JD94

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.

Trading for Cease/King just feels unrealistic. If it happens, great… but seems very unlikely. I can’t speak for you, but give me the proven 4 fWAR star 3B and let’s go make a playoff run. We as fans keep asking the Cubs to act like a big market team, now they are trying to sign Bregman and we want to “moneyball” it with 40 year old Justin Turner? I just don’t get this line of thinking. Like Turner is a fine consolation if we miss on Bregman, but he’s not Alex horsefeathers Bregman. The goal should be spend top dollar and add great players. Bregman checks those boxes. He makes us better the second he arrives. That’s the goal.

I love Matt Shaw. He’s a prospect though. He’s unproven. In no world should the Cubs say “nah I’m good on a proven star player” because Shaw might be good. Go get the guy that you know is good. Shaw will still get plenty of opportunities to prove himself. As other have said, signing Bregman doesn’t mean you have to trade Nico. If Shaw hits the ground running and a trade for a pitcher falls into Jed’s lap that just happens to include Nico, then fine. I imagine Jed plans on Nico being a part of the 2025 Cubs though. Shaw can get some run at 2B to start the year until Nico is ready.

I think we should be excited to add a really good player. He makes us better. They kind of chose their path with the rotation. There’s not much else in free agency that moves the needle over what we have. Sure we can say trading for Cease would be better than adding Bregman, but the Padres seemingly want a kings ransom for him. There probably just isn’t much on the trade block that Jed thinks makes sense. I’d much rather put that money on Bregman than sit on it. Justin Turner is fine, but he doesn’t do a whole lot for me. Like yeah, if Bregman signs elsewhere, go get him. I just think Bregman is the most significant move we can make at this point.

This is true. I guess I’ll say it this way: The consensus is we are offering between 28-30 AAV. For the sake of the discussion, as you said, let’s call Boston’s offer exactly equal. You put park factor in their favor, which I agree with by the way. But I put the Cubs are a better team and he has 3 people on the Cubs he’s really close with. I think that’s enough to push him here. I think comfort plays a big part when all things are equal. If you gave me personally that same decision, I’m choosing to go play with my friends 10 out of 10 times. Because I would be more comfortable. Plus (without doing my own research) I’m pretty sure I saw where his numbers would have been generally the same had he played at Wrigley instead of Houston last year. Im still calling he chooses the Cubs today. Feels like that dam is about to bust and it happens today. I could be wrong though. Just going off a gut feeling.

I’m not so sure. Boston apparently has a deal lined up for Arenado. Nolan will likely be cheaper than Bregman (Colorado is still paying part of his contract). I could see Boston preferring that route whereas the Cubs will offer more AAV because Arenado is not an option for us (which is fine). I have a weird feeling Bregman chooses the Cubs tomorrow. Reports out of Houston saying they are out and Bregman will sign a short term deal with opt outs. It’s felt like he’s wanted to come here this whole time. Having Tucker and Pressly obviously helps and we should honestly win this division rather easily, especially with Bregman. Boston is likely, at best, the 3rd best team in their division and will be a borderline wild card team.

Just seems like the league isn’t going to play his games anymore unless he’s repping a star player like a Juan Soto. He thinks a mid level player like Alonso should get 2-300M. Then he advises them to wait it out for top dollar and lately they are not getting up because teams are calling his bluff.

I’ve skimmed Fangraphs and just not seeing much that makes sense for a Nico for SP trade that fits what Jed would likely want to do. I mean Cease and King are there, but it’s been explained how that just might not work out. Braves could really use an upgrade at SS, but they don’t have much pitching to offer and they likely need what they have until Strider gets back at worst. Clark Schmidt makes some sense I guess as I mentioned last night. That’s probably the one name that you can look at and say “yeah, maybe.” Seattle doesn’t appear willing to come off any of their SP.