JD94

Recovering from TJ

Personally it’s not the L’s that bothered me… it’s the way we lost, especially today. Bullpen has looked atrocious basically all spring and through the first 6 games. This team isn’t really good enough to be blowing 4 run leads very often in the late innings. I mean it will obviously happen to everyone, but it would be different if it was proven guys struggling. Most of these guys are either old, unproven, or really mid as it is, so when they don’t perform, it’s magnified.

Getting Brasier, Assad, & Miller back should help. Not sure what Horton’s timeline is, but he can potentially help at some point this year as well.

I didn’t like the bullpen coming into the season and it’s even worse than I imagined it would be. It is just a 6 game sample, so there’s time for it to straighten out. I mean they won’t be this bad. Last year was similar iirc… started out really bad but ended up being good down the stretch. There is way too many JAG’s in this pen though. I don’t know what the answer is. I imagine the conversation is basically let it ride for now. Again, it won’t be this bad. I’m not sure going and grabbing Robertson is the answer. There’s a reason 30 teams are saying “no thanks.” Maybe it’s the money he seeks. Maybe they believe he’s not effective anymore. Likely the money though.

I have a personal love/hate relationship with Liam Doyle. He is electric though. Funky lefty that can touch 99. He definitely has command issues and it gets him in real trouble against SEC teams. He blew away crappy competition and has now struggled with SEC competition. Same as last year at Ole Miss. I’m interested to follow his results this year. Justin Lebron at Alabama is a guy to keep an eye on. Bat is elite. Not sure if he can stick at SS long term, but the bat plays.

Also this is the most excited I’ve been for Cubs baseball in a few years now.

Count me in as very very intrigued by Brethowr. Love seeing Jaguar hit the ground running. Very excited to see what he does this year Good seeing Busch, PCA, & Amaya looking strong early Some intriguing arms also. Many of which have already been mentioned

Yeah I have no idea what the Padres want. Like do they want strictly prospects? A package that involves Assad due to their lack of SP depth? Matt Shaw is off the table regardless, especially considering he’s literally our starting 3B. Preller needs to get real. If he wants to shed salary, he can drop close to $23M by sending us Cease and Suarez and we can send back a package that makes sense for them. Win-Win for both sides considering what the goal is for each team. He just has to be realistic here.

Pretty sure that 2 days ago Rosenthal said the Padres could land Pivetta and then look to move Cease to cut some payroll. Well they got Pivetta last night. I think that’s where the Cease hope has picked back up from. I agree it seems unlikely, but if he’s being shopped, I expect us to be heavily involved. We obviously have the assets to get it done. Jed isn’t going to get fleeced to do it though. I’d bet we’d even be willing to take on Suarez to do it also considering it has been reported that we still haven’t closed the door on bringing in another reliever anyways.

Rizzo just isn’t the answer. Love him and his time here, but I think his back just can’t hold up anymore as a baseball player. He looks pretty much washed. Justin Turner is a better baseball player even at 40 years old. Turner also gives you the flexibility to play some 3rd if he has to, though those days are almost behind him.

Detroit offered 6/171 which is 28.5 AAV

Cubs offered Bregman 4/120 as I think we all kind of imagined… or at least that’s what I assumed our offer was. He’s also going to play 2B for Boston

To be fair, nobody expected a 4 WAR 31 year old to get paid like a 6 WAR 28 year old. All the reports indicated offers were coming in anywhere between $26-30M AAV. Most reports indicated he wanted a short term deal with opt outs (which were true obviously). Heyman listed the Cubs as favorites just hours ago. Based on the information we had, I’d say my post was very much not based from a fantasy land perspective and was actually quite reasonable. Paying one free agent (seemingly) fair market value vs making a hypothetical trade for a player that may or may not even be available and signing multiple free agents is much more MLB The Show. Yet it seems the latter is more likely to come to fruition at this point with Bregman off the table lol. I will say I do prefer Cease, Suarez (if need be), & Turner to Bregman. I just assumed Cease was basically off the table. I was just trying to be realistic.

I’ll take Cease, Suarez, and Turner. Them getting Pivetta has given me another slimmer of hope on Cease

Yeah I’m not even mad about that. $40M per year is crazyyyy for Bregman

Agreed and I don’t think he really wants to go to Detroit either. I’m sure he would for the right deal obviously, but doesn’t feel like he really prefers them.

Pivetta

That guy has insisted this whole time we aren’t getting Bregman. He’s either hella sourced or he’s just going to die on that hill.

I was distracted by college basketball and totally missed the part where he’s only making $4M. It does make sense to get him so cheaply that way he can replace the pitcher that gets traded while shedding that payroll, should they trade one.

Thought they needed to shed payroll? Should we insinuate they might trade Cease now? Or no?

Agree. I’m cool with either. I much prefer the scenario where we land Bregman, but I think option 2 is fine also.

Absolutely. I don’t disagree with any of this. I just think there’s literally multiple scenarios where it just works for the Cubs. Keep Nico, trade Nico for SP, trade Nico for prospects, etc. it doesn’t have to be an either / or and as you said, even if we did trade Nico for prospects, it doesn’t mean that we didn’t get better because we technically just swapped 4 WAR players. I’m with you that I think if each are at their best versions, Bregman is better anyways.

I said in the other thread that we don’t have to trade Nico. That was a narrative created by Cubs fans that it has to happen. It doesn’t. I can never speak for the entirety of the fanbase, but between here and X, I’ve seen tons of Cubs fans suggest they’d rather just sign Turner and Robertson for example. That blows my mind. Also, this isn’t MLB The Show. You can’t just say, “hey let’s go trade for a 3.5 WAR pitcher, then sign player x, and follow that up with signing player y.” If trading for a 3.5 WAR pitcher was on the table and Jed thought it was the right move, he would have done it already regardless of Bregman. The fact is, we have limited options. Teams aren’t just giving out 3.5 WAR proven SP. Lastly, if we are hypothetically trading Nico after adding Bregman, you questioned how does it make us better. So again, hypothetically, you’re adding a 4 WAR player (Bregman), trading a 4 WAR player (Nico), inserting a projected 2.2 WAR player (Shaw), and adding what I would assume would be at least a 3 WAR pitcher you get from trading Nico. That’s makes us a better club than we are today. So does adding Bregman and keeping Nico. Either way you slice it, adding Bregman makes us considerably better. Now if you can go get Cease without giving up a Nico Hoerner (or any everyday position player), then we can have the “should we sign Bregman or not” conversation. I’m speaking realistically that that just doesn’t appear to be on the table. Alex Bregman is on the table, so that’s why I’m beating the hell out of this drum. It’s the absolute best option to make the 2025 Chicago Cubs better.