on the next 10 players I'm rolling out. Nos. 41-50 Nos. 31-40 30. Tommy Pham, LF/DH Pham can hit. He's always been able to hit. Denied any kind of regular playing time until a relatively advanced age, he's gotten old on us now, but he can still hit. After a deadline trade from the disappointing Mets to the floundering Diamondbacks, he gave that team some newfound competitive juice and helped them surge back into the playoff picture and deep into October. He's respected throughout the game for his fire and for his plate discipline, and few players work harder. Here's the thing, though: he's crazy. Tommy Pham is crazy, and that makes bringing him into any clubhouse a bit of a risk. Whether the Cubs are comfortable with that risk will probably depend as much on their faith in Craig Counsell's stabilizing influence and on their background work on the guy as on their feelings of needing another right-handed bat for their outfield and DH mix. 29. Brent Suter, LHP Reunite Counsell with one of his most unlikely former relief aces. Then, stand back and watch the magic happen. Suter is as soft-tossing as it comes, especially for a reliever, but no one in baseball better neutralizes power on contact, and his changeup misses bats as well as any flamethrower's wicked slider. Suter would fill an obvious need for both bulk and a southpaw in the pen, and he's one of the brightest, most conscientious people in baseball. No player has been a more vocal activist in the area of global climate change, and while that's not necessarily a reason to sign a free agent, it's a reason to feel even better about it if they sign. 28. Jorge Soler, DH/OF Soler's initial tenure with the Cubs was more full of promise than of production, and he's hardly become a bastion of consistency since being traded for Wade Davis seven years ago. Yet, he's just the kind of thunderous middle-of-the-order bat the Cubs need, and he just opted out of his deal with the Marlins. If Soler could stomach the cold of Chicago in spring this time around, and if he can be had at a price that reflects the risk that he'll get hurt, he's well worth bringing back. It's not unfair to think of him, at this point, as Giancarlo Stanton redux. Stanton stayed healthy more often, but when he is healthy, Soler hits for similarly terrifying power, draws walks at a similarly impressive rate, and affects the game even from the on-deck circle in the same way. 27. Hector Neris, RHP As Matt Ostrowski recently wrote, bringing in Counsell is a good reason to invest in the bullpen, not an excuse to avoid doing so. Neris doesn't throw as hard as he once did, and he tends to issue too many free passes, but he's a swing-and-miss stud, thanks to a nasty splitter and an improved ability to elevate the four-seamer in order to set it up. Thanks to that splitter, Neris tends to sport fairly neutral platoon splits. He'd be an upgrade over Mark Leiter, Jr. in the same role, pushing Leiter down the depth chart and giving the team some reasonably-priced bullpen coverage. 26. Nick Martinez, RHP It's not quite kin to Neris's splitter, but Martinez has a nasty changeup of his own. He fits his into a pitch mix about five weapons deep, and uses all those offerings in fairly even shares, even when working in multi-inning relief. He was an extremely versatile, valuable weapon for the Padres over the last two seasons. Pitchers who are comfortable working in relief and as starters (and who can move freely between the two roles without deterioration) have some special value that goes beyond their raw numbers, just as a position player who is willing and able to move around the diamond defensively or provide good at-bats off the bench has. Martinez is likely to seek out a place where he can open the season as a full-fledged starter, and the Cubs might not be able to offer him that guarantee, but he'd ben a great utility pitcher for Counsell's staff. 25. Jeimer Candelario, 3B/1B In a recent podcast appearance, Bruce Levine of 670 The Score mentioned that the Cubs haven't been in touch with Cnadelario's agent since the end of the seasons, and that he senses that Candelario's representation feels disrespected or deprioritized because of that. I mention that only to say this: don't put too much stock into tidbits like these. The factual premise of a report like this is nearly always true, but very often, some inference or conclusion drawn therefrom swallows up that premise, and those inferences and conclusions are often spurious. I can confirm that the Cubs and Candelario have not had direct contact since the end of the season. I wouldn't assign any deeper meaning to that, though, than to observe that the team does not have Candelario at the very top of either their third-base or their first-base options list this winter. Surely, you already knew that. It doesn't mean that the switch-hitting, fine-fielding two-time Cub might not rise to the top of one of those options lists in a month. I don't think Candelario is off the team's radar permanently, or that his agent would spurn any renewed advances. It's just not the ideal scenario for either side, at this point. Candelario wants to find someone who sees him as a star. The Cubs want a star. It's possible that neither of them will get exactly what they want, and in that case, they could reunite happily and salubriously. 24. Michael Wacha, RHP Like his Padres teammate Martinez, Wacha threw his changeup more than any other pitch in his repertoire last year. That was even true against righties, which seems crazy, but it worked for both hurlers. In Wacha's case, it's certainly not a big surprise. He's always had an excellent cambio, with both fade and tumble. As he surpasses a decade of big-league service, he needs that pitch more all the time, but his velocity hasn't fallen off badly, or anything. The Cubs would be extremely comfortable working with an arsenal like his, and while there's little reason to think they could unlock another level from him, there's also none to believe that he'll collapse on the spot. His ERAs the last two years have markedly outstripped his expected numbers, which is why the Padres found no takers in trade and had to simply decline his two-year, $32-million option. He could make a very similar amount on the open market, though, and that would be a fine price for the Cubs. 23. Brandon Belt, 1B You have to see Belt through the lens of what he does well, rather than what he does poorly. He's a great, incredibly patient left-handed power hitter. And that's all. He's not going to suddenly unlock the ability to hit for average. He's not going to become a Fielding Bible Award-caliber first baseman again at age 36. None of that is necessary, though. Even as a DH who only occasionally dusts off his first baseman's mitt, and even if he's so assiduously protected from left-handed pitchers that he doesn't qualify for the batting title, Belt can have huge value. Because he hits everything in the air, he won't see his power disappear overnight. Because he even hits his ground balls at notably high launch angles (for grounders), he belongs to the class of hitters who benefited (and will continue to benefit) from the elimination of the shift. He would be a stellar addition to the middle of the order against right-handed pitchers. 22. Jack Flaherty, RHP During the brief window in which he pitched to Cy Young-caliber results, it felt like Flaherty was more than the sum of his parts--like he was finding some improbable and slightly unsustainable ways to converge his pitches and skills into a higher level of overall performance. Perhaps, then, he's never going to be an ace again. On the other hand, as his career has come unglued in the past few years, he's been just as plainly less than the sum of his parts. He's a great athlete with a feel for spin and good control (though, especially on his fastball, insufficient command), and yet, there have been long stretches during which opposing hitters have positively pummeled him. If he's been humbled at all by his recent misfortune, he's now one of the game's best possible reclamation projects. He doesn't need a new pitch, even. He just needs to radically reimagine and change the way he uses the ones he already has. The Cubs aren't baseball's leaders at that kind of optimization, but they're average at it, and average would be good enough to get plenty of value out of Flahety on a short- or medium-term deal. 21. Teoscar Hernandez, RF/DH Multiple outlets project Hernandez to sign a four-year deal worth $80 million. That's probably more than the Cubs would pay for him. It's probably more than they should pay, too. Hernandez would have to squeeze into their plans in a slightly awkward way. He'd be the regular DH, but rotating into each corner outfield spot at times to spell Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki. That's not an unusual arrangement in the modern game, but having three guys with annual salaries around $20 million doing it is living dangerously, and perhaps not living well enough to justify the peril. Should Hernandez's market not materialize to that extent, though, he quickly becomes interesting. He's a good athlete, with speed and a rocket arm. He hammers the ball with regularity, though it comes with plenty of strikeouts. He would provide an exciting and dangerous wrinkle to the middle of the batting order. It's just a matter of whether the price is right. Who jumps out to you as a good fit, from this list? Who am I a dope for including? Let's continue to kick around ideas for the Cubs to make news on the hot stove. View full article

As the offseason takes full effect, we'll soon see significant player movement begin. It's a good time to continue our countdown of the 50 best fits for the Cubs in free agency. Image courtesy of © Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports I'm attempting a unique (but, I think, a valuable) balancing act with this exercise. Ranking free agents from a global, league-wider perspective smooths too many important places where there's real friction preventing a given player from fitting what a team needs. Focusing on what the Cubs need and how they'll look to allocate resources this winter brings the hot stove into much clearer focus for us. You can check out the players I ranked 41-50 in this narrow way here. Now, here come the next 10. 40. Carlos Santana, 1B/DH Sooner or later, Santana will give way and surrender to Father Time. He's put up an exceptional fight against him so far, though. For a decade and a half, now, he's put up superb walk totals and hit enough home runs to be a competent first baseman. He's also one of the better defenders in the league at that position, even as he creeps up on 40 years of age. A switch-hitter, he'd be a nice, versatile piece in the lower portion of the heart of a Cubs lineup that ends up featuring a big bat other than Cody Bellinger. The team probably will and should aim higher, but Santana is the kind of backup plan who wouldn't feel deflating, if something else fell through. 39. Emilio Pagan, RHP An exemplar of the unpredictability of relief pitching, Pagan has been a star-caliber set-up man for long stretches during his career, but he's also been borderline unusable over long periods. Home runs are his biggest bugaboo, but on occasion, he also issues too many walks, the same way the man who saw Death in Baghdad and fled to Samarra only found Death waiting for him there. When he's right, though, Pagan is nasty. His cutter is the kind of pitch the Cubs' pitching brain trust would love to redeploy, and from which they would expect big results. 38. Kevin Pillar, OF As a starter, he's slightly underwhelming, now that he's lost a step in the outfield and is no longer a plus center fielder. He can still patrol that spot on a part-time basis, though, and the relatively small center fields of the NL Central would be a great fit for him in that regard. Offensively, he's a right-handed hitter who hammers lefty pitching. That would make him a nice little platoon partner to Pete Crow-Armstrong and Mike Tauchman, to whatever extent each of them end up claiming playing time in center field in 2024, but Pillar would gain a little extra value by being able to spell Ian Happ (a switch-hitter who will never be good against lefties), as well. 37. Erick Fedde, RHP The former Nationals first-round pick is coming back to the States after a year in the Korean Baseball Organization, with an overhauled repertoire and some very impressive results to recommend him. He heavily featured a new sweeper overseas in 2023, and learned to pitch with that as the anchor of his repertoire, rather than being overly fastball-forward. He's no Kyle Hendricks, but he doesn't throw hard, so his comfort with more evenly mixing four or five pitches could be the key to whatever success he finds as he returns to MLB. As a relatively low-cost upside play for the back end of the rotation, he could be a great bargain. This fit is probably a contingent one, though, in that the Cubs would only need or want him at his likely asking price if they were to trade a depth starter like Javier Assad in a move to bring in a high-impact bat. 36. Joe Kelly, RHP On the cusp of his age-36 season, Kelly still feels like an extraordinarily volatile pitcher--like no one in the game has really figured him out yet. That includes hitters. He had the highest strikeout rate of his career in 2023. It didn't render irrelevant his persistent control problems, but Kelly is a pretty solid and occasionally overpowering middle reliever. He won't be healthy all season, but he won't come at a huge cost, and come September or October, his triple-digit heat is a weapon against any caliber of hitter. It was interesting to see him make a committed switch from the curveball to the slider as his principal breaking pitch this season. 35. Sean Manaea, LHP It was a mild surprise to see Manaea opt out of a deal that would have paid him $12 million to pitch for the Giants in 2024. The sensible inference is that he wants multi-year security, and while giving it to him sounds a bit overexuberant at first blush, there are reasons to consider it plausible. A Northwest Indiana product, he'd be coming closer to home than his pro career has ever brought him before, and he's shown an ability to be effective in a swingman role. As the Cubs try to guarantee sufficient depth in both the rotation and the bullpen, he seems like a candidate to kill two birds with one hulking stone. 34. Reynaldo Lopez, RHP It's not clear whether anyone is allowed to sign Lopez without also signing Lucas Giolito, who has moved with him each time either has changed organizations during their professional careers. With or without his hip attachment, however, Lopez is an exciting potential addition to the bullpen. He has an electric fastball-slider combination, and while it's not so different from those of Julian Merryweather or Adbert Alzolay as to feel like an entirely different thing, it would be great to add another player of that type to the relief corps--to hedge against injury or regression by either of those two, and to replace the good innings Michael Fulmer gave the Cubs in 2023. Lopez will probably command a multi-year deal at a non-negligible salary, but whether that's a hurdle depends on where else the Cubs are able or willing to spend money. 33. Adam Duvall, OF If Patrick Wisdom were fractionally more consistent at the plate, he'd match Duvall's offense. Don't hold your breath on that happening, though. Instead, the Cubs could move on from Wisdom this winter. He's a candidate to be traded or non-tendered by the end of Friday, when the team has to tender contracts to players for 2024. Wisdom just isn't a great fit for the roster at this point. Duvall would fill the offensive role Wisdom occupies, but he's an above-average defensive outfielder, which makes a world of difference here. He even acquits himself well in center field. He might sign a two-year deal worth $15 million or more, but he'd be a terrific depth piece for the positional corps in that price range. 32. Kenta Maeda, RHP The Cubs need more raw stuff in their rotation, and more swing-and-miss. Alas, those aren't the areas of great strength for Maeda, at this stage of his career. The ex-Dodgers and Twins starter underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021, and is down to a sub-91 miles per hour average velocity on his heater. His slider isn't the filthy pitch it used to be, now that his fastball is down a tick. He still has a nasty splitter, good command, and a whole lot of savvy, though. On the right deal, he could be a very good fourth starter for a team reinforced from the front end of the rotation by one of the premium free agents available. 31. Jordan Hicks, RHP Few hurlers anywhere in the game throw harder than Hicks. His ability to translate pure velocity into whiffs and outs has been less consistent, but in 2023, he posted the highest strikeout rate of his career. Featuring a sinker instead of a four-seamer, he keeps the ball on the ground as well as any reliever in the game, and he reshaped his slider into more of a sweeper this past season. He also started making use of a four-seam fastball, for the first time. There's a lot with which to work, though to earn the right to do that work, the Cubs would probably have to commit to Hicks for three years at an annual salary near $10 million. Are any of these appealing options for you? Weigh in, and come back later this week to see who comes in higher on the list of good fits for the Cubs this offseason. View full article

Monday is the deadline for teams to add players to their 40-man roster in order to protect them from next month's Rule 5 Draft. The Cubs have a few open roster spots, but whether to spend all of them (and if so, on which prospects) is always an interesting question. Image courtesy of © MATT CASHORE / USA TODAY NETWORK Unlike last winter, this fall finds the Cubs without any elite prospects in obvious need of protection from MLB's secondary mechanism for ensuring player freedom. They already allowed Yonathan Perlaza to leave the organization as a minor-league free agent, and added Luis Vazquez to the 40-man to prevent the same. They still have three vacancies on the reserve list, if they want to use them, but once a player is added for this purpose, they can't be removed from the roster through the usual mechanisms of waivers and outright assignment for a certain period. For that reason (and because the team might prefer external additions who stand to make a greater impact on the team), the Cubs might elect to leave themselves an open spot or two on the 40-man even on the other side of this deadline. This day also tends to generate player movement throughout the sport, as teams try to clear the requisite space on their rosters for key additions or trade fringy guys they would have left unprotected to teams who will then slot them into their own 40-man. Let's take a look at the guys who give the Cubs some real reason to pause and consider their options today. Pablo Aliendo, C It's a little bit difficult to take seriously anyone who strikes out 30 percent of the time even in Double A, but Aliendo did so at an appropriate age (22) and with some power and patience to offset the whiffs. He's also a credible (though far from exciting) defensive catcher. In general, teams don't love to carry an extra catcher on the 40-man unless they would feel comfortable calling them up for an extended stay with the parent club. The dilemma the Cubs face, then, is whether they can find that kind of trust in Aliendo. He's not in a terribly different spot from the one Miguel Amaya was in a year ago, but he doesn't have quite the same defensive chops, and that might prove to be a separator. Chase Strumpf, IF It feels like the decision to add Vazquez foreclosed the possibility of doing the same with Strumpf (or Jake Slaughter, his less defensively sound facsimile), but we'll see how things unfold. At the end of this week lurks the deadline for non-tendering arbitration-eligible players, and at that point, the Cubs could theoretically move on from one or both of Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom. If they plan to do so, then there might be a place for Strumpf, after all. He's not quite viable at shortstop, but he profiles as an above-average defender at second or third base. His power is legitimate, and he takes his walks. Again, though, we're talking about a minor-league strikeout rate that makes you worry whether Wisdom's big-league rate might not be the floor for Strumpf's. Ezeqeuiel Pagan, OF A left-handed hitter with bat-to-ball skills and a modicum of plate discipline can usually progress at least to the upper levels of the minors as a legitimate potential big-leaguer. At that point, the question becomes whether they can deliver sufficient power or defensive value to get them over the hump. We don't yet have that answer where Pagan is concerned; he's only gotten a small taste of Double-A competition. He's probably an underpowered corner outfielder, and even if he does end up bridging the gaps and becoming MLB-worthy, it feels unlikely that he'd be taken in this year's draft. Under their current circumstances, the Cubs figure to take that chance and see what happens. Kohl Franklin, RHP Last year, the Cubs added Ryan Jensen to the 40-man at this time, surprising some fans and analysts. Their hope was that they had finally helped a formerly struggling first-round pick unlock something, and that he would materialize quickly as a big-league reliever. It didn't happen, and it's very unlikely that the same gambit would work any better with Franklin. The team would be better off taking their chances by leaving him unprotected, especially since they need to be aiming to make big external upgrades on the pitching staff and will need roster room for them, anyway. Michael Arias, RHP This case is much more nuanced. Arias signed as a shortstop out of the Dominican Republic in 2018. After one year in the Dominican Summer League and one onset of a global pandemic, the Blue Jays released him in May 2020, and the Cubs signed him as a conversion project. Given that fraught trajectory, his ugly walk rates in both levels of A ball the last two years don't seem so bad. The stuff is really good, and his small frame might not scare off a team who would be drafting him for a quick move to the bullpen. It's still a tough call, but adding Arias feels like the right move, if the team can identify other places on the roster to create space if and when they need to add a star via trade or free agency. A Handful of Relievers The above are the main names to watch today, but a few relief-only arms could also be in the mix, depending on what the Cubs' internal analysis and evaluations on them look like. They include Eduarniel Nunez, who has a truly filthy fastball-curveball combo but no clue where it's going; Bailey Horn, a lefty with two above-average breaking balls but insufficient fastball command; and the quartet of Cayne Ueckert, Cam Sanders, Ben Leeper, and Max Bain, who all have good fastballs and good sliders but big flaws in either their health or their control. Of those six, one is going to be a good big-league reliever, and one is going to be a modestly useful one. The other four will float around and come to nothing. If the Cubs have conviction on which is the winning ticket in that batch, they might play it, but the good odds are that all six are left unshielded. Again, there are other avenues through which this deadline can yield a little bit of interest and movement, but the Cubs seem unlikely to make any big or surprising moves this year, based on their situation and the status of their most valuable prospects. Who would you protect? What names not rattled off here have your attention? Are there trade partners on whom you'll keep tabs today? Let's get nerdy. View full article