Matthew Trueblood

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images In the modern game, teams work hard to build not only strong offenses, but ones with a wide array of strengths and weaknesses. Just as it's become popular to assemble a bullpen featuring pitchers with different arm slots and pitch shapes, as well as handedness, teams are trying to build lineups with varied skill sets—including swing paths. Platoon balance is a familiar need, and clubs have always craved a mix of power and speed, but the new hotness is loading up with players who can neutralize the constellation of looks pitching staffs will throw at you within a given game or series. The Cubs have had a good mix of left- and right-handed offense over the last three seasons. They've employed sluggers and speedsters. They've had guys who specialize in drawing walks and those who emphasize avoiding strikeouts. Last season, though, they had one glaring deficiency in lineup diversity: swing path. There are three key variables in a player's swing, just as there are with a pitcher's throw. For pitches, those vsriables are velocity, horizontal movement and vertical movement, though as we now know, there are other key characteristics, too: spin rate, arm angle and extension toward the plate at release. For hitters, the main variables are bat speed, swing tilt, and contact point. Again, there are secondary traits that also matter (attack angle and direction, depth in the batter's box, and swing decisions), but those are controlled by the primary traits. To visualize the way Cubs hitters map on this basis, I've charted swing tilt and contact point (relative to the batter's center of mass) for 2025. The points in this scatter plot are colored by the player's average exit velocity, as a proxy (admittedly, an imperfect one) for swing speed. This includes all the team's regulars last season, plus a few selected players for comparison. As you can see, the Cubs strongly favor steeper swings. The average swing tilt for big-league hitters is around 32°. Last year, the only frequent contributors to the team who were on the flatter side of that midpoint were Matt Shaw and Seiya Suzuki, and for Suzuki, it wasn't by much. They also leaned toward catching the ball farther out in front of themselves than most hitters do. The two exceptions to the latter rule were Kyle Tucker and Nico Hoerner, but Tucker then hit free agency. Earlier this month, we discussed the possibility that the team would pursue Bo Bichette, who catches the ball as deep as just about any hitter in baseball—but as you can see, he also would have been another of the team's steep swingers. This move goes the other way. The team traded Christopher Morel (an exceptionally flat swinger) for Isaac Paredes in 2024, but then shipped Paredes to the Astros as part of the deal for Tucker in December of that year. Paredes's extreme go-get-the-ball contact point contributes to his reliance on pulling the ball right down the line. The fact that Bregman lets the ball travel much longer explains his ability to hit for power to left-center field, where Wrigley Field will be much friendlier to him. Indeed, Bregman hit 13 balls over the last two seasons that were not home runs at the parks where he was playing, but which would leave Wrigley by clearing the wall at the shallow part of the left-center power alley. Shaw was the different swing the team needed to balance out the rest of their crew, but only when he was going well. For most of the season, he was a mess at the plate, with a disorganized approach and little feel for barreling the ball. Bregman doesn't swing as fast as Shaw, but he makes hard contact more often, because he has what Shaw is missing: an extremely polished plan at the plate and plus-plus feel for contact. Bregman and Moisés Ballesteros now give the Cubs the flat swings their lineup lacked last season. Mixing Bregman, Ballesteros, Busch, Happ, Suzuki, Crow-Armstrong and Hoerner into the top seven spots in the batting order each day will give the Cubs two true speed threats; as many as four 25-homer hitters; three lefties, three righties and a switch-hitter. Now, they also have a greater diversity of swing shapes, which leaves fewer pitchers able to pick their way through the lineup without hitting a buzzsaw. Bregman is a risky signing, entering his mid-30s and a bit light on power, but he boosts both the depth and the versatility of what the team hopes is a championship-caliber offense. Consider this glimpse at the swings of four Cubs hitters: Bregman, Busch, Hoerner and Suzuki. The difference in swing plane between Bregman and both Hoerner and Busch is visible to the naked eye, as well as in the measurement at the bottom right corner. Harder to pick up at a glance (but just as important) is the fact that Bregman hits by getting his hips and shoulders more open by the contact point than the others. That ensures that, despite his flatter swing, he's working uphill at contact more than Hoerner or Suzuki are. Finally, look at his hands; that's where his offensive genius lies. Whereas any of the other three would be on the point of breaking their wrists and rolling over by the time they get to the same point in the arc of the swing, Bregman is capable of cutting smoothly through the ball throughout a wide timing window. Compare his right wrist to Suzuki's, at the same point. In Suzuki's swing, his wrist is already at full extension by then, and there's no way to resist rolling them if he's a hair early. For Bregman, there's still flexion in the wrist of that top hand, and the bottom hand operates brilliantly, too. Because of the flatness of his swing, Bregman doesn't have to turn his left wrist over until very late, either. That's where the signature finish on his swing comes from, and it's why he makes contact at an elite rate even while averaging such a high attack angle and a high launch angle on his batted balls. All of that makes it hard to manipulate Bregman, and explains why he's a perennially tough out. He's struggled against sinkers (a little) and sweepers (sometimes a lot), but he consistently has positive run values against four-seam fastballs, changeups, curveballs, sliders and cutters, because his swing is so adaptable. Given his superb plate discipline, he's a terrific fit for Chicago's lineup, on multiple levels. In a vacuum, Bichette would have been a more desirable signing, because he's younger, more athletic and more likely to have peak seasons in front of him. However, the team needed a swing just like Bregman's to mix into their everyday lineup. View full article

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-Imagn Images Alex Bregman will be the straw that stirs the drink for the Cubs over the balance of this decade. He joins the team as a dynamic offensive force designed to make up for the team's otherwise left-leaning core pieces, and as a forceful personality who fits perfectly into their clubhouse. Craig Counsell's daily duty of filling out the lineup card just got a lot easier. Let's project a few ways the team's batting order could take shape each day, based on matchups and the talent they've collected over the last handful of years. First, when they face a right-handed starter, things seem likely to shake out in pretty straightforward fashion: Michael Busch - 1b Alex Bregman - 3b Ian Happ - lf Seiya Suzuki - rf Moisés Ballesteros - dh Nico Hoerner - 2b Pete Crow-Armstrong - cf Miguel Amaya - c Dansby Swanson - ss This (effectively) has the Cubs alternating left- and right-handed batters all the way down to the bottom of the order, where righties Miguel Amaya and Dansby Swanson double up. It gives them four extremely well-established on-base standouts at the top of the order, each with 20-homer power, and it leaves lots of upside clustered into the remaining spots. Bregman's arrival takes considerable pressure off Moisés Ballesteros, pushing him down to fifth in this configuration of the lineup. Speaking of which, against lefties, Ballesteros might not need to start at all. Here's one way the team could set up against southpaw starters. Nico Hoerner - 2b Ian Happ - lf Alex Bregman - 3b Seiya Suzuki - dh Tyler Austin - 1b Dansby Swanson - ss Carson Kelly - c Kevin Alcántara - rf Pete Crow-Armstrong - cf Swapping out Michael Busch and Ballesteros for Tyler Austin and Kevin Alcántara makes the team very stout against lefties. Bregman's .280/.372/.489 career line against lefties comes with more walks (196) than strikeouts (181); he's the lefty-masher the lineup needed in its upper half. Subbing Busch in for Austin as soon as the opponent goes to a righty would still leave him protected by righty sluggers Suzuki and Swanson, so the opposing manager would be in a tough spot if they sought to bring in another lefty to face Busch the next time around. One notable name doesn't appear in either of the formulations above. Thus, let's consider a third setup, most likely to be deployed against lefties but designed to maximize different strengths, and perhaps platoon-neutral. Nico Hoerner - 2b Alex Bregman - dh Ian Happ - lf Seiya Suzuki - rf Michael Busch - 1b Dansby Swanson - ss Pete Crow-Armstrong - cf Miguel Amaya - c Matt Shaw - 3b Bregman is a good enough hitter to add value even when he doesn't play the field. Sliding him to the DH spot occasionally makes room in the lineup for Matt Shaw, whose opportunities will otherwise be limited for a team now loaded with infield options. Shaw had an uneven rookie season, but he's developed into a plus defender at the hot corner, and when going well, he can be a boost at the bottom of the batting order, too. This is probably the best defensive alignment the team can muster, though to truly maximize that, they could swap Alcántara in for Suzuki in right field. Without Bregman, lots of these potential setups left Ballesteros or Austin batting cleanup, or Busch in a key lineup spot against lefties. They were likely to be reliant on getting the good things they've seen from Pete Crow-Armstrong, Miguel Amaya and Shaw over the last two years, without the bad. That's a lot to hope for, and they no longer need to pray on those dice rolls with the same fervor. Bregman ties the lineup together, and even if the group lacks an elite power hitter, they've achieved depth they had lacked ever since they traded away the core of their championship team. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jason Parkhurst-Imagn Images Essentially, Jameson Taillon throws two different curveballs. He rarely uses one of them—the slanting, two-plane breaker that twists away from right-handed batters—and leans much more on the other, but there really are two different pitches. The hook he throws to righties is just a rare variant on his much more common sweeper, to force hitters to look for something else. The one he throws to lefties is more vertical, and he throws it to the other side of the plate. Jameson Taillon Curveballs Split Velocity (MPH) Hor. Mvmt. (in.) Vert. Mvmt. (in.) Spin Rate (RPM) Spin Axis Arm Angle (Deg.) v. RHH 79.2 11.8 -6.9 2691 7:37 48.5 v. LHH 79.7 9.2 -9.5 2573 7:21 49.3 Taillon's curveball is his main breaking ball to lefties. He throws his four-seamer to the upper, outer quadrant of the zone against them, and his new kick-change and that curve play off that pitch. The changeup fades to the edge of the plate, or off of it. The curve dives to the bottom of the zone, after looking like a ball out of the hand. It's meant to lock up lefties and earn called strikes, and it did that job quite well in 2025. Taillon, though, just got pushed down to fifth in a healthy Cubs rotation for 2026. If everyone is going well, Cade Horton, Edward Cabrera, Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga will be ahead of Taillon in the pecking order, and if and when Justin Steele returns, only other absences will save Taillon a place in the rotation. Why, then, am I telling you about Taillon's curve and its peculiarities? Here's the first part of the reason: This is the number of times each right-handed pitcher threw a curveball for a called strike to a left-handed batter in each season from 2023-25, charted against the percentage of all their curveballs to lefties that had that result. In other words, among righthanders who throw the curveball reasonably often against lefties, how often are they not only landing it in the zone, but freezing a batter for a strike with it? This is one of the two main ways that a curveball works. Some curves are designed to get chases on pitches outside the zone, and to miss bats when the hitter swings. Others, though, are meant to steal strikes without even letting the batter get the lumber off their shoulder. Bigger-breaking curves can be easier to spot out of the hand for opponents, but if done correctly, that can prompt them to take the pitch, because they were primed for a fastball or aren't able to adjust their timing well enough to get off a good swing on the much slower pitch. That hasn't always been Taillon, but as part of his constellation of adjustments in 2025, he got much better at it. As you can see, he was fairly middling in this regard in 2023, and in 2024, he dipped down into the neighborhood of Ben Brown, a classic chase-and-miss curveball guy who doesn't get called strikes with that pitch often at all. Last season, though, he shot up the list. Because they overlapped perfectly, I had to highlight Aaron Civale's 2024 instead of Taillon, but that same dot belongs to Taillon's 2025. He got there, in part, by observing and making some tweaks to mirror the changes Colin Rea made and the way he executed his curve to lefties. Rea is very much a change-of-pace, called-strike curveball guy. That's how he uses the pitch, and why the Cubs were excited about changing Rea's pitch mix to feature the four-seam fastball instead of his sinker. All else equal, the Cubs love a backdoor curveball artist. They want that guy who drops it into the zone in ways the opponent isn't ready for at all. That brings me to the second reason why I brought this up, in the first place. I removed the highlight on Civale's 2024, because it would have made the one for Cabrera harder to read. I also didn't highlight his 2023, because it's right next to that Civale/Taillon dot and would have left a muddle of text, too. The point is still plenty clear: Cabrera has always been this kind of curveball guy. Rather than a pitch designed to rack up whiffs, Cabrera's curve to lefties steals strikes with huge movement. It also misses bats at a dazzling rate (over 45% of swings against it last year), but he goes to that big, freeze-up curve often. This is a gorgeous match between team and new pitcher. Cabrera is, in some other ways, a bit of a push against the grain for the Cubs. They don't normally pay handsomely for velocity and strikeout rate, as they've done here. They normally prize durability, but are rolling the dice on a guy with a long injury history. This illuminates, a bit, why they made this change of tack. Cabrera might not look like a typical Cubs starter on the surface, but in small and important ways, he is one. His breaking stuff also includes a good slider, but the curve is the featured piece, and it fits into the team's preferred plan for curves (especially to opposite-handed batters) perfectly. View full article

Image courtesy of © Mandy Mertens-Imagn Images The Chicago Cubs have agreed to a trade to acquire right-handed pitcher Edward Cabrera from the Miami Marlins, a source confirmed to North Side Baseball Wednesday. Michael Cerami of Bleacher Nation had the news first, on Twitter. Owen Caissie will be part of the package going to the Marlins, who nearly acquired him from Chicago last winter in exchange for lefty starter Jesús Luzardo. Cabrera, who will turn 28 in April, comes with three years of team control, and is eligible for arbitration this winter. He made 26 starts and posted a 3.53 ERA in 2025, the best and healthiest season of his career. Long plagued by shoulder injuries, he lowered his arm slot, resulting not only in more durability (though he dealt with elbow issues, instead) but better control. Without missing fewer bats (his strikeout rate held steady at 25.8%), Cabrera used his altered delivery to reduce his walk rate from a career mark of 13.3% before 2025 to 8.3%. He boasts two fastballs that sit in the upper 90s, but is one of the least fastball-reliant starting pitchers in baseball. Instead, he leans heavily on his plus changeup and curveball, also mixing in a slider and an occasional sweeper. The changeup is famous for clocking in as high as 96 miles per hour, thrown with ferocity but achieving great fade and tumble. Given that profile, it's clear what Cabrera adds that the Cubs had previously lacked: a right-handed power arm at the front end of the rotation, to complement Cade Horton. He misses bats with multiple offerings and could still have more in the tank, as he finds a rhythm by staying healthy more consistently. The Cubs could have him throw the heater more than Miami did, but he's a different type of hurler than they have relied on over the last decade—and that's a good thing. For the Marlins, the key piece of the deal is Caissie, who had been slated to take over a significant role in the Cubs' lineup for 2026. Long on raw power and more athletic than his frame suggests, Caissie nonetheless comes with concerns about his ability to actualize that pop (he rarely pulled the ball in the air, for instance, even in a second tour of Triple A in 2025) and about strikeouts. His stock dipped slightly league-wide despite good numbers on the farm last year, and the Cubs entertained trading him in July, when the Marlins were also interested in acquiring him. A source indicated that there will be two other pieces going to Miami to complete the trade. With Caissie heading to Miami, the Cubs are left with an even more glaring set of questions about their offense for 2026. That was already an area of focus for them for the balance of the offseason, and it now becomes their top priority. Cabrera is projected to earn $3.7 million this season, far less than the team would have paid to land either Tatsuya Imai or one of the top domestic starting pitchers via free agency. That leaves them with plenty of spending power. Seiya Suzuki can move back to right field in the absence of Caissie, but that puts extra pressure on the bat of prospective DH Moisés Ballesteros. The Cubs are in contact with the agents for both Alex Bregman and Bo Bichette, who would lessen that pressure by becoming infield options who also spend time at DH, and who could anchor the team's lineup for multiple seasons. Reunions with Kyle Tucker or Cody Bellinger remain unlikely, a source said. Cabrera gives the Cubs one of the best starting rotations in the National League, pending the possibility that they trade one of their incumbent options. (Indeed, they could include one such player in this very deal; Miami has had interest in Javier Assad in the past.) This is a momentous deal, and an exceptionally aggressive one by Jed Hoyer and company. It's also likely to be the first of a multi-transaction move to make the team a more serious challenger to the NL Central hegemons in Milwaukee. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images The Chicago Cubs bowed out early in the bidding for top starting pitcher Dylan Cease. They came much nearer to landing Japanese import Tatsuya Imai, but ultimately, Imai signed with the Astros instead. Michael King re-signed with the Padres, and Merrill Kelly returned to the Diamondbacks after they traded him to Texas in July. Trades have moved Mike Burrows to Houston and Sonny Gray and Johan Oviedo to Boston, Some of the top reclamation projects and below-the-radar starters (Dustin May, Tyler Mahle, Cody Ponce, and more) have found their new homes. The market has moved, and the only movements the Cubs have made with it were the proactive choice to extend Colin Rea and the half-welcomed return of Shota Imanaga. In Rea, Imanaga, Cade Horton, Matthew Boyd and Jameson Taillon, the Cubs have five pitchers penciled into their rotation for the coming season. A healthy Javier Assad and a returning Justin Steele would push that number to seven. By the end of last season, that group was insufficient to power the team past the Brewers in the NLDS, but the biggest reasons for that (Horton getting hurt in mid-September and Steele having undergone elbow surgery in April) will be out of the way by the middle of this year. Boyd will pitch for Team USA in the World Baseball Classic in March, further reducing what were already slim chances of another 180-inning campaign from him. Imanaga inspired so little confidence in October that the team didn't use him at all in the decisive Game 5 of that NLDS, but they did then make the decision to extend him the qualifying offer, so they have demonstrated some faith in his durability and performance. It's not hard to find places where the team might still need innings from a starter, but there's no obvious vacancy in that corps. In fact, with Jaxon Wiggins on the cusp of the majors and more pitchers capable of providing length already in the mix, their depth is their strength. As we've discussed several times this winter, that doesn't mean Jed Hoyer shouldn't or won't add another starter. The Cubs remain engaged in both trade and free-agent starter markets, because beyond Horton, their starters all come with important questions about either durability or quality. Should they bring in a starter like Zac Gallen, Ranger Suárez or MacKenzie Gore, though, they'd begin to face a roster crunch in the rotation—especially because they've committed themselves to several out-of-options relief pitchers this winter. Let's imagine, then, that they do make an addition. Will it come with a subtraction? Trading a starter could give the team a much-needed crumb of added depth in the farm system; free up some money for the offensive improvements they also want to make before Opening Day; and clarify the plan for the starting rotation in 2026. It would be complicated, but it might be necessary. Imanaga can't be traded without his permission until June 15; he was technically a free agent before accepting the qualifying offer. Rea doesn't enjoy that protection, but he would save the team less money than most of the alternatives and they've already made an active decision to retain him. Boyd is the type of pitcher the Cubs systematically value more highly than the rest of the league, and was so important to last year's team that trading him feels unimaginable. Trading Horton actually is unimaginable. Steele, coming off surgery, would be hard to trade and isn't going to make that much money, either. The candidates to be dealt are Taillon and Assad. Entering the last year of his four-year deal with the team, Taillon has made some important strides, increasing the utility of his cutter and discovering the kick-change that changed his game in 2025. He's due $18 million this year, and he only has partial no-trade protection, in the form of a 10-team list he can tweak each fall and to which he can block deals. He makes the most sense as a trade chip, because his low strikeout rate and multiple minor injuries in 2025 leave more question marks about his future than are attached to most of the team's other options. Assad comes with just as many questions, but his salary for 2026 will be much lower than Taillon's. He can be traded without restriction, and he has three years of team control remaining, so his trade value will be higher. The key downside of moving him is simple: Assad can be optioned to the minors. He's the most flexible piece of their projected rotation picture, so dealing him would leave them with very little optionality. Because they re-signed Rea and fell back into a short-term arrangement with Imanaga, the Cubs aren't desperate to improve their rotation. Arguably, they should be, but that hasn't been the sense either agents or teams discussing trade candidates with Chicago have gotten. Instead, Hoyer appears to be focused on finding the right way to bolster his offense and build more medium-term upside for a team facing a fistful of free-agent departures after 2026. The team is still open to adding a starter, though, and if they do, it could mean a Taillon trade is in the offing. Such a trade would probably feel much like a salary dump than a win in itself, the same way the team traded Cody Bellinger for little return last winter. In doing that, though, they upgraded from Bellinger to Kyle Tucker, which helped them reach the NLDS for the first time since 2017. This time, the upgrade could be from Taillon to a player like Gallen or Suárez, giving them more team control, this time, as well as a short-term increase in playoff odds. View full article

Image courtesy of © Nick Turchiaro-Imagn Images If you're feeling open-minded, Bo Bichette is the perfect fit for a Chicago Cubs team struggling to find the right one this winter. They made only passive overtures to infielder Kazuma Okamoto before he signed with the Blue Jays, but they met with Pete Alonso in December, and have had multiple discussions with and about Alex Bregman this offseason. Upgrading their offense—and, specifically, bringing in a solidly above-average right-handed batter to balance and deepen the lineup—is part of Jed Hoyer's offseason plan. Bichette is a unicorn, with a swing unlike that of any other right-handed batter in the league. His steep stroke (37.5° of swing tilt this season) is unusual for righty hitters, but the fact that he also lets the ball travel very deep into the hitting zone before making contact (meeting it 24.5 inches in front of his center of mass) sets him apart even from those otherwise roughly similar. Here are all the other hitters with a swing plane of at least 36° and a contact point no more than 28 inches in front of their frame in 2025: Dillon Dingler Adam Frazier Freddie Freeman Nick Kurtz Brandon Marsh Zach McKinstry Ryan McMahon Jackson Merrill Shohei Ohtani That's a highly varied set of hitters, but they almost all share one trait: left-handedness. Only Dingler is a righty batter. Here's a composite animation of Bichette's swing from last season. It's highly unusual. Bo Bichette 2025.mp4 His extreme counterrotation with the shoulder makes him a lashing line-drive hitter, and his exceptional feel for contact makes him dangerous despite his lack of high-end raw swing speed. This is the kind of player the Cubs like to bring in, when they make a major investment, because he lacks some of the measurables (especially swing speed and power potential) that invite larger-market teams to make bids so high that Chicago loses interest. With Nico Hoerner set to hit free agency after 2026, Bichette also fits the positional and timeline sweet spots for the Cubs. He could play third base this season and second base thereafter; he could stay at third and play alongside Hoerner and Dansby Swanson for another half-decade. He'll only turn 28 years old in March; he has plenty of prime years left. He'd be a plus defender at second and at least an average one at third, even though he was markedly worse than average at shortstop over the last few seasons of his tenure in Toronto. Signing Bichette would get the Cubs out of a tense chess match with Scott Boras. With him in the fold, the team wouldn't need to sweat the rising likelihood that Alex Bregman returns to the Red Sox, and they could trade either Hoerner or Matt Shaw in their pursuit of help in the starting rotation. Bichette would become the team's big financial outlay, and the displacement he would create on their roster would bring them pitching help on a more cost-controlled basis. The rub, of course, is that Bichette is still likely to cost more than the Cubs are willing to pay. He's remained on the market this long and drawn the Cubs' attention at all because the $250-million deal once imagined isn't out there, but he will still get to choose between a deal that would be the richest in Cubs history (likely eclipsing $200 million) or one that would come with massive flexibility and expected value, with a shorter term but multiple opt-outs and an annual average value over $30 million. Hoyer is trying to avoid that grand an outlay, and a source familiar with the team's thinking indicated that they do not view Bichette as the same kind of special case (a confluence of ability and personal trustworthiness) that Swanson was when they signed him to a seven-year deal two winters ago. That doesn't mean they won't sign Bichette to a similar, even larger deal. He's been more consistently productive at the plate than Swanson, and is a year younger than Swanson was when he signed with the team. The Cubs are in a stronger financial and competitive position now than when they signed Swanson. Still, with several other big spenders in on him, Bichette has a robust market. The fit here is perfect. He would unlock some of their most desirable paths forward, not just for 2026 but through the end of the decade. To make it happen, though, Hoyer and company would have to do something uncharacteristic. Their disciplined valuations would have to tell them that the market was a bit too low on the slowish-swinging not-quite-shortstop, and they would have to feel confident that they could execute the other half of a large and complicated double-move, trading young talent for a pitcher whose arrival would dovetail with Bichette's to form the next set of pillars for this ever-evolving roster. View full article

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images For the third year running, the Cubs' offseason is coming down to a staring contest between frequent but unhappy collaborators Jed Hoyer and Scott Boras. Boras inflicted a painful loss on Hoyer and company this week, as his client Tatsuya Imai signed a three-year deal with the Astros worth up to $63 million. The Cubs thought they had a deal all but complete with Imai, only to have Boras leverage their last offer into one from Houston that included one of the key provisions on which Hoyer wouldn't budge: an opt-out after 2026. Naturally, Chicago isn't pleased with Boras's tactics, and this isn't the first time in the last few years that that has been true. For any of their objections, though, Boras has two reasonable and forceful rejoinders: They're not ultimately making the strongest bids; they're trying to win free-agent sweepstakes only on their terms; and Where else are they going to go? Last year, Chicago refused to offer Alex Bregman as many opt-outs as the Red Sox did, even though they did propose a longer deal with a higher net present value. They also declined to consider the deferral structure that allowed Bregman and Boras (however misleadingly) to label the deal as being worth $40 million annually. This time around, Chicago wanted Imai, but not on a deal that allowed him to opt out after 2026. While the benefits of deferring money accrue mostly to the team and are a matter more of style than substance, Hoyer's intransigence on certain opt-out opportunities meant that the deals signed by Bregman last winter and Imai this time had expected values at least as high as what the Cubs offered, and greater flexibility from the player's side. It's still understandable that the Cubs feel chapped by Boras's order of operations with Imai, but as Boras and Hoyer both know, giving the agent any kind of cold shoulder is not an option now. One of the reasons why the Cubs were reluctant to consider shorter and higher-AAV structures for Imai is that they want to keep 2026 payroll available for the other top target of their offseason: Bregman, again. Now that they've missed on Imai, if they make a meaningful upgrade to the rotation, it will almost surely have to come in the person of either Zac Gallen or Ranger Suárez. We talked at length about why Suárez holds obvious appeal for the Cubs, and about why they were tied closely to Gallen by a rumor earlier this offseason. The thing is, both are Boras clients, too. Framber Valdez is not in the Cubs' wheelhouse; he's not coming. The team's three top targets in free agency are Bregman, Gallen and Suárez. That leaves Hoyer little leverage in negotiations with Boras, and is one reason why Boras was also happy to steer Imai to Houston: It leaves one of the top landing spots for his other three key free agents hungry. The trade market is an alternative, of course, and the Cubs would just as soon pursue improvement down that road, but discussions with teams like the Nationals (MacKenzie Gore, CJ Abrams) and Marlins (Edward Cabrera, Sandy Alcantara) have gone nowhere recently. A trade for Gore or Cabrera would almost certainly have to be paired with a Bregman signing, making up for the offense lost when the team parts with one of their top young hitters in exchange for a starter. That would only sharpen Hoyer's position on the winter chessboard and leave Boras with even more leverage in that negotiation. In the winter of 2023-24, Hoyer won a showdown with Boras when he got Cody Bellinger back on a three-year deal with a reasonable AAV (and opt-outs after each season). He signed Boras client Matthew Boyd early last winter, and then stayed engaged with the super-agent the rest of the winter about Bregman. Ultimately, though, the Cubs have never signed a Boras client to a deal richer than the $80 million Bellinger could have earned over the full course of his three-year deal. For that matter, Boyd's is the second-richest deal they've struck with him. Boras dislikes the Cubs almost as much as they dislike him at this moment, because they were one of the first big-market teams to consistently block his signature end run to ownership on top-tier free agents, and because they spend so much less than they could and should. Already, it seems clear that the Yankees or Mets will outbid Chicago on Bellinger; the fit there is imperfect, anyway. Bregman could very well return to the Red Sox, though the Cubs remain locked in on him, much as they were at this time last year. There are still enough teams who need a starter to ensure a robust market for Gallen and Suárez, now that their agencymate Imai is out of the way. Hoyer is relentlessly value-focused in his free-agent shopping. That has led to a high batting average on significant investments. He's signed seven players to free-agent deals with eight-figure AAVs, and they've delivered an average of 10.4 runs above average per season during their time with the team on those deals, according to Baseball Reference. That might not sound like a huge win, but it is. Nor does that count Nico Hoerner and Ian Happ, who have averaged over 20 runs above average per year since their salaries crested $10 million. The only below-average season turned in by any player in this cohort was Jameson Taillon's 2023. That said, refusing to go the extra year or the extra dollar to land an even higher tier of talent has kept a relatively low ceiling on the Cubs. If they want to elbow past the Brewers in 2026, they need to tilt their projection at least 40 more runs to the good, and that means either hitting big on one of their young players or making multiple significant additions between now and Opening Day. To do the former, they have to be better at player development than they've yet proved themselves to be. To do the latter, they have to swallow their pride and win a Scott Boras bidding war. View full article

Image courtesy of © Benny Sieu-Imagn Images Since being a first-round pick out of high school in 2013, Hunter Harvey has pitched 453 innings. That's not 453 innings in the majors, or 453 innings in the last five years. In parts of 13 professional seasons, Harvey has pitched a total of 453 innings. Since moving to the bullpen in 2020, he's been consistently good, with a fastball that reaches the upper 90s, a good splitter and a sometimes devastating slider. Even in that limited role, though, he's had no success staying healthy. The closest Harvey has ever come to pitching a full season was in 2023, when he piled up 60 innings in the Nationals bullpen and "only" missed a month with an elbow strain. In 2025, he dealt with a teres major strain that kept him out until after the All-Star break and an adductor strain that knocked him out for good in mid-August. He made less than $4 million this year, and only managed to pitch 10 2/3 innings in 12 games for Kansas City. He's averaged just 34 innings at the big-league level over the last five seasons. It's peculiar, therefore, that the Cubs ponied up $6 million in guaranteed money to sign Harvey, according to ESPN. He's an above-average reliever, when healthy, but he's very rarely healthy, and at age 31, it's unlikely that that will change. He's had at least four separate elbow injuries; three different shoulder issues; an oblique strain; and multiple leg injuries as a pro. The Cubs have plenty of money left to spend this winter, but their budget is not limitless. On the contrary, they're unlikely to be allowed to spend more than about $230 million on their 2026 roster, and that figure is already over $190 million, after the commitment to Harvey. This isn't a wise expenditure of resources. It's the kind of thing the Dodgers or Mets might do—paying for a pitcher with a chance to work in high-leverage moments in October, but rolling the dice on an exceptionally fraught health record. The Dodgers and Mets, though, will each spend about $100 million more than the Cubs will in 2026. Unlike the Dodgers, too, the Cubs have little chance of winning their division. Harvey is the wrong kind of luxury item—like a high-maintenance sports car that doesn't even impress people all that much between its too-frequent breakdowns. Harvey really is a fine middle reliever, as these things go. He's struck out 26.8% of opposing batters and walked just 6.8% of them in his time in the majors. Still, signing him to a guaranteed deal needlessly ossifies Chicago's bullpen, and giving him a substantial sum (more than Phil Maton will make in 2026, though he's guaranteed a second season and has a chance to see his salary rise further via incentives) risks tying their hands financially. As it stands, the Cubs' relief corps features five hurlers—Maton, Harvey, Caleb Thielbar, Hoby Milner, and Jacob Webb—who can't be optioned to the minors. Daniel Palencia can theoretically be sent down, but in any scenario wherein the Cubs entertain doing so, their bullpen is in big trouble, anyway. In theory, that leaves two spots for optionable arms, but in reality, the Cubs are still likely to add a starting pitcher this offseason, pushing Colin Rea into a long relief role. Rea, too, is locked into the roster, so they would then have just one spot with real flexibility remaining. In one sense, that part is a minor concern, because Harvey is so likely to spend so much time on the injured list that he barely clogs the pipeline. Still, spending both a roster spot and a meaningful amount of money on him seems like a bizarre decision. He's the level of player and risk where, if signing him costs them a chance to do anything else they might wish to do, it was a mistake. The Cubs must believe they'll unlock something in him, either by taking his game to another level or by keeping him healthy, where all his previous employers have failed to do so. They shouldn't have had to put such stakes on that kind of wager, though, and the smart money says they'll rue the choice to do so sometime next summer. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images Dansby Swanson had a strong 2025 season. He only batted .244/.300/.417, with that middle number—the most important one, his on-base percentage—sagging alarmingly, but he cracked 24 home runs, stole 20 bases and made good adjustments, even as he endured some wretched luck and sequencing. His DRC+, according to Baseball Prospectus, was 113, marking him as well above average by process, even if his results were average or worse. That was the best DRC+ of his Cubs tenure, and an especially important bump from the 104 he posted in 2024. As he ages, Swanson continues a negotiation with his own skill set and with opposing pitchers—though the latter, of course, is a highly adversarial one, so it can't be as calm or simple as the one with himself. He'll turn 32 in February, and he's made significant adjustments to deal with the way his athletic baseline has changed and with things like the lingering core muscle injuries through which he played in 2024. Those adjustments paid off in 2025, in the form of more hard-hit balls, fewer grounders, and a stronger tendency to pull the ball in the air—all of which could (and perhaps even should) have led to more increased production than we really saw. To see both what a material and valuable change he made and why it might not be sufficient, consider these charts of Swanson's swing rate by pitch location for both 2024 and 2025. Swanson shifted his sights slightly upward in 2025, but only slightly. The focal point of his approach was still right around the same place it was last year, just above the belt and just on the inside half of the plate. However, he swung more almost throughout his swing range than he had the year before. He's not a guy who will get fooled badly and chase wildly, far outside the zone. He will, however, slightly expand, and he will try to cover the whole zone. Using Statcast's Attack Zone breakdown tells the story. Here are Swanson's swing rate rankings among hitters with a substantial number of pitches seen in each Attack Zone category, for 2025: Heart of Zone: 11th of 161 Shadow (Edges): 85th of 282 Chase and Waste (far out of the zone): 144th of 185 He leaned more into those tendencies in 2025 than he had the year before. That was partially because he was healthier than in 2024, and felt better swinging the bat, but it was also partially because his skills are evolving (and, to a mild extent, eroding). Swanson didn't feel like he could be as discerning; he didn't want to end up in unduly deep counts or miss his pitch to hit when it came. According to SEAGER, a system devised by Robert Orr (then of Baseball Prospectus) to assess a hitter's ability to balance selectivity and aggressiveness, Swanson got much better at that skill in 2025. SEAGER is made up of two components: Selectivity: the percentage of a hitter's good swing decisions (those with positive expected value based on the pitch's location) that took the form of good takes on bad pitches to hit Hittable Pitch Take Rate: the percentage of a hitter's takes (all pitches on which they didn't swing) that came on pitches with positive expected value for swings—thereby making them bad takes. Somewhat counterintuitively (if you just glance at the heat maps above), Swanson's selectivity rating changed very little from 2024 to 2025. In both years, just under half his good swing decisions were takes on bad pitches. His SEAGER shot up, though, because his take rate on pitches begging to be hit went down sharply, from 33.3% in 2024 to 27.9% in 2025. He didn't let good pitches go by nearly as often. This is why he found the gap in left-center field more often, especially later in the season. It's a big part of his improved contact profile. However, Swanson will have to adjust again in 2026, in multiple facets. Unfortunately, though those tweaks were admirable responses to the challenges of hitting well as one ages, new challenges are right around the corner, and these tweaks won't be enough to keep him a competent hitter. He's never been good at making contact on swings outside the zone, and in 2025, that figure plummeted to 44.3%, the worst mark of his career. Without a change in approach, that will continue to get worse; out-of-zone contact has a steep aging curve. So does bat speed, once a hitter turns 32. Swanson is at what the broader population experiences as a major inflection point for the loss of swing speed, so he's going to struggle to generate the same power we saw in 2025 unless he can tighten up his zone and lock in on pitches he can drive. Getting more aggressive was key to his improvements this year, but next year, both the alarming share of those extra swings that already came up empty and the fact that a slower stick is likely to reduce his margin for error mean he will need to get more patient, instead. Hitters decline at Swanson's age. It's a fact of life, in an extremely difficult game played at an extraordinary level of sheer athleticism. The Cubs, however, can ill afford to have Swanson take a step back. They need every bit of the production they got from him in 2025, for at least one more season. They can't offer him a move off shortstop to make maintaining his offense easier, at least until 2027. They can't reduce his workload much in terms of games played or started. They need Swanson to keep delivering big hits and tough at-bats, even though he's reached the stage of his career where he needs to oscillate increasingly widely and make bigger and bigger changes each year, just to tread water at the dish. He's between a rock and a hard cutter on the hands, and next season will be an exercise in very difficult extrication. View full article

Image courtesy of © Denis Poroy-Imagn Images The Cubs were interested in Michael King at the outset of this offseason. After they got a sense of his initial asking price (approaching $100 million on a four-year deal, according to one source), they backed away, but once it was clear that King wouldn't net quite that rich a contract, they circled back to him. Ultimately, King re-signed with the Padres Thursday night, on a remarkably player-friendly deal that guarantees him up to $75 million over three years and gives him the right to opt out after either of the first two. A source familiar with the team's thinking said they were open to signing King on a short-term deal, but were unwilling to offer him both that high an annual average value and the pair of opt-outs that enticed him to return to San Diego. That's a sensible stance. King is coming off a season disrupted by injury, and his health history is spotty. He passed a physical to finalize his deal with the Padres, but the risk the team is assuming on that deal is a bit unwieldy, from the Cubs' perspective. This is the luxury the team has afforded itself, with the holidays looming and big names coming off the board but some desirable options left. By signing relievers Phil Maton, Caleb Thielbar and Hoby Milner and right-handed slugger Tyler Austin on low-cost deals, Jed Hoyer has set a floor that allows him to eschew further additions to the bullpen or the bench until he resolves more pressing business. He has roughly $40 million in 2026 salary available to him, if the right opportunities are there, but he's bought the ability to be patient and take a strong negotiating position. Before he signed with the Phillies for $22 million over two years, Brad Keller came to the Cubs and expressed a willingness to sign for less, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation. The Cubs passed. They were not serious suitors for Luke Weaver, either, as he signed a similar deal with the Mets. Though they would still welcome improvements to their relief corps, the club now has its sights set on upgrading the lineup and the front half of the starting rotation, and they believe their current depth allows them to keep their focus there until they get resolution of situations just like the one that transpired with King. Among players still on the market, Zac Gallen and Tatsuya Imai are highest on the Cubs' radar as starters; they prefer those players (at their expected prices) to Ranger Suárez or Framber Valdez. They're also staying in the mix for four position players of note, sources said. It's down to the last three days of Munetaka Murakami's posting period, and the offers the left-handed slugger hoped would materialize are not forthcoming. Initially looking for $200 million or more on a long-term deal, Murakami is increasingly open to shorter-term deals that could include opt-outs and/or club options to convert an initial contract worth under $100 million into something more lucrative. The Cubs have been in contact with Murakami's agent, Casey Close, about the possibility of such a deal. They're also keeping tabs on the market for fellow impending Japanese import Kazuma Okamoto, whose market has developed slowly but who is expected to get a robust offer once Murakami signs and the picture crystallizes for teams still seeking a right-handed bat. The other two players the team has shown interest in, according to a league source, are extremely familiar names to Cubs fans: Alex Bregman and Cody Bellinger. Agent Scott Boras has been dissatisfied with the offers for both hitters thus far, though Bellinger is expected to wait out the market and sign sometime in January, anyway. The arguments for and against signing either player are well-documented, by now, but the Cubs are taking an opportunistic stance on each—as well as on Gallen, Imai, Murakami and Okamoto. In all likelihood, the team will only sign one of those six players. They would be stretching their budget near its breaking point to land more than one, and they generally prefer to keep some powder dry into mid-January. No matter which of their targets they sign, though, they should be left with some surplus talent on their roster, and Hoyer could then try to land a second difference-making player via trade. Signing Bregman, Murakami or Okamoto could beget a trade sending Matt Shaw elsewhere for pitching help. Signing Bellinger could free up Owen Caissie or Moisés Ballesteros to be dealt. One way or another, the Cubs will land a big fish, and they're likely to do it soon. They've passed on some opportunities already, believing a better one is waiting for them and that their small, early moves this winter have given them the leverage to hold out. That's a bit of a tightrope act, but by now (for better or worse), Hoyer is comfortable on that wire. View full article

Image courtesy of © Michael McLoone-Imagn Images The Chicago Cubs have agreed to a one-year, major-league deal with first baseman Tyler Austin, according to a report from ESPN's Jeff Passan. Austin, 34, carried a colossal 36.9% strikeout rate over parts of four previous seasons in the majors, and last appeared in the States in 2019. Since then, he's played for the Yokohama Bay Stars of Nippon Professional Baseball. When last he did play in the American majors, Austin was one of Craig Counsell's charges for the Brewers. He drifted around in his final years before going to Japan, but found a home and made some major improvements as a balanced slugger in NPB. According to Yakyu Cosmopolitan, which keeps advanced NPB stats, Austin made contact on 85.1% of his swings within the strike zone in 2025, and chased fewer than 20% of pitches outside it. Even before going to Japan, he was an exceptional hitter against left-handed pitching, with a .253/.345/.539 line in 255 plate appearances against them. That will be virtually his only role for the 2026 Cubs. He profiles gorgeously as a lefty-mashing right-handed complement to star slugger Michael Busch, a lefty who struggles against southpaws. He can also find playing time as the designated hitter against lefties, moving Seiya Suzuki to right field and avoiding the need to play either Moisés Ballesteros or Owen Caissie against them, should Counsell prefer Busch to one of the two on a given day. He figures to come off the bench to pinch-hit for one of those three lefty batters fairly frequently, too, as long as his return to the States works out. Austin will come much cheaper than previous players the team has signed to fill the same role, a cast that includes Justin Turner ($6 million for 2025) and Trey Mancini ($14 million over the two previous seasons). Jon Heyman reports that he'll receive just $1.25 million, before incentives, making that roster spot a cheap one and leaving the team ample resources as they pursue a middle-of-the-order bat and an upgrade for the front half of their starting rotation. If they do achieve a major upgrade to the lineup, it's likely to come at third base, anyway, so Austin does nothing to materially gum things up on that front. He occupies a roster spot that will have little defensive value or flexibility, but which also demands little. As the team ponders ways to make the remaining improvements they need, this move saves money in one place for spending in another—while capturing some matchup-based upside. View full article

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images Miguel Amaya played exceptionally well in 2025. He batted .281/.314/.500. He hit a huge early-season home run in a comeback win against the Dodgers at Wrigley Field, which held up as one of the year's great, dramatic Cubs moments. He cleaned up the exchange from his mitt to the throwing hand when throwing out runners, and significantly improved his pop time as a result. He looked like a budding star, and exactly what the Cubs needed him to be. You already know the 'but' that comes after all that, though. Amaya got hurt on a throw in Cincinnati in May, suffering a significant oblique strain that took him out of action until mid-August. Upon his return, he immediately suffered a gruesome-looking (though, thankfully, moderate) ankle injury while trying to beat out an infield hit in Toronto. He only took 103 plate appearances in the majors all season. After a 2024 campaign that provided some hope for his durability, this year was a sad reversion to his broader career pattern: lots of promise, and an injury to thwart every would-be breakout. Thankfully, Carson Kelly had an exceptional season, even if much of that value was packed into the same period during which Amaya was healthy and effective. Kelly batted .249/.333/.428 in a much more robust sample of 421 plate appearances. He got a de facto promotion from splitting time behind the plate to playing as regularly as your typical starter, and although that ate into his production as the season wore on, he stayed healthy and delivered what was needed. He was especially good defensively. Jed Hoyer and his staff have plenty of holes to fill and weaknesses to address as they try to build the 2026 Cubs and get to a second consecutive postseason. Because Kelly was so good and Amaya is still under team control, catcher will not be a priority for the front office this winter. Kelly and Amaya are likely to be the team's go-to options as the season begins. As good as they were in 2025, though, running it back with them next year carries a huge amount of risk. Even when healthy, Amaya has been a bit of a chameleon. He's talented and dedicated, but he's also a tinkerer—and his tools are volatile. Amaya was one of the first darlings of bat-tracking data for the Cubs, when that suite of data rolled out in 2024. As the first half of that season wore on, though, he lost bat speed, struggling to find ways to make consistent contact. He made a major swing and stance overhaul in the middle of that season, which yielded terrific results, but he came back in 2025 with yet another swing. Season Month Bat Speed Swing Tilt Attack Angle Attack Direction Contact Point (in.) Depth in Box (in.) Dist. Off Plate (in.) 2023 July 73.5 26.7 12.4 -10.2 37.6 26.9 30.7 2023 August 74.0 29.0 10.2 -9.0 36.5 26.5 29.6 2023 September 73.5 27.7 8.0 -0.9 32.0 27.8 30.0 2024 April 72.9 32.0 9.3 -1.7 34.1 29.4 30.5 2024 May 72.4 29.8 9.6 -5.6 36.5 29.5 28.5 2024 June 71.8 31.4 9.1 -3.4 33.1 31.0 28.1 2024 July 73.5 34.0 8.4 -6.0 32.1 29.5 26.1 2024 August 73.8 32.0 7.0 -5.6 28.1 28.6 26.3 2024 September 73.1 31.1 5.7 -4.0 26.6 27.5 26.4 2025 April 72.1 34.6 11.7 -12.7 31.6 29.0 27.2 2025 May 72.4 35.5 10.0 -8.4 30.0 29.5 26.5 After getting more aggressive with his swing but letting the ball get deeper in the hitting zone before contact in the second half of 2024, Amaya gave up a little bit of those gains in swing speed to open 2025, as he reegineered his swing to be steeper and catch the ball farther in front of his body. He became more of a pull hitter and caught the ball with the bat working uphill more, which led to a much lower ground-ball rate and fed that surge in power marked neatly by the homer against the Dodgers. Had he stayed healthy, this version of Amaya probably would have hit 20 home runs, even in the limited playing time he was getting. He was a true and dangerous slugger, after years of being more of a slashing, balanced hitter and putting too many balls on the ground to tap into the value of his bat speed. Now, though, the question is whether that version of him will stick around. Each time he gets hurt (and even when he gets extended playing time without getting hurt), Amaya makes major changes to his process at the plate. By sticking with their existing catching corps, the Cubs are accepting substantial risk of regression. Kelly is likely due for some, given his age and track record. Amaya is, unavoidably, an enigma. He just had great success during a stint to open the season, but unfortunately, that's not a guarantee that he can (or will) come back in 2026 doing the same things. Still, it's smarter to make that bet than to spend some of their resources on that position this winter, so Amaya will be one of the most important players to watch in spring training and early-season play in 2026—and that's ok. View full article