All right, man, what are you drinking there?
Got a? Summit Extra Pale Ale, but.
Where's that from? I'm, I'm in the Twin Cities.
So yeah, Summit's one of the not exactly a micro brew, you know,
it's, it's all over the place here, but it's good stuff,
pretty basic. I keep it simple.
A hot butcher. I don't know if you're familiar
from with Chicago's. But.
Yeah, Maxwell and Kony hit the road.
Very nice. Yeah.
What is it? Yeah, it's just a double ND
double IPA 7.7. Yeah, it's.
Yeah, there's. It's hard to find a bad hot
butcher. Although I did have one the
other day I didn't love but I can't remember the name of it.
I was, I was at the liquor store today thinking about, you know,
grabbing something for this. And I thought I'll look for
anything that's a baseball tie in, you know, word play or
something. Yeah, there was an Atomic
Torpedo IPA, 6 pack of those. The ABV on him was 9.2 and I was
like, I could drink one of those tonight.
I don't know when the other five are going.
So kept it. Kept it basic.
Yeah, yeah, 9's pretty high. My brother in law's like that.
He's he's like a big like you know, like 10% and more.
He'll send me beer. Sometimes I'm just like, dude,
yeah, I like to, yeah, enjoy my beer and not pass out.
But yeah, all right, I'm watching that.
They're still in the 7th inning in this game as we're recording.
I don't know if you've been watching this game.
Following it, yeah. OK, I swear I'm always paranoid
I'm going to mispronounce people's names even though I've
heard it 1000 times already, but by Esteros comes up with the
bases loaded like in the 4th inning.
And I thought for sure he was going to like, you know, RIP 1
into the gap or something. Because like every Cubs
prospect, you know how it is. They always, they always show
up. In their first game, the
Velasquez hit a Grand Slam. Yeah, I can't remember, Was that
his first game? Well, it was that his first
game, it was really early on. And in contrast, at home on his
first at bat, Yeah, I swear, I, I there's something about the
last was that I felt like it was pretty significant, like there
was pretty early on. That was part of that big
comeback in that, like, weird April game.
And, you know, the Mariners in town in April couldn't have felt
less like anything should feel, but yeah.
Yeah. All right, so how do you mean?
I haven't had a chance to talk to you, but although you and I,
we go back, you're an OG on this podcast.
In fact, I think you were the only guy that I did a podcast
with during like the midst of COVID.
That's right. We were just like, all right,
baseball's coming back. We'll talk about like if the
managers are wearing masks and like how close everybody's going
to be in the dugout. It's yeah, it was weird.
I've just tried to wipe. Basically just pretend that
season doesn't exist. Oh, totally.
Yeah, totally. That's why I felt bad for the
Dodgers until they and not actually, not that I usually
feel bad for the Dodgers, but actually I felt like good that
they actually won a real one last year.
I was like that. That thing was like a cheap
yeah. Yeah, we could escape a little
bit of discourse that way. Yeah.
So regardless, what do you think of this Cubs team overall?
It's a fun team, man. It's a, it's a good team.
I think maybe people got a little over excited at one stage
of their of this surge, but also Cubs fans.
Well, you know what, honestly, it's been hard to accuse Cubs
fans of getting too excited the last few years.
I've had to drag some people into, you know, these last
couple years. Were those teams good enough?
No. Was there valid criticism to
levy at the front office and ownership?
For sure, absolutely. And at the same time, I thought
those teams had some fun elements and put together a
push, even though it was a kind of, you know, it was a fake
rally kind of thing within a season.
But I still think those were interesting teams.
This team's better than interesting.
I still think they're flaws and we're seeing them because the
pitching depth is being tested so much with steal and Imanaga
shell. But I like this team.
I think they're they're engaging.
There's a lot of interesting talent on it and maybe more on
the way like we're seeing by Stairs get his first shot
tonight. Yeah, I mean, you and I have
been, you know, fairly critical of Jed at least.
You know, I think fairly. I feel like there's been some
ups and downs and we know that it's not all his fault in terms
of, you know, what he's been given as far as resources.
But I've got to give him. I don't know.
How do you feel? Do you want to give him credit
for this year? Because I feel like this roster
overall was put together pretty well.
I'll be at, you know, we're still probably like another
starter or a couple bullpen arm short, but with the system kind
of starting to provide a spark like I feel like overall the the
organization looks solid. Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think this is what he's been trying to build all
along. So for sure this is the season
to judge him on. I felt that, you know, I've,
I've had my frustrations with the whole of this process,
especially at times in the last couple of years where it just
felt like there was more they could do to to put the hammer
down, but they also caught a couple of bad breaks.
And I think his mission, certainly what he perceived to
be his mission was to build that farm system, that pipeline that
never really got laid under Theo.
You know, they put together this team full of first round picks
and so ostensibly it's home grown.
They get to brag on that. They get to, you know, win the
World Series with a really young roster too.
And there was just never a second wave behind it and there
was never really good player development to pair with the
scouting. It was just they tanked for a
while. They got a bunch of high first
round picks and they mostly hit on him.
I think he's tried to put in place a, a process that can last
here. And I have some critiques of the
process you actually executed. But I think it's a good thing to
have tried. And we're seeing the fruits of
it this year. And I think a lot of people were
real nervous about what they gave up for Tucker.
I know how much people are worried about it.
If this is his only year in Chicago, then that trade looks
really bad to some folks. I'm not even thinking of it that
way. I honestly think you built this
team with a, you know, you were trying to get to an open window
without being sort of over leveraged like they were late in
the last window in 17/18/19. And I think they've actually
done it where you got Saya, you got Hap.
Those guys are under contract just through next year.
You know, the windows closing on steel, it was closing even
before he got hurt in terms of team control.
And Dansby is going to be around a long time, but he's going to
start declining now. So you were kind of building
toward this season. Well, go get that guy who makes
this season something potentially special.
And he did that. I think he would have loved to
do more this winter. And this is one time where I
won't totally blame him because I think the Cubs really, they
tried hard on a couple of guys who just preferred other
people's money, which I've said this before, I think one of the
reasons I might not have hired Jed in the first place.
Certainly no Theo in the room with a free agent.
You know, he does not know how to land that guy.
He had all the cash he needed to get Bregman or Tanner Scott.
The Cubs were not outbid for those guys.
They just weren't. They were out negotiated for
them. So that's an issue.
But he also had a deal done for Jesus Lizardo.
And I know it got reported that that got killed based on Cubs
concerns with Lizardo also got killed based on the Marwitz
concerns with Owen Casey's medicals.
So, you know, he tried to do a lot of stuff this winter.
He actually got the one humongous thing done to add
Tucker to this lineup and the results of really interesting
team that is poised to win right now.
They're not as good as the Dodgers, which is unfortunate,
but they're still they're still time.
Yeah, yeah. And then you know what?
It coincided with the fact that PCA is looking at least it's
early. OK, I'm still like, I still need
to see what you have to say about this.
But I'm starting to believe that this kids a star.
What do you think? I've been I think I'm a little
bit infamous for my my skepticism on PCA.
I might be the last the last Cubs spear person who who has
any of that in them. At the same time, even I'm very
excited by the power specifically because look, you
got this guy where swinging this much generally just flat out
doesn't work. That's the basic truth, isn't
it? You can't swing this much and be
really good 99% of the time. The 1% of those guys who can
swing this much and be good have to have kind of crazy power.
And that hasn't been his profile, but now we're seeing
it. I'd still like to see him scale
it back. He scaled it back at times, like
just a little bit. It doesn't have, you know, you
don't have to turn into Anthony Rizzo or say, a Suzuki.
But if you can just not be swinging more than Javi Baez
ever swung, which he was for long stretches of last year, if
you can rein it in that little bit, then a lot of good things
are accessed for you. But even if he does keep
swinging a lot, if he gets to this much pop, it's not going to
matter. The defense is gorgeous and I
can't stop watching just the the little things.
I mean, you expect a guy, this Rod, you know, this young, this
full of personality, this full of tools to come up and just
make up for mistakes with sheer physical brilliance on fly balls
and things. Instead, he is technically
excellent in addition to having crazy speed and a great arm.
And so that's just a joy to watch.
And I think it's not a situation where all the offense is great
because as you point out, you know, especially when you miss
on a Bregman and you don't get that second big bat to pair with
Tucker, you needed some of this, not maybe all of what he's
provided, but you needed some of this just to stay afloat this
year. And so you're on a little bit of
a high wire because what if he wobbles off of it again?
What if he's swinging at 2/3 of the pitches he sees and putting
up a 220 OBP for a month? But I'm starting to believe that
he can avoid falling quite that deep.
And at that point, yeah, he's I don't think he's going to win
MVPS. I've heard people say that
night, I don't think he's ever going to win an MVP award.
I do think he can collect a bunch of down ballot MVP votes
and make a handful of All Star teams just by being this combo
of plus power and crazy defense and the speed shows up all over
his game. Right, yeah, even if he ends up
being just like a 2, you know, 50 hitter that can hit 20
twentyish home runs and plays that kind of defense and gives
you that kind of speed. That's a really valuable player.
I I do, I do. I do see though that he's
working at things. You know, I, I, I just, I can't
help but watch it. You know, I, I, I watch the game
from kind of like a more, you know, human element and I feel
like this kid is working really hard to get better.
So that gives me hope that regardless, I don't think he's
going to fall off too far from this and and if not, he could
possibly even get better. Yeah, the intensity is not going
to be where he comes up short. You know it.
We talk so much about the the nice mirror of, of him, of Javi
being traded for him. Yeah.
But I think a key element of that is really people thought
Javi was too flashy. Was, you know, is he really
interested in all that? He was driven.
He was he was a tenacious player and a really technically
excellent fielder and base runner.
He just didn't have any play discipline.
And it was not like because he didn't care.
It was because he that that just wasn't wired into him.
Everything else about the game was and he worked really hard at
all of it. I think PC has the same way.
It's just how much of play discipline so important to your
game. It's such a baseline skill that
even with those guys that you trust, the makeup you got to go.
How well can the make up make up for this potentially devastating
flaw? I don't know, I think it's
actually really rare still from, you know, watching baseball
these years, like to see a guy like Juan Soto that has that
plate discipline or Aaron Judge. It's like I feel like that's
like those guys are the anomaly, you know, to have that kind of
like quick twitch athleticism and still be have that
discipline. That's.
It that's amazing. You ever watch Juan Soto swing
and then just wonder how he ever doesn't swing?
Right, it's it's. He's got such a a violent swing
and he connects so cleanly sometimes and you're like, why
don't you swing way more? But also the fact that he
doesn't swing way more is what makes him great.
Baseball's weird, man. Yeah, it really is.
It's it's it's amazing. So I mean, you're, you're
starting to come around a little bit.
Like, I feel like the only thing that I'm afraid of is that this
gives Ricketts and the Cubs a little bit of like cushion to be
like, well, maybe, you know, if we don't sign Tucker, we've got
PCA as our start and maybe we can sign a lesser, you know, guy
to play right field. I just feel like Tucker opens up
a window, like you were saying, of at least five years, you
know, or some, somewhere in that vicinity if you add enough
pitching. These guys are.
Really, really well. And you're right.
Then it, it really comes down to how much pitching can you add
around him because they've also got this core of offensive
prospects of which we, we saw Shaw, which didn't go so great.
We're getting to see by esteros now.
We'll probably see others this year.
They've got this potential core. That's it's certainly good
enough. If the starting point is Kyle
Tucker. I don't know.
I, I think honestly, PCA is not going to give them the cover.
They, and I'm, I'm not even sure they're thinking about it as
wanting cover. I think for them it's really
going to come down to what price does he demand and what
structures is he open to? They lost Bregman because
Bregman wanted deferred money for a little bit of kind of
vanity and the Cubs were unwilling to do deferrals.
Well, if Kyle Tucker also wants deferred money so he can pretend
to be getting as much as Shohei or Juan Soto, and the Cubs might
be out of luck because they might just draw that hard line.
I think that would be silly because the Pearls are team
friendly. And I don't know what they're,
you know, thinking there. But, you know, I think it'll
come down to what's he asking for and what do they value him
at, which is a little bit of Jed Hoyer's flaw.
We talked about that a lot. He's maybe too rational about
free agents, but he's already gotten a little irrational about
Tucker. The trade itself was a little
bit irrational. If he wants to be a little bit
more than they're going to be able to keep him around and that
profiles just he's not going to go downhill anytime real soon.
I don't know why I read this or read into this, but I feel like
Hoyer has a thing like where he has guys that he'll, you know,
break the his mold for a little bit.
And I feel like he's got a thing for Tucker.
So I feel like he'd has kind of put his eggs in this basket, you
know, and I feel like I feel like they have a really good
shot. You know, especially with, you
know, if if the Cubs are contending and Wrigley's rock in
the summer, there might be a point where they put 500 million
or close to in front of Tucker and he's like, you know, let's
fuck it. I like it here.
My wife likes it here. Let's roll.
But other than that, I feel like that's that's their best shot.
I thought of something today that, look, you're not going to
get him to make decisions just on a basis like this, but it's
worth baking in a little. Paul Schemes announced he's
going to play for Team USA, right.
Tucker played for Team USA last time and I think loved it and
they loved having him. You know, what you're not going
to do is go out and be a free agent and sign a $500 million
contract with a new team at least, and have that team say,
yeah, go spend your whole free agents, your whole spring
training, risking injury, playing for your country.
Yeah, maybe maybe there's a little bit of an opening.
You know, you go to them at the All Star break, you go to them
at the end of the year and you say we're not trying to get you
for under market. But if we put up a fair offer
right now and you know, out of the many perks that we're going
to throw your way, one of them is go play in the WBC next
spring. Maybe that that helps a little
bit. Use every bit of leverage you
can because I don't think it's going to be easy to talk him out
of going into free agency. And I do think if he gets there,
500 million is going to show up somewhere.
Not sure it should. I don't really.
I'm not huge on those deals, but I think it probably will.
And I'm not sure the Cubs will match it if it gets there.
So can you go to him with 12 and 480 and say, you know, take your
pick of all these? You know, maybe there's an opt
out halfway through, Maybe there's a no trade clause and
maybe, yeah, you can, even though you're attached to a deal
that nobody plays in the WBC under go ahead and go do that
next spring, stuff like that. That's interesting.
Well, I mean with steel outs I'd have to say that that's their
biggest need. But there are times where I
think that there might not be that front end starter that's
that gettable. I mean, Alcantra is not really
pitching great yet and there's going to be at least 5 or 6
teams in a line up anyway, you know, especially with his
friendly contract and his control.
And then you look at teams like the Twins, you know, they're all
of a sudden they're they're back in it, you know, so people are
already trying to pick Pablo Lopez or Joe Ryan off that
roster. Would you think that there'd be
a possibility the Cubs go after maybe like a middle of the
rotation guy and instead work on the bullpen a little bit more?
Yeah. How would you attack it?
I think I would probably want to add more to the pen just because
Craig counsel does not seem to trust this pen very much.
And I'm not saying he's necessarily wrong about that.
But lately I see a lot of by modern standards, you know, I'm
36 years old. I, I know what a slow hook
actually used to look like and this isn't it.
But by 2025 standards, he's had kind of slow hooks this year,
and I think it's because he doesn't really trust anyone for
whom that door swings open, not even Porter Hodge that much.
I know people love Porter Hodge. It's a it's a lot of walks, man.
And every now and then his fastball shape just kind of runs
into a barrel. And if he's already put a guy on
in front of that, it's trouble. So I'm not sure how many guys
council feels comfortable with. I'd want to just make him more
comfortable because I do think Imanaga will come back and I
think you'll be fine. There's an increased risk from
here on out for more hamstring strains.
That's that's a thing. But it doesn't probably won't
happen this year. He'll come back at the end of
May and he'll pitch the rest of the year just fine.
And you'll have Boyd, you'll have Brown now if that
opportunity opens up. I'd be looking, I'd be asking,
I'd be listening, you know, for starters who are available.
But like you said that that Goldilocks guy, not sure he's
going to be out there. I would be open up that pen and
trying to make Craig feel free to do the stuff that had Brewers
fans renaming September after him back in the day.
Yeah, I mean, you've watched him, you know, a lot closer than
I have over the years. And you know how he operates
with a bullpen. I mean, this bullpen is not bad.
I mean, there's there's guys there, there's, you know,
Merryweather and Palencia and even at times, like you said,
Hodge, they look good. But I I just don't think that
they're trustable, you know, completely.
So I feel like, yeah, if you just got a 9th inning guy, that
would push everybody back into a more realistic.
Role, I think that's why they went and got Presley.
I think, yeah, Craig is, He adored.
I don't think he would have probably put it quite this way,
but he put so much trust in Josh Hader and then Devin Williams
and even a couple of other guys who would be complimentary
pieces within a pen. He loved the dudes who were the
same guy every day, which is rare for a reliever, all
relievers. And he was lucky to have a few
of those, but he really, really knew how to use them.
If I know what I'm going to get when that guy comes in the game,
I know exactly the set of situations I do and don't want
to use them in. I think his big problem with
this pen is sometimes Brad Keller is a shutdown dude and
sometimes he's not. And sometimes Daniel Palencia is
a shutdown dude and sometimes he's not.
And it's there's no one in that pen that may maybe except Caleb
Thielbar who had a slow start and sort iron things out and you
can pretty much trust him. But that's lower grade too.
That's, you know, that's a medium leverage lefty.
It's not, you know, a bullpen ace.
I think he wants that guy that he knows what it's going to look
like. The stuffs not fluctuating
wildly. The strikes are consistent.
Even if they're not, It's not. It doesn't have to be a 3% walk
rate, but don't come in and walk the bases loaded every 3rd
outing. It it drives him nuts.
So they want that consistent guy.
Problem is that consistent guy is stupid expensive in July and
and I do think like the Brewers are sinking a little.
What if, you know, if the Brewers fell out of contention
suddenly? Not so much in the pen, but
Freddie Peralta might go on the trade block this summer.
Except the Brewers aren't going to trade Freddie Peralta to the
Cubs, right? So it's like you got to get
lucky enough to have that guy become available from A2 who's
actually willing to deal with you.
That's the kind of guy. That's the kind of guy I was
thinking about. The Cubs either.
Yeah, no, definitely not. The Cardinals are.
Yeah. Cardinals are coming on strong
right now, yeah. Do you think that's real?
No, I mean not completely, not real.
I think we probably even I who I was very low on them just
because I thought the vibes would sort of turn sour and guys
might underperform. There's legit talent there, but
I don't think there's enough pitching depth to get them
through the season. I think they're going to Peter
out probably and by the end of June even, but we'll see.
Yeah, I mean, I'm shocked, but again, it's a Cardinal.
So, you know, as a Cub fan, you cannot be shocked.
And nor would I be shocked that the Brewers came and took over.
You know, it's just there's just no, you know, there's no rhyme
or reason to that kind of shit, But you know, I do feel like
this team is is solid enough. I just feel like, yes, of course
it'd be great to get a top of the rotation guy, but I just
again, I I have my doubts like that that's going to be
available, but we'll see. We still, it's still what,
mid-May? But the bullpen just feels like
it's more reasonable. I just don't know who that guy
would like right now. I can't even tell you the story
where this is the guy who's going to become available.
And yeah. Yeah, yeah, there might be guys
like even, you know, that there are guys that are at least can
be considered a two or three that might be available, you
know, and I think that'd be fine because I mean, do you think
that Imanaga is the kind of guy you can hand the ball to in game
one? I yeah, I I probably trust him
too much. Yeah.
I've turned, I've turned around on him because again, all the
things we heard when he was coming out of Japan, he's a 3-4.
He's a middle of the rotation guy.
He's solid now. He's actually show me that he's
he's more than that. I mean, the willingness and
ability to add pitches and also, holy cow, the personality, I
think. Oh, totally.
It was probably really hard to scout that just going into him
and his his native culture and and Japanese.
Yeah. Baseball as a culture so
different from MLB, but boy he has the perfect makeup to just
like coming here. Might have even let him blossom
more. I don't know how much of that
like, curiosity and that perfectionism and intensity.
He's got so many good things going that way that yeah, I, I,
I would give him the ball in game one and not even sweat it.
But also you'd love to have at least A1A, if not a guy to bump
him back. Yeah, that's why it sucks losing
Steel, because I think Steel was a guy that you'd feel pretty
good about pitching Game 2. I don't know.
Did you get a good look at Horton over the weekend?
Yeah. And I I wanted to absolutely.
Of course, that was going to be my next question about to you is
that how did you think he looked?
I mean, I think that's that dude's legit.
He lost. He lost location with the
breaking ball for a little bit there and it cost him the three
runs, I think a single that was laid in there too well, and then
the Homer. But I think Kate Horton is is
pretty legit and ready to help this team.
The problem is I don't know how careful they want to be with
innings and stuff. Will will they get to October
and still feel good about having him start games and pitch normal
length? I think they should.
I'm not the like only go up 30 or 40 innings at a time per
year. I don't buy into that.
Researchers basically debunked it, but some teams still play
that on the safe side. And if they do that with Horton,
then, you know, I'm not as confident about, let's put it
this way, Matthew Boyd's probably the two behind a
menager right now. You'd certainly love to push
that back. How good do we feel about Tyone
or Ben Brown? They're Jackal and Hyde just the
way a lot of the relievers are. And then, I don't know, I, I
just love to have that one guy who slides everyone down in case
they're not comfortable sending Horton out there.
But I, I love the stuff we've seen from Horton, the way he's
bounced back from last year's injury.
I think he's going to be good for them for quite a while.
I'm just not sure it can help like this October, you know?
Yeah, no, I think in a perfect world of steel didn't get hurt
that I thought they could they could use Horton in a different
way, kind of deploy a more like as a reliever, right, like as a
as a weapon, like in multi innings, possibly even.
But as it is, what did you think about him and just in terms of
his stuff and his his mountain presence?
It looks like he has. He didn't look he had much fear.
And he's got, he's just got good enough stuff that he really
doesn't have to have any fear. It's it's kind of a right-handed
Justin Steele, but the Steele who first, you know, sort of hit
the rotation in 2022 before he lost two ticks on the fastball.
It's this cutting thing that, you know, there's all these
stuff models out there that put A1 number grade on everybody's
every pitch and everybody's arsenal.
They have their uses. I don't love them because people
use them to summarize way, way, way too much and especially to
make judgments about guys without really seeing how it all
works together. When you got that cut ride
fastball and the slider that plays off of it like steelhead,
like Horton has, it's nasty. I don't care what the what the
number on it is. If it doesn't have quite the
backspin to miss bats at the top of the zone, whatever, it's
going to get a lot of outs. He's comfortable filling up the
zone with that and the slider. And unlike, you know, Ben Brown,
I wish he just had better command, too.
But the big problem with Brown is it's only two pitches.
Well, Horton's got 4-4 or five even.
Now, how good are the 3rd, 4th and 5th?
I don't know. Not that great.
But there are just not that many pitchers in the league whose
3rd, 4th and 5th pitches are that good.
His first two are plenty good enough, and he's comfortable
throwing the rest to keep guys off balance.
The makeup, like you mentioned, it just it all looks good out
there. Yeah, I like Kate Horton, short
term and long term, as long as the health holds up.
Yeah, and I think I have to give Judd some credit too for, you
know, Colin Ray and and Matthew Boy, those are great pickups.
I felt pretty good about the gambles that he took on them.
But at the same time, I didn't think that, you know, Boyd would
would be this much of a factor. So, you know, still is there's
still time where that thing might not look as good, you
know, in a couple months. But as of right now, yeah, it
looks really good. Ben Brown, I have my, you know,
I have this nagging thought that he still might be better
deployed as an 8th or 9th inning guy.
Well, how do you feel about him overall?
I desperately want him to be. And honestly, I've been a little
critical of them for choosing him at kind of every turn.
I would have just given Ray that fifth rotation spot out of
spring training. But I think they were seeing
around corners a little bit having, you know, I probably
should have thought more about, well, what if Javier Assad has a
set back? Yeah.
And thought a little more about what if Justin Steele goes down
because they've been nursing that injury along for however
long. It's been a year and 1/2, right?
I think they were thinking along those lines and going, we're
going to need to keep everybody as stretched out as we can.
We know Ray can go to the pen, be the long man and stretch
right back out in the rotation if and when needed.
I think that's why they were doing all that.
But to me, I was saying Colin Ray's a better starter right now
than Ben Brown is. And unless Ben Brown's going to
magically show up one of these days with a third pitch he
actually cares about, I don't think he's he's going to work in
the rotation. It's now it is kind of working
in the rotation. So maybe I'll turn out to be
wrong. But it's it's like an every
other outing thing. And I don't know that the
fastball doesn't quite it, it plays under its velocity, you
know, it, it hums in and it looks good when it, when you
just see the radar gun number, but it doesn't look as good in
terms of how hitters are reacting to it.
And I, I would put them in the pen and I would say, give me two
more miles an hour on that. And it's going to be really
filthy. And the curveball is really
going to be devastating. And I'm not going to care if you
walk 11% of guys because it's only one time through the order
at most instead of two or three. But I think they were just
going. We got to get through a season
here. And now we've seen, you know,
Imanaga steal Hort, not Horton. Knock on wood, Javier Assad
down. I mean, that's why it makes
sense to have kept him here. But I do want to see what he can
do in the pen too. I think he's, he's been pretty
good, you know, but at the same time, I just feel like it's, I
felt like they wanted to just see, you know, just see what he
had. And but at the same time, I
just, I've always had this nagging suspicion that he's he's
better off as a reliever. You know who he absolutely
doesn't remind me of but also does is Rich Harden.
OK, there you go. He's.
He's like totally different body type.
Yeah, it's a curveball and Harden had the change up off the
heater, but it's that same like I am so frustrated by this guy
and how did he get to the end of an outing with dominant numbers?
And by the way, it's I feel like you just walk 6 people and
pitched in and out of traffic the whole time.
And then at the end of the thing it's five and a third one walk
and eight KS. Even when he has good nights,
I'm like, how did this happen? It felt so, so difficult.
Yeah, Even though the stuff is so good.
But I don't know. That's a good cop.
Rich Harden was actually ahead of his time.
If he was, if he was pitching nowadays, he'd be money.
You know, 6 innings. That's like fuck, that's like
going. I mean, that's they just gave
Blake Snell $182 million for being.
Rich. Totally.
Yeah, Yeah, It was funny. I was talking about that earlier
today, actually. I was talking about Mark DeRosa,
who's become like a huge star for the MLB Network.
I, I used to be friendly with him, used to come into Joe's all
the time, Joe's Steakhouse in downtown Chicago.
And he, it was funny because like, you know, you think of
players don't get as excited about things as fans do.
But when they, when the Cubs got Harden, like Derosa and some
other players came in and, and Derosa was like, like, like a
fan, he was so excited. He's like, we got hardened.
He's like, let's go. And I was just like, wow, that
was, that was pretty funny. But yeah, no, Harden was, you
know, even when, when he was with the A's, I was always like
drooling over his stuff. But yeah, yeah, if you got 6
things 6 innings out of him, you're lucky.
And I loved him because he was always pitching well, but also,
I don't know, it was just a vibe.
It was very he always made me nervous.
Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like Palencia.
It's like, you know, this stuff is just, you know, electric and
that just half the time you just don't know where it's going.
Palencia is funny because the stuff is so good that you want
to just not feel nervous. Except you can see that he feels
nervous. Yeah.
That dude just wears it all on his, you know, his face.
He's pouring sweat half the time.
Yeah, I kind of love watching him pitch, but also it's that's
because he he's not really pitching in a high leverage spot
yet. If he became like the Cubs
closer, it'd be a cardiac event for a lot of us, including
possibly him. Yeah, flashes of Carlos marble.
Well, you know, the one thing I will say, though, is like third
base. I wasn't too worried about it,
you know, because I figured, yeah, you know, it's Shaw will
hold it down for a little bit, but he didn't.
Now it's become a little bit of a black hole.
Do you think they have to dress it with some type of veteran or
do you think that Shaw might come up later in the year and
still give it a? Yeah, At this point, I'm kind of
medium term pessimistic on Shaw. It hasn't gotten a lot better at
Iowa. There's this, it's, it's a lot
of moving parts. It's that big leg kick.
You know, we all saw that and they all, they assured us that
it wasn't going to be a problem. And then it pretty clearly was.
I think there is a an extent where you're striding too much
and you're losing bat speed because you're just going too
far this way. You're not able to rotate
enough. He didn't put up a single
impressive number during his time in the big leagues and the
defense at third didn't look that good either.
I don't. I wish John Birdie would just
look a little more comfortable defensively there because I can
live. John Birdie is your 9 hitter.
It's not a problem, right? Except John Birdie clearly is
way more comfortable playing second base defensively.
A year ago, even before his thumb thing, I would have said
let's try Nico Horner at 3rd. I don't think he has the arm for
that now. So they may have to go outside
the org, which I'm sure they do not want to do, but it's there's
not a great solution here right now.
And that's why they held on to gauge workmen for so long,
because they could kind of see these problems burbling up too.
I don't know. They, they probably rushed Shaw
a little bit and they're going to pay a little bit of a price
for that. Yeah, that's the one where I
don't have a great answer, and unfortunately they don't either.
The good news is it's one spot. You kind of bury it at the
bottom of the line up. You, if you can find anybody who
handles it consistently well defensively, you just run them
out there and almost treat it like a pitcher spot, which is a
bummer to do, but it's better than having a guy out there
who's not that great offensively and really shaky with the glove.
Yeah, no, I agree with that. And I thought that catcher would
be that position where they'd have to kind of punt the
offense, but the catching positions actually been pretty
productive. So maybe they just go get a a
solid their basement on the market somewhere.
But at the same time, yeah, if they would have signed Bregman,
I've said it once, I'll say 100 times, they I probably don't
think they'd be able to afford to go get a starting pitcher,
which again, might not be possible anyway.
So we'll see. And look, I mean it.
It certainly would have tied their hands more.
Maybe you could have rolled the dice on some controllable
pitcher in like, a challenge trade.
We'll give you Owen Casey or Moises by Esteros.
Even for your controllable guy who's not fully established yet,
you know, you're not going to get a controllable #3 you're
going to get a controllable somebody's number six or their
number four, and you're hoping that you can tweak them and
bring them up a level. Yeah, but yeah, that that'd be
uncomfortable. And I'm sure that they are happy
that they at least have some flexibility to add salary in
here. But also imagine this line up,
the way PCA is gone this year, the way Suzuki's hitting,
imagine it with Bregman and you really stop worrying about
pitching in a damn hurry. It gets everything just gets so
much less stressful if you're scoring that extra 2/3 of a run
a game or something, so. Yeah, it's just that that old
school baseball fan of me just so worries, worries about the
pitching. Now I just just need one more
guy, whether it's in the pen or the the rotation.
All right, so last thing I'll ask you is that who do you think
the teams are going to ask for when it comes down to this
stuff? It's good.
It's probably, I mean, I'm sure that they'll get requests about
by esteros. They've got to hope that some of
their sort of mid tier of prospects have a good stretch
here just because I think they'd like to trade, not like to.
They're not like desperate to get rid of Owen Casey or Kevin
Alcantra. But right now those guys stocks
have nose down a little bit. Just Casey's been in AAA a long
time now, man, and he's still striking out a ton.
So I think teams are losing some faith there, which is a bummer.
You don't want to miss your window to get something out of a
guy unless you view them as a long term peace.
So those that collection of hitters at AAA is going to be
the first thing people ask about because anytime you got a
collection of promising hitters at AAA, they're going to ask
about them. Jackson Wiggins is in South
Bend, I think, and that's an arm that the Cubs won't want to give
up. But if you want the kind like a
difference making pitcher at this deadline.
They're going to ask about Jackson Wiggins, they're going
to ask about Jefferson Rojas, the shortstop down there.
And I think you got to listen with an open mind, not be
willing to throw them at at any old thing.
But if you get a, you know, if you're shopping in the really
deep end, if if the guardians fall off and they're open to
moving Emmanuel Class A, if Mason Miller's on the market, if
you know, Pablo Lopez does end up being available.
Yeah, you're going to have to at least hear those names and not
automatically hang up the phone. You get too close for my comfort
to like an all in situation at that point.
Because those guys who are in high A AA, they're they need to
be the next wave. But I'm not sure that that's a
really robust next wave right now anyway.
So maybe the move is to strengthen this team, have that
three-year window and hope that you're scouting and player dev,
which you've poured so many resources into the last few
years. We'll just rebuild that
naturally that you can stop making these trades like the one
for parades, which begot, the one for Tucker, you know, the
one that sent away Zaire Hope and Jackson Farris for Michael
Bush. Those were all good trades.
They've made the, you know, Michael Bush and Kyle Tucker are
really, really good players. Also thinned out the Cubs farm
system. You want to stop having to make
those deals, but you could make one more this summer to firm up
a team that's headed to the playoffs, especially if that
player has some team control attached through 20/26/27.
Yeah. All right.
Thanks, Matthew.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
Talk to you soon.