ryanrc

yeah, as I said before, I was seriously annoyed when the Cubs failed to land Scott, because the price wasn't outrageous- it squarely fit his 3+ WAR projections. However, the Pressly/Brasier combo, if healthy, should add up to almost the same! Yeah, i hear you in regards to spending on superstars instead of solid players. However, the Cubs had GOOD REASON to do that in 2021-2024. It was a rebuilding period, and they wanted to field a good enough team to keep fans happy while rebuilding. Furthermore, if you dont have to spend and instead you land prospects like Busch , isn't that even better? I give Hoyer credit for steadily improving the team. Now, we've got a clear chance to seal up the best roster since 2019, and maybe even the best since 2016. There's precisely enough money to land the 3rd best overall 3rd baseman in the league, coming off a gold glove season, projected to contribute 4- 4.5 WAR annually for the next few years. Shaw really can't compete with Bregman yet. His glove is still below MLB average at 3rd, and it will take a couple of years for him to develop Bregman's power. 3rd base is a hard position, and most teams either give up and stick a bat there or a pure glove, because there's not enough multi-tool guys who have mastered the hot corner. I think Shaw will still be a better 2nd baseman in this league- its his natural position, especially at 5 foot 9. Its his preferred spot. I expect him to replace Hoerner in 2027, and I do NOT Expect us to trade Hoerner early. Give Shaw 2 years to develop, like just Hoerner and most other guys before him. no need to rush. He's under team control for 5 MORE years.

Great analysis. I agree with just about everything you said, but I think he's a better reliever right now than a starter. He can handle just 2 pitches against righties if he's facing only 1 or two of them per appearance. He's clearly a plus reliever against left-handed hitters and could get a call-up for relief work in 2025. I believe that his long-term trajectory is as a swingman or 5th starter. He's a prime trade candidate for a younger pitching prospect. A season of above-average relieving results, allowing him to lean on his strengths, would do wonders for his career. Maybe buy him time to perfect a third pitch, so he can fulfill his short-term destiny as a 4.00 ERA type guy who gives quality starts but relies on dominating lefties to hit that number. He needs to focus on minimizing walks, and that's pretty much impossible as a starter with no true strikeout pitch against righties, and with struggles placing the curve or disguising the slider. He needs more chases, too. He should definitely TRY a cutter and a deathball curve to see what works =- hopefully, both of them work. My best guess is he figures out the latter while working with Zombro. It would be great if he could throw righties 50% Four seamers, 30% changeups, 5% slider/cutters as a surprise pitch, and use the deathball 15% as a go-to strikeout pitch, all with plus quality. THAT would bring his ceiling up to a 3.5 ERA 3rd starter.

The baseball statistic that’s changing MLB — for better or worse - The Athletic WE have an elite stuff team without elite strikeouts. that's mindblowing.

Hello Cubs World, WELL ISNT THIS CONVENIENT!!! Jed's Dead with Delight Man, did this play right into Jed Hoyer's hand. You couldn't author a better situation for his brand of dealmaking = more importantly, it is a great fit for our swiss army knife approach to the bullpen. He wasn't even the worst 26th man on the Dodgers roster, just the odd man out for Kirby Yates by a small margin. Three lesser pitchers have Dodger jobs simply for role reasons, and the rest are projected to vie for top 20 type elite results (even though we know half of those will be hurt). You see folks, Ryan Brasier fits right into the Cubs' school of thought for pitching. He keeps walks low, relies on command and confusion, and generates a ton of chase swings instead of whiffs. He doesn't throw many balls and pounds the strike zone with ground ball inducing sliders and sinkers, but when he does throw junk, everyone chases it way above league average. Put simply, he LOOKS easy to hit even though he isn't, and can make good hitters swing at garbage. Comparing the Options: Brasier versus my own Jensen/Robertson Preferences Ryan is intimidating. He doesn't achieve this through velocity or strikeouts, but rather through psychologically dominating the opponent with many "ghost peripherals" such as extension and statistical advantage. His one unique offering to the squad is the ability to smoothly toggle between a righty sinker strtikeouT ptich and a lefty cutter strikeout pitch, while leading the way with a bread and butter, almost Kerry Woods slider that is increasingly rare in the league, despite being dominant 15 years ago. Thus he is simultaneously a Cubs style pitcher while also having his own unique repertoire for achieving the results Ryan Brasier Stats: Statcast, Visuals & Advanced Metrics | baseballsavant.com He leads with a rather classic slider that he uses over 40 percent of the time. He commands the slider very precisely in a small range, and compliments that with a 4 seamer, sinker, and cutter. he has a pretty smooth distribution chart of pitch types- he paints a smooth range of outcomes on a righty arc and uses all four pitches over 10 percent. Batters have to be prepared for pretty much any type of horizonal or vertical break, anywhere in the strike zone. This is the preferred pitch chart for a Cubs pitcher these days - more offerings, smooth command across a range of types, no free passes to first, and no clear "tells" that the next pitch is coming in a particular part of the strike zone. His high extension also makes him look like a 97 mph fireballer despite being close to average, which saves us on injury risks. In some ways he's the inverse of Kenley Jansen and David Robertson. Both of those guys are from a prior generation, and succeeded at it, which makes them increasingly unusual for today's hitters. They both go for whiffs and dont rely on chases. Both heavily lean on plus-plus cutters and use them all day long, rather than sliders or 4 seam fastballs, whereas most other power pitchers work in reverse. And, both use their secondary pitches to create confusion without painting a smooth arc across the chart. Instead, their pitches each have as dramatically different shape from each other as humanly possible, daring batters to adjust to such extreme differences rather than worry about tipping the batter off that such a pitch may be coming. In other words, they ram hard to hit pitches down your throat and don't worry about smoothly disguising these nasty pitches. Personally, I still wanted a Robertson or Jansen to break up the monotony of Cubs style pitching. Even still, if I'm Jed Hoyer, I have confidence that Brasier can repeat last season easily, with just small tweaks, and low risk of blowout arm. On the other hand, if we are gonna stick with the Cubs new school philosophy, Brasier was one of the best options on the market this year. He has recently been the poster child for the Cubs style success since adding his cutter to his mix in 2023 and dialing back the 4 seamer. I cant give the team any MOJO bonuses for improving their diversity of pitching styles out of the bullpen. Still, he's at least as good as Ryan Pressly in 2025, for a bargain price. Hat tip to you, Jed, for making this work- he's worth every penny at roughly 5 million for a 1.5 WAR setup guy, whereas we are paying 8.5 million for Pressly as a 1.5 WAR projected closer (by my own numbers). I just wish he was a lefty. Cubs Bullpen Revisited Cubs's back five now consists of: Ryan Pressly, Porter Hodge, Ryan Brasier, Caleb Theilbar, and Tyson Miller. Based on their combined 2023-2024 performances, this is the best backend to a bullpen in the national league central division OVERALL, despite a lack of a true top 20 relief pitcher in the bunch. The righties are all projected as rank 20-50 bullpen arms in MLB, with Hodge surprisingly leading the statistical charge here. Thielbar is probably the steal of the bunch if he remains healthy, in terms of players being paid below their true worth, and I have him as atop 50 reliever and a rank 10-15ish bullpen lefty. I would have given a .5 WAR MOJO bonus to adding the unusual offerings of Robertson or Jansen, but Brasier is good enough to match their performance in 2025. That's still a ton of talent. I would summarize this as an 8th ranked MLB bullpen because of its insane depth in the minors, and 4th in NL. Conclusion Sign Alex Bregman, and lets goooo. That's the final step for this juggernaut roster. Bregman plus Brasier brings us up to about 98 wins before injury, and 95.5 after adjustment. Its not my highest war calculation for this season, but its enough to scare even the Dodgers. I still wanted Tanner Scott and Randal Grichuk to make it all add up, but I'll take the trio of Pressly, Brasier, and Bregman as a close plan B. Okay, that's a contender for a World Series.

Hey Cubs world, I was happy to see the PECOTA projections, like most everyone else. The Cubs were ranked 3rd in the National League at 90.6 wins. However, I'm not a huge fan of PECOTA because it is a conservative projection system. I'll get into the simplest differences between mine and theirs. Only 3 GREAT teams this year? Hmm. Nope. PECOTA averages are....too averaged... because they are based too heavily on individual players as opposed to the special correlative effects between them. That bias tends to compress the dataset and soften the outliers- the best and worst teams are both consistently understated, and a few great organizations are "gut feel" expected to beat expectations every year, because they have "it". Let's take a look at the National League projections. In my opinion, PECOTA understates the records of the top 5 teams in the league and overstates the records of mediocre teams with weak chemistry. NL East Sim W Sim L Sim W % DC RS DC RA Div % WC % Playoff % PAdj % WS % D1 % D7 % Atlanta 92.4 69.6 .570 761 662 52.3 37.7 90.0 68.1 9.7 0.0 0.0 New York 88.9 73.1 .549 777 704 27.2 50.3 77.5 50.5 6.0 0.0 0.0 Philadelphia 87.5 74.5 .540 765 707 20.1 49.3 69.4 41.4 4.6 0.0 0.0 Washington 74.2 87.8 .458 667 732 0.4 5.2 5.6 2.1 0.0 0.0 0.0 Miami 62.3 99.7 .385 616 789 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 NL Central Sim W Sim L Sim W % DC RS DC RA Div % WC % Playoff % PAdj % WS % D1 % D7 % Chicago 90.6 71.4 .559 750 670 79.4 7.5 86.9 62.6 7.1 0.0 0.0 Milwaukee 80.2 81.8 .495 672 683 9.4 16.7 26.1 11.6 0.6 0.0 0.0 St. Louis 78.6 83.4 .485 698 724 7.4 11.2 18.6 8.2 0.9 0.0 0.0 Pittsburgh 75.1 86.9 .464 672 732 2.3 3.5 5.8 2.2 0.0 0.0 0.0 Cincinnati 73.5 88.5 .454 736 810 1.5 3.4 4.9 1.5 0.3 0.0 0.0 NL West Sim W Sim L Sim W % DC RS DC RA Div % WC % Playoff % PAdj % WS % D1 % D7 % Los Angeles 103.8 58.2 .641 834 625 97.7 2.3 100.0 98.1 20.7 0.0 0.0 Arizona 86.4 75.6 .533 778 721 1.6 60.5 62.1 31.7 2.3 0.0 0.0 San Diego 82.5 79.5 .509 729 715 0.6 37.5 38.1 17.1 0.8 0.0 0.0 San Francisco 78.0 84.0 .481 663 691 0.1 14.9 15.0 4.9 0.3 0.0 0.0 Colorado 55.5 106.5 .343 627 870 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 MOJO- My Own Unique Approach to Team Chemistry Adjustments Chemistry is comprised of six elements which I call Total MOJO, for short. Total MOJO = Momentum + Organization +Job Role + Offering Diversity + Injury Risk + Slugging Bonus In my approach, I modify basic WAR projections with "bonus points" that capture the completeness of a team and its spirit: Momentum - great teams, like the 2023 Braves, play their career best ball due to high team morale and charismatic stars leading the late season battle. These teams get hot and become unbeatable for stretches of time, particularly in September and October. As part of momentum, I also consider the value of having multiple young players on a confident trajectory to have breakout statistical performances. It is in this particular area where the Cubs shine, with PCA, Busch, and Shaw all with high upside potential on the same roster at once. That sort of exuberant youth energy tends to pay off- just like the 2016 Cubs. I Give these three players higher projections precisely because of the team chemistry we saw elements of last year. Organization - some organizations are "winning organizations", with exceptional coaches and managers that fight for every win. Like the Brewers, Astros, and of course the Yankees- they seem to get the best out of healthy players. I don't give the Cubs any help in this category, but with Counsell and Hottovy on board, and with our new coaching hires helping with hitting, pitching, and running, I don't take points away from them either. If they find coaching magic, they can outperform projections. Job Roles- a great roster has a "complete set" of role players for every key postseason role- a true closer, an electric leadoff hitter, a scary cleanup hitter, a worthy ace, and so on. The Cubs are one of the most complete teams in the National League (Finally), with the only question marks having to do with their mid-rotation (Can Boyd and Taillon both give us great seasons like last year?), missing a lefty in the bullpen (teams should have at least 2), and, of course, a rookie at our most cursed position since Bryant, 3rd Base. Still, I give them a slight edge for being nearly complete and hard to improve in any role - perhaps Bregman over Shaw, or snagging Danny Coulombe would work. Offering Diversity - Finally, a great bullpen is a Swiss Army Knife of great pitches to handle every type of opponent. Similarly, a great hitting lineup has the right balance of bat skills to put together rallies, get game winning RBIs, and flexibility to shift between powerball and smallball as the situation requires. The Cubs have great balance overall, and can lean on elite fielding and baserunning skills for an edge, but aren't slugging quite high enough in homers to confidently win in the postseason. As far as starting pitching, they could still benefit from a true power pitching strikeout artist in their rotation to face Dodger-type lineups. Injury Adjustments - Certain teams put too much faith in a healthy lineup. I deduct up to 3 WAR for teams with highest injury risk in key roles. Most of this risk is already picked up by other stats, such as Job Role and Offering Diversity, so I try not to double count those penalties. I do not award bonus WAR for teams with healthy profiles, thus I must be careful that injury deductions are overall offset by other positive MOJO team stats. Slugging - This is a very small bonus for regular season play but is a larger factor in the small sample, high pressure postseason situation. The top 2 or 3 teams per League receive +1 win bonus, and the bottom 2 or three are deducted 1 win. Slugging can also be an expected tiebreaker stat in close postseason matchups. This bonus structure clearly evolves over the history of baseball, but currently it's a homerun biased game with low batting averages. Even after recent rule adjustments to improve baserunning opportunities, low contact rates still favor power hitting. In the old days, the bonus went to hit tool instead. Cubs Total MOJO = 1 M +2; O 0; J +1; O +.5 Injury -2.5 Slugging 0 In prior articles, I projected the cubs at 95 wins; however, I was including all positive MOJO and not injury risk, which is a brand-new stat I'm experimenting with. Thus, after applying injury risk, I have Cubs at 92.5 wins. Cubs got docked 2.5 injury wins for relying on Steele, Boyd, Swanson, Tucker, and Hoerner (-.5 points each) to all have healthy seasons despite struggles with injury in 2024. I am giving them +1.5 momentum for their exciting young core of PCA, Busch, Shaw, all expecting breakout seasons, and .5 momentum for the morale boost for adding a true superstar (Tucker). They get +1 for housing a very complete team, and +.5 for having a better-than-average balance between fielding, hitting, pitching styles. How much can MOJO affect projections? Overall, Total MOJO runs in the range of about +- 10 wins, but with most teams falling within a tight +- 2 WIN range. I give less weight to Offering Diversity overall than I do Momentum and Organization adjustments. Momentum and Organization can go up to an extreme of +-4 wins, whereas Job Roles and Offering Diversity are limited to +- 2 wins, and usually fall within +- 1. Bigger spreads are used to offset league-wide injury risks. A full suite of job roles and offering diversity both have the ability to diminish the overall importance of a marginal injury. For 2025, my largest positive MOJO adjustments for the NL are for the Brewers (+6), Dodgers (+5), and Phillies (+2.5), whereas on the negative side, the Rockies (-5) are an incomplete team with terrible morale, especially regarding Kris Bryant and starting pitching woes. For comparison, the White Sox had a -10 MOJO for 2024, the worst MOJO score in the 21st century. My method for assigning it is fairly subjective and speculative so far and needs fine tuning with clearer metrics. I use a fairly simple WAR approach for a base projection. Those base wins are really just a sum of net WAR adjustments from the last years' actual results at a player level. It turns out to be similar to PECOTA, but with a handful of teams getting more exaggerated win bonuses, with others docked additional loses for weak MOJO. Those Damned Brewers The Brewers and the Devil Rays both have uncanny abilities to win above expectations They have several years in a row of greatly outperforming their raw stats, and winning tough, close games seems to be their mutual superpower. Unsurprisingly, they both rely on player momentum and an organizational gift for player development, rather than money. They deeply invest in finding the Upside to the players they understand. Cubs, on the other hand, had quite negative MOJO in 2023 and 2024, suffering mostly in the bullpen and the corner infield positions. In raw WAR, I have the Brewers at 82, so I gave them 6 Total MOJO, especially for their outrageous fall momentum and organizational success: (M=+2, O=+3, J=+1 ...the rest zero ). They have had tremendous late season momentum for the past 5 years. They have a winning organization that routinely finds gems among retreads and prospects. they have a slight job role edge for having the most complete smallball roster in the National League, and they are average when it comes to pitch/hit offering diversity, having given up the best closer in the game. Compared to a 9 MOJO 2024, they are losing 1 J point, 1 O point, and 1 momentum point. I project the top five NL teams as follows: TEAM WINS MOJO MY BASE WAR WINS VS PECOTA Dodgers 110 5 105 +6.2 Atlanta 94 2 92 +1.6 Cubs 92.5 1 91.5 +1.9 Phillies 90 2.5 87.5 +2.5 Brewers 88 6 82 +8.8 Conclusion Everyone has their own "gut feel" for sports - usually for fans, that feel is unearned and undeserved. My base WAR projections are fairly vanilla- they tend to be within 3 wins of the consensus WAR and PECOTA systems. However, those systems are generally conservative and tend to disregard the recent history of extraordinary play coming from specific franchises. My gut tells me these six statistics are excellent for adjusting player-driven projections at a team level. Total MOJO is my attempt to capture common gaps between basic statistics and observed history. It's something I will be spending years toying with. Still, I hope to have a good enough statistical model worth promoting publicly in a year or two. 2025 is the "alpha test" for my MOJO approach, so for now, I'm not fully revealing my methods.

You nailed it here. A one year contract for about 8 million, for a guy who was 12th in FIP and is good for 30 starts is tremendously cheap - I'd be willing to give up about 20 million worth of player WAR for that. Lessee: Assad is close to a straight-up fair trade! Assad is worth about 15 mil a year, currently; however, he also has 3 more years of full control, options in 2025, and 3 more years of discount salary due to arbitration system. Let's throw in Alexander Canario (LF), though, so SD has a reasonable competitor for a 1 WAR starting left field role, on the cheap. I would prefer to pick up a better bat on a one year contract and let him go. His arm doesnt play in right field, and his range isnt quite good enough for center. I just can't see intentionally platooning Canario with PCA and talking him off the field, the way I could see with a Grichuk or Laureano's .800+ OPS against lefties. He could help San Diego more than us. This rotation is awesome though : Steele, King, Imanaga, Taillon, Boyd .... with Rea as swing man and Cody Poteet as the next guy up. Oh yeah, that'll play.

I would be overjoyed if the cubs add one of the true impact bullpen arms remaining: David Robertson, Kenley Jansen, or Danny Coulombe. As far as starting pitching, the only way I could see them adding is to trade away what they have.

yeah, my projections are optimistic - above 90 - for several reasons. First, I'm very bullish on both Busch and PCA. if they both fail to take big steps forward, then 90 wins is arguable. Second, I think Carson Kelly adds more to the team than some other people are considering. He's an extremely smart catcher and has the ability to make other players better. Please add at least 1 win , in your mind, because of his addition to the team. He's as impactful for us as Yan Gomes was before he fell apart; however, he's substantially younger and hasn't peaked as a hitter yet. Third, if you believe in the Cubs pitching DEPTH this year, its looking very convincing that their bullpen will produce several more wins than last year. Adding it all together, the only way I see us falling short of 92 wins is major disaster from injuries.

Hey Cubs world, I've spent my initial time blogging here about the Cubs moves for 2025. However, sometimes its good to pause and reflect on general principles of baseball and how to build winning teams. In this post, I discuss a few basics of bullpen construction that fans often overlook. Beating Rival Teams: Targeted Bullpen Design Wins Above Replacement is a generic approach to roster construction, and for that reason, can't be precise. If this were all that was necessary, a general manager could ignore all fundamentals and simply bid on the "Best" pitchers in rank order of how cost effective their contract is for producing wins. For example, one can look at the Dodgers and say - gee, Tanner Scott is worth whatever the market pays for him, regardless of which team he plays for. If this were true, pitchers would be bid on in rank over of their intrinsic value, and all pitching fundamentals could be ignored during roster construction. There are several approaches to designing a roster that wins a division, which go above and beyond shopping for "wins". Ideally, a great team succeeds according to a more careful "fit" between the player and the rest of the 26 man roster, as well as the team's overall environment. In this short article, I'll outline these three main ways to improve past a simple "market rate" approach to assembling a winning bullpen. The Environmental Approach One key task for the Cubs is to assemble a bullpen that plays well in the physical environment of their division, especially players who will succeed at Wrigley Field, but also at division rival fields. This analysis can involve digging into player statistics that indicate ballpark differences, day/night games, and so forth, to find out what independent variables predict wins against rivals. Typically, this approach is applied AFTER evaluating bullpen talent at market rates - in essence, looking for ways to beat the market price on the player because they play especially well in Cub-specific circumstances. For example, Kyle Tucker is argued to be a near perfect fit to the Friendly Confines - his style of hitting and fielding both play exceptionally well there. However, he's also versatile enough as a player that he can win games at other divisional fields. Although this approach can work well for starting pitching or power hitting, it's not quite as important for bullpen construction. This is because pitchers who cover individual innings at a time have a more chaotic, fluctuating relationship to big environmental factors. Most importantly, bullpen pitchers are being systemically and methodically used by their coaching staff to deal with specific micro details, making it hard to tell exactly which environmental factors affect these small sample sizes. Put simply, a 10 or 20 pitch appearance doesn't produce enough data for us to distinguish environmental variables - did the player have sun in his eyes during Wrigley afternoons, or doesn't pitch well with grumpy coaches in April. Too many factors are at play simultaneously. Therefore, the environmental approach can only "tweak" the expected player performance. The Bullpen Role Approach This is my favorite approach to fine tuning a bullpen: roles. It involves thinking of pitching and hitting as a complex game of scissors-rocks-paper, and each pitcher as a duelist deployed to duel with a few opponents at a time. Basically, each player's talents match up well in contests against a partial lineup of other players' styles of competition, while avoiding facing other players in the lineup that can exploit the pitchers' weaknesses. A bullpen is thus a giant Swiss army knife of tools, each designed to counterattack hitting styles of prominent rival players. A good bullpen has multiple answers to every problem, due to rest periods between pitching appearances. This simple example is a fairly popular perspective of bullpen construction, although you will see minor variants from team to team. I am listing the in the order of how popular it is for a team to specify this precise role, as opposed to perhaps other alternative roles in roster construction. The best set of arms consists of the following roles being covered. I am placing a Cubs bullpen name as a candidate for each role, followed by their current understudy who has options in the minors. You will notice that we have two ENTRE bullpens covered. Jed Hoyer eliminated all risk of being shorthanded; however, hoarding some of his best talent in the minors until July or later also involves a risk that they are underutilized for fear of injury. 1) medium leverage swingman - every team knows who their workhorse bullpen arm is. Not necessarily their best player, but the one expected to get the most innings. A player with a high floor and a diverse skillset who can "handle" most styles of hitters better than average. Colin Rea, Cody Poteet 2) low leverage long reliever -usually a young, developmental starter who eats innings while playing from behind. Every team has at least one player who's being given a final shot to develop, and this is their last chance to win a bigger role. Keegan Thompson, Jordan Wicks 3) high leverage closer - proven veteran who is the best pitcher in the pen. Plays in close games. Ryan Pressly, (Porter Hodge is in the MLB) 4) low leverage closer - a pitcher with insane stuff but usually control problems. High risk to give up 1 run due to walks or solo dingers, low risk to give up more than 1 run due to high whiffs. Plays in games with a larger victory margin than the main closer. Nate Pearson, Ethan Roberts 5) medium-to-high leverage right handed setup - a precision expert against most righties, and not expected to handle the toughest lefties Porter Hodge, Ben Brown 6) medium-to-high leverage left handed setup - a precision expert against lefties, rarely allowed to face top right handed hitters Caleb Thielbar. Luke Little 7) medium leverage change of pace reliever - a unique pitcher who can disrupt and frustrate high-contact hitters with rare pitches, such as a submariner or knuckleballer. Most frequently plays the 7th inning and/or comes in early as a "plan b" to shut down opponent rallies. Tyson Miller (extreme ride sweeper), Eli Morgan (extremely slow changeup) 8 ) high leverage power "hold" reliever - a high leverage early reliever who enters the game early to shut down power hitters. They lean on fastballs with elite velocity and strikeout rates. Basically, this is your top "hold" specialist against #3/#4/#5 power hitters in the order. Julian Merryweather, Jack Neely The Pitch Portfolio Approach The most detailed and painstaking approach to advanced bullpen design looks at the fundamentals of each pitch, and how a pitcher combines pitches to produce a set of offerings. From this perspective, roles aren't as important as a direct comparison of pitch types and styles to hitting types and styles. The pitch portfolio approach looks directly at the advanced pitch metrics to predict "pitches that produce outs", and only secondarily bothers with a players' pitching "Role". Craig Counsell and Tom Hottovy both come from this school of thought: they simply match up the best pitches, at any given moment, with the greatest chance of producing outs. Obviously, pitchers need rest, so the most important metric is the net present value of "using a premium pitch" now as opposed to saving it for the next important situation. This fine tuned approach to bullpen management is really only possible since the statcast era -- advanced pitching models/metrics and a reliance on obscure calculations. Every analytics driven team needs to balance pitch-to-bat matchups with less-than-perfect fit. This is where bottom dwelling baseball teams fall apart- they don't have enough diversity of pitches, or depth of players, to match up well and so they have to intentionally lose a certain number of games to win others. The main problem with the pitch-by-pitch approach is it under-emphasizes the human elements of the game, especially psychological makeup of particular players. This is a great approach to your "plan A" for each of the 162 games; however, the role of managers on a game day is to tweak and intervene and decide between plan b, c, d, etc, based on roles and environmental factors. From this third perspective, the Cubs are well prepared to face their opponents. They excel at pitching analytics. The biggest question mark for the 2025 season has to do with their success at filling roles with the right guys - particularly, having enough power pitching, enough left handed pitching talent, and an elite enough closer.

Howdy Cubs World- let's talk Pressly. [ Uh huh huh. ] (Oh by the way- paid writers are mostly paid to edit. Unpaid writers give you a good enough draft.) Ok, first, the good news. we DID get a GOOD closer/setup veteran with a couple of elite pitches. Facts. And, he's got a resume of incredible work under pressure. He's a guy with a baller resume that you're glad to have in a post-season run. The bad news: He's almost as risky as Hector Neris Last Year. I hate to be a downer here, but I'm not convinced Ryan Pressly is quite the same level of player anymore, or was the best available option within their budget. His decline over the last year tracks with a decline in several fundamentals with no abrupt injury cause. He went from a marginal All Star closer in 2022 to an above-average setup guy in 2024, with no clear signs of recovery in August or September. He is mostly leaning on 3 pitches currently: a plus 4 seamer with cut action, a really wide AND deep, plus-plus breaking curveball with insane spin rates, and a solid, plus controllable slider with unusually high velocity. These account for 87 percent of his offerings in 2024. He's also been largely healthy for many years- probably his best attribute. And, despite all the exceptional breaking action on his pitches, his walk rate is slightly below average. For sure, he's an upgrade. He was a top 50 pen pitcher in 2024, meaning most teams don't have 3 guys better than him, but do have 1 or 2 guys better than him. And yowsa, I love his curveball and slider, still. But, I'm not sure his three pitch formula is playing well enough. He's gonna need to really resuscitate his changeup and sinker, both of which really fell off last year -- accordingly, he had cut back on their usage as they were landing randomly for mostly balls. Unfortunately, his fastball has also fallen off a bit, averaging only 93.8 mph, although he can still turn it up to 96 a couple times a game to get that punchout. Pressly's fastball and slider remained solid in terms of vertical break, spin rate, and control, but neither quite has the ol' velocity to strike fear into the hearts of batters. Still, his wacky curveball soils drawers when hitting the edge of the zone. What to expect I really feel like Pressly can still work as a closer. He's also so darn consistent that he's never had a truly BAD season, ever. That's wonderful news and provides assurance he wont' explode as bad as Neris did. However, not a top 10 closer, without some real pitch lab magic. He overperformed his fundamentals last year when he produced a 1.99 ERA in his last 32 appearances of 2024. Now, maybe he figured something out that I didn't see at first glance and I'm wrong about his secondary offerings being busted. Us fans never get to know the secret conversations regarding rescue missions of aging veteran offerings. Perhaps his stuff plays better than David Robertson will at 40, and I'm just ignorant. But its perturbing that we have to even have these high-risk comparison conversations, innit? And it is this realization that makes me feel extra annoyed that we lost the bidding war for Tanner Scott - indeed, we are still relying on coaching to reshape a player's natural trajectory! He's still got hopes of a breakout, Kirby Yates type season - but to get there, he and the boys are gonna need to pull off some surprises either in terms of velocity hacking or a shiny new sinker, or whatnot. I'd really like to see him fix that lost changeup, as that one move alone could drop his ERA by .5. With a 3.0-3.5 ERA, he is slightly better than Kyle Finnegan at the moment, relying on bats to bail him out of jams sometimes. Both Finnegan and Pressly have WAR projections around 1 to 1.3, a small uptick in performance in 2025. David Robertson and Kenley Jansen, both of whom project as 1.3 to 1.8 range WAR, seemed to me slightly better options despite their advanced age. I think Hodge and Miller will both outpitch Pressly a tad while serving as the two setup guys. They both should have ERAs below 3. I can't help like feeling the only reason we have Pressly and not the other guys was the price - and again, that annoys me. They are running out of ways to spend their remaining cash. That being said: I hope Pressly proves me wrong, resets his strategy, and comes in looking like the All-star he was only 2 years ago! It's entirely possible. Surely we don't pay the full price of 14 Million for 1 to 2 WAR gamble? My guess is our cash responsibility in this deal is about 10 million. Let's hope he squeezes out a 2 WAR season against the odds and rescue's Hoyer's reputation of assembling mediocre, extra-volatile bullpens. What about the War situation? 95 Wins under Healthy Conditions In closing, I currently project the Cubs to win 95 games - but that's with all the stars being relatively healthy all season, which is unlikely. My injury-adjusted projection is 92.5 games, and for the Brewers, 89 games. Toooo close for comfort! If we really want to pad the theoretical win rate, we've only got 1 clear roster spot to do it with, and only a few high-slugging platoon lefty bats left to chase. Other than Randal Grichuk, the next best option remaining seems to be Ramon Laureano. I price Grichuk at two years, 25 million floor, and Laureano as 1 year, 7 million. He's a career .800 OPS bat against lefties, and that's good enough to take 250 at bats against mostly left handed pitching for the otherwise lefty heavy Cubs outfield. Laureano is a low-to-mid-700s hitter against righties who can hold his own as full-day sub. He can also play smallball well, with plus contact rates and reliably stealing 10 bases off the bench. He's a non-liability corner outfielder. A bit better glove than Grichuk, he has an expected defensive value of .3, based on +2.4 defensive war over 8 seasons of MLB work. He's also young enough that he's not expected to fall off from age, whereas Grichuk at 33 may have already had his best season last year. Laureano is worth 1 to 1.5 total war above our current option Alexander Canario's 0 to .5 WAR projection, versus Grichuk's 2 to 2.5 WAR value range. Laureano doesn't quite have "it" to be a starting right fielder but he makes a valuable platoon bat. In short, he would raise the projection to 96 wins, and 93.5 after injury adjustments. That's a solid division victory, right there. I'd be more than fine with Laureano if Hoyer intends to make a big mid-season splash with the remaining war chest of about 30 million, or if he uses half of it to extend Justin Steele, who increasingly has the look of a perennial down-ballot Cy Young guy for most of the next 8 seasons. As a side note, I'd be interested to see a 6 year Steele extension in the 130-145 million range, which would be both team-friendly and yet substantially increase Steele's earnings over the next two arbitration periods, and nearly equaling Max Fried's rate of pay.

Hello Cubs world, in prior posts, I've made the argument that our pitching is gonna be fine, so long as we land another serious closer/setup player to split duties with Hodge. The Cubs were 10th in starter ERA, and 6th after the All-Star Break. Their bullpen was stellar in August and September as well. Long story short, this team needs to slug. It can't play with the big boys without big bats. Let's take at look at last year's team slugging rankings. You will notice a clear pattern - the top 6 slugging teams were the 6 best teams overall. Furthermore, slugging has the largest correlation to wins. Pitching, fielding, or smallball stats are highly interdependent. This is why the highest paid players of all time are always the biggest bats. Oh, and: All the postseason teams outslugged the Cubs Let's face it: in a league where strikeouts are hovering around 8.5 per nine innings, batting averages are down, and yet home runs remain on par with historical levels, you really can't dominate the regular season on pitching alone. Furthermore, smallball, although it pairs very well with great fielding and pitching, rarely beats super-teams. Your smallball strategy has to be ridiculously good in all dimensions to catch up to a 2023 Atlanta Braves or 2025 Dodgers lineup. How Far Off the Mark is the Cubs' Slugging? To be a serious contender last year, you needed a slugging of .415 or higher (Mets = .415, Dodgers, .446). Cubs were .393 - even with solid seasons from Suzuki, Happ, and Busch. Does Kyle Tucker get us there alone? Not quite, he doesn't - He brings the team up to about .410 if he's having an awesome year. We need Busch, PCA, and Swanson to all take a small step forward, too. However, to approach a competition with the Dodgers -- lets say, .435 SLG -- the Cubs need all that, plus no regression from Suzuki or Happ, plus 2 out of 3 more miracles: 1) Shaw explodes and slugs well over .450 as a 23 year old rookie with no MLB experience; 2) Hoyer signs an elite bench platoon bat to be the 26th man, who brings a sky-high slugging percentage around .520+ ; 3) Both our catchers hit for power, averaging over .450+. Cubs were 18th in slugging last year and 20th in home runs, and it made their post-season hopes nearly impossible. The best smallball team in the 2024 National League was arguably the Milwaukee Brewers (13th in slugging) - and they haven't been able to get past the pennant with that strategy either. A key smallball stat is stolen bases. The Cubs stole 143 bases, but the Brewers stole 217. We can expect a marked increase in 2025 due to a full season of PCA and the addition of Jon Berti. We are also a marginally top 5 fielding team in the MLB, but even still we have a ways to go to catch the Blue Jays' defensive runs saved. And how have those Blue Jay been doing lately, eh? Team GP AVG AB R Runs H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO OBP SLG OPS L.A. Dodgers 162 .258 5522 842 1423 291 26 233 815 136 23 602 1336 .335 .446 .781 Arizona 162 .263 5522 886 1452 271 37 211 845 119 30 569 1265 .337 .440 .777 Baltimore 162 .250 5567 786 1391 262 33 235 759 98 25 489 1359 .315 .435 .750 N.Y. Yankees 162 .248 5450 815 1352 243 15 237 782 88 26 672 1326 .333 .429 .762 Philadelphia 162 .257 5534 784 1423 285 24 198 750 148 30 515 1370 .325 .425 .750 Boston 162 .252 5577 751 1404 311 30 194 724 144 44 493 1570 .319 .423 .742 San Diego 162 .263 5526 760 1456 259 18 190 726 120 28 458 1077 .324 .420 .744 Houston 161 .262 5530 740 1448 264 16 190 701 93 24 448 1176 .322 .418 .740 Atlanta 162 .243 5481 704 1333 273 15 213 674 69 20 485 1461 .309 .415 .724 N.Y. Mets 162 .246 5510 768 1357 279 15 207 735 106 22 514 1382 .319 .415 .734 Minnesota 162 .246 5490 742 1352 309 23 183 702 65 23 473 1306 .315 .411 .726 Kansas City 162 .248 5421 735 1343 264 35 170 711 134 31 429 1161 .306 .403 .709 Milwaukee 162 .248 5472 777 1359 249 33 177 742 217 42 597 1459 .326 .403 .729 Colorado 162 .242 5454 682 1319 277 25 179 655 85 31 453 1617 .304 .400 .704 San Francisco 162 .239 5460 693 1303 266 30 177 661 68 22 492 1452 .305 .396 .701 Cleveland 161 .238 5310 708 1263 245 18 185 670 148 46 466 1196 .307 .395 .702 Athletics 162 .233 5432 643 1267 240 19 196 619 98 26 493 1502 .301 .393 .694 Chi. Cubs 162 .242 5441 736 1318 253 29 170 696 143 30 546 1362 .317 .393 .710 What is our team strategy for 2025? Hoyer prefers smallball/fielders over sluggers. Cub position players under Hoyer maintain are top 10 fielders, high on base percentages, high walk rates, and average power. In essence, Hoyer has refused to pay the premium for home runs with the apparent argument that the price per WAR goes through the roof for multi-tool position players who also hit homers. However, these prices are fairly accurate to their true value. Teams that can slug, hit, field, AND run are generally paying the most per win, resulting in a fair amount of overkill - that is, wining by unnecessarily large margins within a particular game, and within the club's division. Basically, Hoyer is attempting to win "exactly" the number of games necessary, by "exactly" the margin of runs necessary. Teams that spend well over the luxury tax are padding their stats with lots of insurance runs - essentially brute forcing a win at a financial loss rather than winning profitably. Statistically, carrying "Excess inventory" is necessary - that is, paying for a few dozen insurance runs is easier than threading a neeedle every game, unless you've got the best bullpen in MLB. Well, the Dodgers just leapt up and took that chance, while the Cubs still under-emphasize relievers. I digress.... Hoyer is committed to winning profitably somehow - a similar approach to today's Astros, Braves, Red Sox, Padres, and Rangers, but with a reverse strategy. Most of those teams are willing pay free agents for slugging and rely on internal coaching to develop smallball support players. Cubs have been paying for and trading for elite smallball/glove free agents and prospects, while snubbing the pricey bats and trying to develop their own slugging youngsters in -house. All of these 2nd tier spending teams, who like the 200-240 million dollar payroll range, aim for balanced rosters with above average results, but with a bias towards their unique division and home field situations; however, 4 of the 5 mentioned teams have outperformed the Cubs consistently since 2019. The lone exception is the Sox, who have been at about parity with the Hoyer strategy. In essence, time is running out on Hoyer to prove that his rebuild approach has created a 2025-2030 dynasty. If this strategy has failed, then Hoyer himself is a colossal failure and a laughingstock for this tier of franchise. If it has succeeded, his form of backloaded success with a 7 year runway still seems to require the patience of a saint. I respect the need to "save for retirement", but I don't think retirement planning is the right model for a baseball team. Hoyer Knows his Weaknesses All indications suggest that Hoyer is aware of his rosters' weakest stats. Every off-season, he attempts to adjust and improve on his strengths first, and then attend to weaknesses second. This isn't stupid- if you have no strengths, you just plain suck. Now that he's got the fielding, starting rotation, and on base percentage, he's going to work on slugging and bullpen next. Let's see if he does enough... Sampling from his past, we can see that Hoyer has a clear pitching strategy - he plays Moneyball and collects the best "deals" at pitching, with a focus on minimizing walks, pitch to weak contact, and control pitchers with many offerings. However, Hoyer's teams rarely fall into the top 5 in ANY statistic in baseball, except fielding - and even then, rarely top 3 in fielding. Overall, one can argue he has a moderate smallball bias to his roster construction. Committing to glove-first stars at SS and 2B pretty much assures the Cubs struggle to slug with teams who have a Mookie Betts or Francisco Lindor. However, it is not a death sentence by any means. Being #1 in slugging isn't nearly as important as being top 5 while balancing other roster needs. Optimistically, the Cubs are VERY CLOSE to pulling off that optimization trick in 2025, after years of teasing it. With the current roster (including Jon Berti), Cubs have a ceiling of about #8 in slugging. Adding an elite platoon bat now or mid-season, they could max out at #6 and be a serious contender. Keep in mind the other teams are adding to their rosters. For example, the Braves just added Jurickson Profar and will be slugging monsters again. My Recommendations I think the Cubs are striving for these team ranks in 2025, which are unlikely to all occur: Type Current Roster Ceiling Rank Fielding 3 Basestealing 3 OBP 6 Slugging 8 OPS 7 I think we will hit our fielding and basestealing goals, but fall short of the hitting goals by at least 2 ranks each. It should be enough to beat the Brewers by 3 wins, but that makes me nervous. It's unlikely enough to beat the Phillies, Braves, or Dodgers, who will all have slightly better hitting stats and markedly better pitching. This is a very volatile projection relative to injuries, and could be much lower with the MOST unfortunate injuries to our best players, but I currently project the Cubs pitching (assuming they sign Kenley Jansen), as follows: Starting ERA 7th Starting walks 4th Starting Strikeouts 16th Bullpen ERA 12th Bullpen walks 10th Bullpen strikeouts 12th However, if the Cubs make a couple of mid-season pitching acquisitions, those numbers will improve for the post-season. Overall, I give the Cubs a power rank of about #8. To increase that rank, they MUST pump up the pitching mid-season with at least 1 All-Star acquisition. Ideally, improve the slugging NOW with one more bench piece - a lefty killer with at LEAST 25 HR per 162 games and a high batting average.

if we didnt have the money to burn, Canario would be the smallball logic choice. no problem. But with 40 million and nothing to spend it on except closer and bench, you spend it on slugging-= elite hitting off the bench is key for facing a Dodgers. without it, you're toast. glove first teams can't beat juggernauts. however, plus glov, plus running, plus pitching, plus hitting teams can beat anyone on any given series. Cubs are very close to having plus stats at every dimension of the game, and thats what you need to win in the postseason and upset giants. more glove is not valuable, but more bat is very valuable to us. we are jacked ans tacked with gold glove talent already,

1) we already fixed the "pitching problem". The Hendricks effect should not be underestimated. Cubs were #6 in rotation ERA, even with a terrible Hendricks (-1.6 WAR). Replacing him with Boyd, and Smyly with Rea, already gets us back into the wining circle at starting pitching. 2) Cubs were 20th in slugging, and not a top 10 team in runs. That's awful, sorry, that's not contending strategy- they must do better. I don't care how you adjust it based on ballparks, or how elite your pitching is or fielding is, if you're still not able to produce above league average runs to actually win against a Dodgers, Yankees, or Phillies. Thou shalt hit. Kyle Tucker gets us back to reasonable, but this WAR improvement is alone NOT enough to cement a real, and I mean real, hitting team. We need an elite hitting bench player like Randal Grichuk in the 5th OF position before I can envision beating an elite team like a Dodgers or Phillies. Grichuk was the elite lefty killer of all baseball last year, and he's affordable to us. Bader actually doesn't do jack for us in the pursuit of offense, because more glove doesnt do much when the 5th guy never sees the field, can't pinch hit, can't be expected to take reps from our 3 gold glove starters, and does nothing to help when you're already losing the game. Glove WAR only really counts if you're in the lead- something Hoyer hasn't figured out yet. He overvalues glove WAR relative to bat WAR, because the latter counts under all situations. 3) I wrote an article about how Busch is definitely our guy and not a problem, and I mentioned PCA will take a step up as well. However, that only gets us to a marginal post-season power profile. We still dont have a real answer to teams that have 3 WAR hitters at the catcher, or 4 war hitters at 3b. Shaw as a rookie cannot be expected to be a plus slugger, period.... so we must make up for that missing war with our bench somehow. Bader would likely lose us multiple key games, not win them, compared to a Grichuk.

Hey folks, let me clear my desk of the Tanner Scott issue first. I'm none-too-happy about missing on Tanner Scott (and Kirby Yates, btw), but at least we "tried". I Think the Dodgers paid the right price. I had Scott as a 65 MM player on 3 years or 75 MM on four years (when you're in the bullpen, that extra guarantee is well worth a lower AAV). Dodgers went 4 years, 72 MM. Let' keep in mind, on a 4 year bullpen contract, you're paying for 1 year of injury time, whereas on a 3 year, you're betting on maybe half a year of injury, tops. Supposing Scott is a 3 WAR player, on 70 game appearances average, you're paying $8 mil/year for the closer WAR. Thus, I felt the Cubs should have paid $75 and won the bid, because of how hard it is to find convincingly reliable bullpen WAR. Tsk tsk. Going forward, I like Kenley Jansen because I want a buy who will take a slightly diminished contract, has fairly balanced splits, and an incredible resume to step up. I'd give him a 2 year, 25 million deal to give us 1.5 WAR per year, splitting the closer role with Hodge. He aint a lefty but he can handle lefties ok. My next favorite option is David Robertson (1 year, 12 mil), who would be an elite setup guy if he stays healthy. He doesn't have the velocity i would want for a closer. I DONT like Estevez because his fundamentals are poor and he'll probably regress. Ok, now back to Jon Berti. Berti Versus the Pack So, I like this signing, especially for the price. I have Berti as worth roughly 1 WAR off the bench, especially while filling in for Hoerner for at least 6 weeks full-time at 2nd. I value 1 WAR bench play at $5MM, a bit below the average value of WAR at $8MM, because a 1 WAR player rarely tips the scales positively in big games. Berti raises us from a 93 win team to 94, according to my projections, but has no significant effect on post-season success. He's also 1 WAR worse than my preferred player target, Paul DeJong, but I am ok with it as long as we still add a power hitting bat to the team. We are paying him in the $2 - 3.2 MM range, so he's being paid to repeat his .6 WAR glove performance last year but with extra bat upside. First, let's compare him with Yoan Moncada and Josh Rojas, who the media originally felt would make a better Cub. Berti's health record isnt pefect but it surely beats Moncada, who has been beat up to hell recently. I wish Moncada the best but he needs to rehab in 2025 as a league minimum utility player or 3B injury sub on a bottom dweller. Berti beats Rojas in terms of positional flexibility. His best position is actually 2B, which means he's being hired to start at second and let Shaw have 3rd. He has plenty of 3B experience, but despite general quality play there, his error rate was quite high at the hot corner. Berti was an elite base stealer just 2 years prior, and has the profile to repeat that performance. I DEMAND that utility infield players steal bases well above league average. Berti also is a high contact hitter with balanced splits, roughly .700 OPS, but with several up years with a combined WAR of 2.4 in both 2022 and 2023. This is a very good result, and such a result would make him a worthy 2B starter on 1/3rd of the teams. Berti can also cover all outfield positions with plenty of glove success - he's better out there than a Mastrobouni would be, for example. Overall, Berti is a true utility plus glove at 6 positions, and a league average WAR contributor overall when playing at 2nd. Overall, a guy you'd really want to sub for Hoerner and then drop into the background afterwards. His career hitting profile is overally eerily similar to Nico Hoerner's down year in 2024. Its not any worse than Josh Rojas, who landed with the White Sox. Berti Versus Paul DeJong In my prior blogposts, I recommended DeJong as the best possible player for this job, on a 1 year $9MM contract. DeJong is a better 3B player than most - it appears to be his true strength position despite him mostly playing SS in the past. Berti is more of a true utility player, but as I said, his 3B performance was a bit sub-par (although steadily improving), but he's a stellar 2B with only 5 career errors at that position. Berti can steal, DeJong cannot. On the other hand, Berti has no power, which is the typical situation for utility players. DeJong has plus power, and would substantially raise the Cub's team slugging percentage with a projected HR rate of 30 per 162 games, and 26 HR last year. Basically, I wanted to pay DeJong to play more 3rd and actually start at the position there, and seriously raise the slugging profile of the Cubs. Berti, Summarized By going with Berti and the "tried and true" speedy glove-first utility formula, Berti becomes a mere blip on the race to the NL pennant. He is being paid about 50% more than the average utility guy because of his experience and pattern of success at the role. He will rank among the top 5 infield utility guys in the NL in glove performance, and gives the upside potential of being a league average hitter and plus basestealer. I project him at 20 SB, 250 at bats, with 100 of those coming at the beginning of the season starting for Hoerner. That's worth 2-3 million, for sure - as I said, I value him at $5 million , but the market always exploits utility players a bit - unless you're the Dodgers, who overpay to have the "best" teammate at that job. What Now? The last remaining 26 man roster role with a bat attached to it is 5th outfielder. We could be lazy and roll with Canario's ultra high strikeout rate and lack of experience or health profile, and expect nothing special. That sucks, frankly. In my past blogpost, I argued for Randal Grichuck. I will now double-down on that argument and emphasize why it makes TWICE the sense, now that the Cubs went with speedster Berti over a power hitter. Cubs desperately need to prove they can hit with the big boys. 33 y.o. Randal Grichuk is the perfect, and I mean perfect, answer to that problem. He's used to platooning his whole career. He's elite at it. He was the BEST lefty killer platoon bat in all of the majors last year and that wasnt a fluke. He profiles to hit in the .850-.950 OPS range vs LHP again this year, with very high batting average and some HR pop. He would be pinching every single day he isn't starting for PCA... I would sign him on a 2 year deal to secure his services as the 5th outfielder. Win now, wait until 2027 to worry about replacing Happ/Suzuki with young talent. No, we don't need a glove first 5th outfielder. We already have 3 gold glover starters! All 3 are elite, guys. We now have Jon Berti who can play plus glove out there. He's already that glove guy. What we DONT have is an elite pinch hitter, which every great contending team has. I projected Grichuk at 2 years, 25 mil for the cubs, plus incentives to reach 30 million... backloaded so his 2025 hit is 10 mil. If any team outbids us for his services, so be it, but at that price, Grichuk would be a monster addition alongside Berti. Do I actually think we will land Grichuk? No, because Hoyer doesn't do bidding wars. Some team like the Pirates will overbid to get him for a 3 year 50 mil starting role, and he'll take it. I'm not sure where else we turn after Grichuk, but I hope for a player with at least SLG+ 120 and kills lefties. NO GLOVE FIRST GUYS on the OF bench, when we already have Berti!!!! WAR - where are we now? Had we signed DeJong, Scott, and Grichuk = 100 wins signing Berti, Jansen, and Grichuk = 97.5 wins signing Berti and Jansen = 95.5 wins signing Berti and Kyle Finnegan = 95 wins signing just Berti = 94 wins One more thing: My WAR projections, which are admittedly a bit optimistic, don't include any major disasters, such as losing a starter all season rather than just for 15-60 day injury stints. A more realistic approach factors in at least 1 lost starting pitcher and 1 lost starting player. Let's suppose we end up with Berti + Finnegan (95 wins scenario), and then Hoyer sits on the roster until mid-season - which is highly likely. Let's assume 3B is a bust this year again (0 WAR instead of my 1 WAR projection for Shaw + Berti) we lose Boyd AND Assad all season to injuries (1.5 WAR loss compared to next three starters splitting those two slots, Rea, Birdsell, and Poteet), and ... This takes us back to 92.5 Wins. What was our need last year to beat the Brewers? 92 wins, with +1 additional victory over them in direct play. See why this makes me nervous about running with Canario in the outfield? No way we let the Brewers sneak up on us again, man. We need that bonus bat to provide a cushion. Berti isnt enough cushion yet. Grichuk would make up for the loss of multiple players!

Here's why this won't work. 1) Bader wants to play full-time, and with his sky-high dWar, he can. Some team will play him full time. He earned it. I think he'll end up on a team in the "Cards tier" of competition in 2025 as a starter, but with a multi year contract. 2) He would cost north of 12 million to be a seldom used injury sub. 3) He would take too many glove reps from Suzuki, and Suzuki won't like that. Suzuki wants to prove he's a real fielder next year, and with his history, he will probably succeed at that. He was a plus fielder before he bulked up to bat in the MLB, and he can return to being one. 4) He would be a detriment at the plate no matter who he was replacing or when, so he wouldnt even be given many chances. Can we pa $12 million plus for a guy who never sees the field? 5) our team slugging would fall. its already a MAJOR problem. We should only bring in guys that improve our offense, not hinder it. 6) His splits don't match our team needs. We need a power hitting lefty killer off the bench to replace Canario, or else we run with Canario. The main job of our 5th OF is to pinch hit, not pinch glove - and to do so, he must be BETTER than a starter - in this case, PCA would be the one coming off the field for Canario, and Harrison Bader doesn't motivate us to get PCA off the field.

THIS. The Cubs media has been droning on and on about finding pitching upgrades, while all the top teams last year outhit the Cubs - all of them.

Okay folks, we're closing in on a finished roster. This article effectively ties together and concludes my first 4 blogposts here at northsidebaseball.com. Here I'll sum up my ideal roster moves remaining for Jed Hoyer, and how/why it leads to sustained dominance for 2026 and perhaps 2027. First, Let's summarize the remaining contracts that I endorse to maximize the WAR of the 2025 Cubs. 1) Sign Tanner Scott, LH Closer, 3/5 year contract, somewhat backloaded... 20 mil in 2025. +3 WAR (compared to the player we cut) 2) Sign Randal Grichuk OF bench, 2 year contract, slightly backloaded, 12 mil in 2025. +2 WAR as elite platoon bat 3) Sign Paul DeJong for 3B/utility infield. 1 year contract, 9 mil in 2025. +2 WAR (compared to a -.5 WAR utility guy in his spot) 4) Roll with Gage Workman as the opening day LH utility bat, and replace him as needed. 0 WAR. With this roster construction, this guy will see fewer than 50 at bats and mostly be a late-inning glove substitute for dinged-up starters. For any player with a stint on the injured list, he would be bypassed by Shaw. Vidal Brujan can do this same job, doens't matter much. Remaining: cap right now: $50 million. Wins projected now: 93 Total cap hit of signings: 41 million. Remaining after these signings: $9 million. Wins after signings: 100 !!!! Oh boy, look out, Dodgers! ********************************************* How would this set of signings affect 2026? Using this same path of roster construction, we could actually re-sign Tucker for 2026 if we did a few creative things. First, keep in mind we have $7.5 MM in money going to Smyly and Heyward that will be falling off. Then, DeJong departs. Then we trade Suzuki to clear Tucker's spot and Tucker's long-term money. Those moves, combined, frees up about 35 million. We don't resign Rea or Thielbar, taking us to 42mm. Half of that would go to Tucker, and the other half to cover all the youngster contract increases. We then trade away Assad and Amaya to hunt for a long-term answer at catcher. We promote Caissie to platoon with Grichuk and that split duo performs similarly as Suzuki at DH. We promote Triantos to be our utility infield, and to understudy to replace Hoerner in 2027. Alcantara is traded off by then, as there's no spot for him. He looks like a 2026 starter at a small market team that's rebuilding. I assume Ballesteros remains a minor-league callup for 2026 and replaces Kelly in 2027. 2026 Field Roster: Outfield: Happ, PCA, Tucker, Grichuk, Caissie Infield: Shaw, Swanson, Hoerner, Busch, Triantos, "X replacing DeJong" from minors Catchers: Kelly, and "x", a trade/FA upgrade from Amaya. 2026 Rotation Options: Steele, Imanaga, Taillon, Boyd, Brown, Horton, Birdsell, Poteet ************************************************ How about 2027? Does this path still make sense then? Beyond this, many things can happen for 2027. However, we can imagine that we resign the irreplaceable Happ, let Hoerner go for Triantos, and extend Busch and PCA. We replace Grichuk with the next guy up from the minors... but as you can see, this is still a very strong and continuous roster with a clear identity. There's no sudden drop-off in 2027. There will also be enough money to replace Shaw or Triantos if either bombs. 2027 Roster projection: outfield: Happ, PCA, Tucker, Caissie, x Infield: Shaw, Swanson, Triantos, Busch, x, x rotation: Steele, Imanaga, Brown, Horton, Birdsell, x, x, x And throughout all this time, you have an elite closer duo in Scott/Hodge under contract. What about the Bregman Route? To be honest, it's not much worse in the short run, but a tight budget long run. Suppose we did this in 2025: Closer: Finnegan. 2 years, 25 mil+ 3rd year option... 1.5 WAR Bregman at 3rd. 3 years, 90 mil. + 4 WAR No outfield signing. Wins: about 98 Budget remaining: <$8 million. With this approach, the budget is much tighter for 2026. After signing Bregman and Tucker, there would be no cash to upgrade at catcher. We'd be stuck with Amaya mediocrity. Second, we wouldn't have Grichuk as a 2026 DH, and the odds are we would simply promote a guy from within. Third, assume Shaw is now a long-term power hitting 2B for the Cubs. Bregman would be likely to plateau and decline as soon as 2027. This would still be a nice lineup but depress the 2027 roster's potential 100+ win tally to about 97, lock up a lot more money, and make it near impossible to spend on upgrading anything for the number of years that Bregman is under contract; and, finally we would lose Ian Happ as we couldn't commit to another big contract. 2027 with Bregman: Outfield: x, PCA, Tucker, Caissie, x Infield: Bregman, Swanson, Busch, Shaw, Triantos Catcher: Amaya, Kelly Wins: 97 or less (because Ian Happ walks and Amaya is so mid!) Conclusion: In effect, I much prefer risking a big contract on Scott and having a near-perfect roster balance, than go for Bregman and tighten the budget for the preceding few years. However, I would be happier with either of these solutions than neither of these.

My blog on North Side Baseball makes the following argument: Sign Tanner Scott, LH Closer, 3/5 year contract, 20 mil in 2025 Sign Randal Grichuk OF bench, 2 year contract, 12 mil in 2025 Sign Paul DeJong for 3B/utility infield. 1 year contract, 9 mil in 2025. Total cap hit: 41 MIl. Remaining: cap right now: $50 million. Remaining after these signings: $$9 million. Using this same path of roster construction, we could actually re-sign Tucker for 2026 if we did a few creative things. First, keep in mind we have $7.5 MM in money going to Smyly and Heyward that will be falling off. Then, DeJong departs. Then we trade Suzuki to clear Tucker's spot and Tucker's long-term money, and we plan on promoting Caissie to platoon with Grichuk and that split duo performs similarly as Suzuki at DH.

Look, common sense dictates the cubs pay whatever the price may be for Tanner Scott. He's the PERFECT fit to their squad, in every way. Anyone else is just a budgetary decision. What they really, really need is a young multi-year leader, lefty, truly hard thrower, virtually unhittable, "Josh Hader level" fear in the batters. A true superstar. It would make all the nickel and diming at other positions add up to sense. I could see Cubs going 3 years, 65 million, with a 4th/5th year option. Similar to Imanaga's contract but more AAV. That would be a genius contract for an All-star closer. THIS is a nice post-season bullpen, as it covers every kind of pitcher you need to get by every type of hitter: Closer: Scott L / Hodge R Setup: Miller R / Morgan R Handed Specialists: Thielbar L / (Merryweather or Pearson) R Early Relief: Little L / Brown R Swing: Rea R, Assad R

This is what the Cubs have been looking for: A guy who seems born to hit at Wrigley. You want your biggest contracts to be guys who are perfectly matched to your ideal team composition and culture. Swanson and Tucker both make total sense in Cubbie Blue. I predict he's worth $35 mm/year, 10 years, which is a truly fair price for an average annual WAR of 4.2. A monster year over 5.5 WAR could raise the bidding to $40 mm/year and 12 seasons. At that level, the Cubs are out. Thing is, the league is running out of teams willing to take on monster contracts. Most of the top spenders already have multiple big contracts and little fiscal room for another one. The Cubs are thus in a tremendous position to outbid second-tier spending clubs, while paying a bit less than the recent string of mega-contracts. I don't see the cubs spending $400 million, but I could see them topping out at 10 y $350mm for this near-perfect 5 tool right-fielder. I could see several teams seeking to outbid them, most especially the Cardinals.

Oh by the way: here are the 1B who made the top 50 in WAR at Fangraphs: Guerrero #11 5.5 WAR Harper #17 5.2 WAR Freeman #32 4.0 WAR ....and that's it. Here are the CUBS who made top 50 in WAR: Swanson #23 4.3 WAR Hoerner #37 3.9 WAR Happ #46 3.6 WAR Suzuki #49 3.6 WAR That's right: Nico Hoerner is roughly as valuable as Freddie Freeman! For all the naysayers that want to move the guy to make space for Shaw: are you nuts? He's getting paid 11 million a year for roughly 30 million in performance! I wouldn't trade him for anything less than a perennial All-Star, preferably an elite catcher, plus an exciting prospect.

I'm taking a sidestep from the roster construction discussion for a moment to reflect on the upside potential of the dynamic duo of Pete-Crow Armstrong and Michael Busch. Although the media has fallen in love with PCA already, they have been strangely silent about Busch. Well, there's at least one clear reason for it: baseball media has greatly devalued the first base position in recent years. I mean, look at Pete Alonso's struggle to land a 30 million dollar year. Advanced statistics really don't give much value to a first base glove, even if Gold Glove caliber. In essence, nobody wants a liability at the position, but nobody wants to pay a glove premium, especially if the guy lacks the elite bat. A big part of this is that few 1B are among the top 50 hitters in the league and aren't making up for it with enough circus catches. Busch already ranks as approximately the 10th best glove at the position.... rare for a rookie year. The Cubs media didn't get jazzed about this. Strangely, we keep seeing articles everywhere that STILL Argue for the Cubs picking up Alonso and moving Busch to 2nd. Bizarre. So let's look at hitting numbers. Here's the top 1B hitting list. Guess who is #8 in wOBA? The rookie Busch! Also note his .322 BABIP and 11.1 BB%. #6 Alonso barely outhit Busch, mainly in slugging. Alonso was a bottom-half starter in terms of glove. # Name Team PA BB% K% BB/K AVG OBP SLG OPS ISO Spd BABIP UBR wGDP wSB wRC wRAA wOBA wRC+ 1 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. TOR 697 10.3% 13.8% 0.75 .323 .396 .544 .940 .221 2.2 .342 -5.4 -1.1 -1.9 131 49.2 .398 165 2 Bryce Harper PHI 631 12.0% 21.9% 0.55 .285 .373 .525 .898 .240 2.8 .331 -1.4 109 35.6 .380 145 3 Freddie Freeman LAD 638 12.2% 15.7% 0.78 .282 .378 .476 .854 .194 4.1 .306 -0.4 103 28.3 .365 137 4 Christian Walker ARI 552 10.0% 24.1% 0.41 .251 .335 .468 .803 .217 2.2 .287 1.2 -0.2 -1.4 79 14.8 .343 119 5 Pete Alonso NYM 695 10.1% 24.7% 0.41 .240 .329 .459 .788 .219 2.8 .276 -1.6 -0.1 -0.7 98 16.6 .340 122 6 Matt Olson ATL 685 10.4% 24.8% 0.42 .247 .333 .457 .790 .210 1.6 .293 -4.0 0.0 -1.2 96 16.1 .339 117 7 Nathaniel Lowe TEX 565 12.6% 22.1% 0.57 .265 .361 .401 .762 .136 2.6 .324 -0.4 0.5 -0.9 78 12.3 .337 121 8 Michael Busch CHC 567 11.1% 28.6% 0.39 .248 .335 .440 .775 .192 3.4 .322 -0.5 0.5 -1.1 78 12.0 .336 119 9 Salvador Perez KCR 652 6.7% 19.8% 0.34 .271 .330 .456 .786 .185 0.6 .302 -1.2 89 13.0 .335 115 10 Josh Naylor CLE 633 9.2% 16.6% 0.55 .243 .320 .456 .776 .213 3.2 .246 -2.3 -2.1 -0.7 85 10.9 .332 118 11 Yandy Diaz TBR 621 8.1% 15.3% 0.53 .281 .341 .414 .755 .133 1.1 .314 -2.2 -1.4 -1.3 83 10.2 .331 120 12 Justin Turner - - - 539 10.9% 17.6% 0.62 .259 .354 .383 .737 .124 1.6 .299 -2.0 70 7.1 .327 117 13 Carlos Santana MIN 594 10.9% 16.7% 0.66 .238 .328 .420 .749 .182 2.7 .252 -0.3 77 7.8 .326 114 14 Jake Burger MIA 579 5.4% 25.9% 0.21 .250 .301 .460 .760 .209 2.4 .292 -0.2 0.1 -1.1 75 7.1 .325 106 15 Vinnie Pasquantino KCR 554 7.2% 12.8% 0.56 .262 .315 .446 .760 .183 2.8 .265 -1.6 -0.6 -0.8 71 6.4 .325 108 In 2024, only 4 first basemen had an OPS that exceeded .800. This is quite bad for a position that historically was your first or second best hitter. We can see this also in the projected annual value of these players based on WAR. only 6 players had 3 or higher WAR value!!! That's terrible. # Name Team Batting Base Running Fielding Positional Offense Defense League Replacement RAR WAR Dollars 1 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. TOR 51.9 -5.6 -4.9 -11.8 46.3 -16.7 2.2 21.1 52.9 5.5 $43.7 2 Bryce Harper PHI 33.9 -0.5 6.6 -10.9 33.5 -4.3 1.9 19.1 50.2 5.2 $41.5 3 Freddie Freeman LAD 28.4 -1.4 1.8 -10.9 27.0 -9.0 2.0 19.3 39.2 4.0 $32.4 4 Salvador Perez KCR 11.2 -5.6 2.8 0.7 5.6 3.5 2.0 19.7 30.8 3.2 $25.4 5 Carlos Santana MIN 9.6 -0.9 11.8 -11.0 8.6 0.8 1.8 18.0 29.2 3.0 $24.2 6 Christian Walker ARI 12.7 -3.2 10.8 -9.5 9.4 1.3 1.7 16.7 29.1 3.0 $24.1 7 Nathaniel Lowe TEX 13.6 -0.8 6.1 -10.4 12.8 -4.4 1.8 17.1 27.2 2.8 $22.5 8 Matt Olson ATL 13.9 -3.6 4.0 -12.4 10.3 -8.3 2.1 20.7 24.8 2.6 $20.5 9 Luke Raley SEA 14.9 0.4 -2.5 -5.9 15.3 -8.4 1.4 13.8 22.1 2.3 $18.2 10 Michael Busch CHC 12.7 -1.6 2.0 -10.0 11.1 -8.0 1.7 17.1 21.9 2.3 $18.1 11 Josh Naylor CLE 13.2 -2.5 1.9 -11.8 10.7 -9.9 2.0 19.1 21.9 2.3 $18.1 12 Pete Alonso NYM 18.2 -4.3 -4.6 -12.2 14.0 -16.9 2.1 21.0 20.2 2.1 $16.7 13 Jake Cronenworth SDP 4.1 0.1 -0.2 -5.7 4.2 -5.9 2.0 19.8 20.2 2.1 $16.7 Busch projects as three-way tied as the 6th best first Baseman in 2025. It's rare for a 26 year old to plateau in their Rookie year. Based on age and other factors, here's my projected 1B rankings for 2025,: 1) Guerrero 2) Freeman 3) Harper 4) Olson 5) Walker 6) Busch/Perez/Naylor. Alonso will likely outhit him with a worse glove, whereas Santana and Lowe will outfield him but not outhit. Perez is close to a dead tie because his "positional" score is kind of a statistical fluke that inflates his value over other first basemen, and I don't expect it to recur. Things get really interesting when we compare Busch to Walker, Olson and Lowe, each who barely bested his wOBA in 2024. First, Walker is already facing a plateau at his age, as he's turning 34. Second, by many measures, Olson is arguably the 3rd best 1B after Guererro and Freeman; still, in a down 2024 year, his numbers were virtually identical to the rookie Busch. Third, Nethaniel Lowe is being treated by the market more like a risky leadoff hitter than a real deal slugger. He relied mainly on a 12.6% walk rate and brisk .265 BA to outhit Busch. His OPS was just .762 since he lacks the fundamental slugging you want from the position. Finally about Naylor: he's practically Busch's twin thus far, but I see more upside in Busch's power fundamentals. Keep in mind, Busch will likely be hitting behind the killer duo of Tucker and Suzuki. That should help raise his batting average a notch. What is holding him back, if anything? Strikeouts, pure and simple. His was the highest K% on the entire leaderboard. However, I forgive this from a rookie who can really take a walk and work a count. I expect him to be basically the same player next year but with a reduction from 28.6% to about 24% in strikeouts, translating into more roundtrips on the diamond and more RBI. I project a healthy Busch at .260/.345/.470 with about 30 HR (per 162 games), 100 RBI, and .815 OPS. Conclusion: Is there a guy we would rather have? Only Guerrero would be worth a roster shakeup - and even then, not with the $500MM price tag he will be commanding (Personally I think he's going to outhit Soto across his career!). So the answer is no -Busch is OUR GUY and the closest thing to a Matt Olson out there. No, I would not rather have Alonso. Yes, I think Busch rounds out the list of seven true multi-tool stars at the position for 2025-2027. while under team control. Alonso, Perez, Naylor, and Lowe are scratching at his back, but in terms of contract status, I'd not trade Busch 1-for-1 for any of them. So, Cubs fans, please get pumped for a perennial "All-Star alternate" type hitter with the occasional NL gold glove. He'll have a 2.5 to 3.5 WAR range year with many "no doubters"!

The advantage of Turner is his ability to cover 1st. He would probably cost about 8 million and play about the same number of at-bats as a 8-10MM DeJong, while being a glove liability rather than a glove asset at 3rd. I'm kinda over weak hitters with no glove at 3rd, but a 40 y.o. pure hitter isn't quite as much WAR as they seem. The chances of Turner having an OPS+ above 105 this season ain't so great- he's currently looking like a .250/.330/.390 type guy, with a downside of being below .700 OPS from age degeneration. Well, DeJong will give you about that in a platoon but with +1 WAR with his glove. A Grichuk + DeJong combo would cost less than Bregman and produce more positive WAR than just about anything else I've looked at. Many guys are giving up on hitting off the bench and calling for Kike, or giving up on gloves and calling for Turner. I don't understand why we'd give that up when we still have a chance to get two 10ish million dollar guys- a glove+bat at 3rd and a serious platoon bat in the outfield! Who are those guys? The only free agents that fit that precise budget and combination of glove/bat are the two I named.

Hey- just wondering if you knew about Randal Grichuk's playing time with the Diamondbacks last year. He made roughly 300 plate appearances and was phenomenal doing exactly what I suggested. If we got a repeat of that, we'd have an OUTSTANDING platoon! The money is debatable - all depends on how else you'd use the money. Extensions? Or a star 3B like Bregman?

This is a very interesting point and interesting topic. Birdsell has a #2 slot potential by 2027, but as long as he's a 3- pitch guy, I see him as a #4 slot guy. His rapid development surprised many people, me included. I have him slated as a competitor for the crowded 2026 rotation, and an injury sub for 2025. I'm guessing he gets 2-4 starts in 2025. Maybe he makes a post-season roster as a long reliever, if he is fantastic right away. We have so much pitching depth right now, its wild to see fans or press be so negative about our pitching trajectory. Also: why has everyone forgotten about Keegan Thompson? Now that the injuries are behind him, he could easily throw a sub 4 ERA season as a starter. I expected some team to trade form him as a starter by now - he'd immediately improve the White Sox rotation!