*** Official 2025 Chicago Cubs Thread***

[1UNI2ISU]

Collin Rea is 35 and coming off a career year. Expecting him to repeat that is just asking for it to blow up.

He'll get some starts but he's best suited to be a swing guy at this point.

 

[CRCySpy]

I think a comp for Owen Caissie is Adam Dunn "Big Donkey". Tons of pop, but a lot of swing and miss. He will eventually hit 30 to 40 HR's in the bigs, but if he plays 150ish games, he will strike out 200ish times in a season. I don't know what his walk rate is, but if he can't walk 80 to 100 times in a season, I don't have the patience for that much swing and miss.

Dunn did walk over 100 times in 8 seasons to off set those whiffs. He averaged 193 Ks and 107 BBs. If Caissie can average 80 to 100 walks, then he will be a pretty good player for several years. We'll see.

I like the deal. Now, go get a bat.

 

[Cyforce]

That is quite the leap.

Caissie may turn out to be a star but he’ll likely have a K rate north of 30% in 26.

 

[isucy86]

Get Bichette and sell high on Nico. He's got that big shiny WAR number that's all defense and base running. Let the Giants pay the price for that and get some slug at 2B.

Leave Shaw at 3rd. He's pretty good there and he's going to hit.

Agree, I really like Nico but if can have the choice of Hoerner or Bichette- I take Bichette and his high-end bat.

Also, don't see Shaw wanting to be a utility player at this early point in his career. Shaw had a solid 2nd half of 2025 and would expect another jump in his average and HR's in 2026.

 

[Pharmacy99]

I mean... I like Owen as a player but what are these guys talking about here LOL. Tucker was a consensus top 10 prospect in all of baseball when we was coming up.

Caissie struck out ~29% of PAs in the minors vs. Tucker at ~18.5% in similar number of PAs all while hitting for the same (or more) power.

Additionally Tucker was/is a real threat on the base paths and a very good defender. Things Caissie is not.

That's just silly.

Good base runner but not a great defender

 

[RivClone23]

Agree, I really like Nico but if can have the choice of Hoerner or Bichette- I take Bichette and his high-end bat.

Also, don't see Shaw wanting to be a utility player at this early point in his career. Shaw had a solid 2nd half of 2025 and would expect another jump in his average and HR's in 2026.

Nobody wants to be a utility player.

 

[BigJCy]

 

[Cyforce]

Really makes no sense.

Would you rather have Bellinger and Shaw in the lineup or Bregman and Ballestareos?

 

[ISUCubswin]

For what it’s worth, Bregman and Cabrera are still possible. Doubt it happens, but that would make it a B+ offseason in my eyes

Fwiw, I’m under the impression the Cubs attention is now on Bregman.

Sounds like Bregman and and Bichette are both on the table. While Bichette is younger, Bregman is a much better culture fit and is projected to age well.

Bregman approaches the game similar to Swanson, PCA, Hoerner, and Happ, where they eat, sleep, breathe baseball.

 

[ISUCubswin]

Busch, 1B	Boyd	Rea
Bregman, 3B	Horton	Assad
Ballesteros, DH	Cabrera	Thielbar
Suzuki, RF	Taillon	Milner
Hoerner, 2B	Shota	Webb
Happ, LF		Maton
Amaya/Kelly, C		Harvey
Swanson, SS		Palencia
PCA, CF
Alcantara, OF
Shaw, ÚTIL
Austin, 1B
Amaya/Kelly, C

Steele added in June and there’s 5ish arms for that bullpen I didn’t include and are pretty interchangeable. That’s a roster that should win the Central.

 

[CyState85]

I’m prepared to eat my words but I honestly think Matt Shaw is better than Alex Bregman at 1/50th of the cost. Shaw was overmatched constantly at the plate last year but he was improving so much and is defense was outstanding at a position he doesn’t typically play.

Signing Bregman would be frustrating in my opinion.

 

[Cyforce]

Yes we all know you are not a fan of Taillon for some reason but he is going to be part of the rotation to start the season. I doubt they trade him unless they sell off at the deadline because of a disappointing season. He's reasonable at $17 mil in the last year of his contract for the innings he gives us and by upgrading the top half of the rotation it now makes him a good back half of the rotation arm. If you get a healthy and effective Steele back the top 3 are him Horton and Cabrera and that leaves 2 spots for Boyd, Taillon, and Shota which by that time either we will have an inevitable injury in the rotation or 1 of these 3 may have pitched themselves out of a spot. Let's say best case scenario everyone is healthy and pitching well then maybe you go with a 6 man rotation to keep everyone healthy and fresh or then you debate about trading a guy. I don't find that a bad problem to have.

As much as our rotation was in shambles going into the playoffs last year I'm perfectly fine having too many starting pitchers as I'd rather have a problem of too many than trying to patchwork the backend of the rotation with swing guys like Rea and Assad or whatever other healthy arm we have around. Other than a lock down closer which I doubt we go out and get at this point I like how the pitching staff looks on paper right now. Time to focus on a big bat to replace Tucker which seems to be the last piece of the offseason now. Bichette is my preference but I have my doubts the Cubs management is going to really be serious about giving out any long term big dollar contacts. Feels like they are hoping 1 of the big names left market falls apart and they can convince one to play on a bloated 1 year deal or some shorter deal with opt outs.

So currently the Cubs are 30 mil under tier one cap according to Sharma and Mooney’s podcast per baseball reference. We know FO won’t go over especially in the offseason.That’s barely enough to add one of the top hitting targets maybe and leaves nothing for in season acquisitions.

What’s your plan to clear salary if you’re not willing to part with Taillon?

Just so you know. They are suggesting dealing Nico to replace his clubhouse presence. I definitely would rather part Taillon and sign a reclamation guy for depth.

 

[Cyforce]

Also gotta wonder is Kepler’s PED suspension shifts Philly’s focus from upgrading third to the OF? If so that softens the market further. Bechette to NY would pretty much cement it for us.

 

[ISUCubswin]

I’m prepared to eat my words but I honestly think Matt Shaw is better than Alex Bregman at 1/50th of the cost. Shaw was overmatched constantly at the plate last year but he was improving so much and is defense was outstanding at a position he doesn’t typically play.

Signing Bregman would be frustrating in my opinion.

Even in this case, the reason I like Bregman is that it opens up Shaw to be a super utility, and I'm willing to bet he'd also handle some outfield work, as well.

1 - He's likely playing over MoBaller against LHP, so that's 20% of games

2 - Brujan, Turner, Lopez, Workman, Castro, and Berti combined to play 224 games last year for the Cubs. Shaw's 1 roster spot could do everything those 6 did.

The question really is would you rather Bregman + 100-120 games of Matt Shaw, or Matt Shaw + 100-120 games of a combination of similar players in #2.

Also, before anyone says Matt Shaw needs to focus on one position, the FO viewed Cam Smith as the future 3B and Matt Shaw in a Super Utility role before shipping Smith to Houston. Shaw played about 60% of games at 3B in the minors and about 20/20 the rest of the way with 2B and SS.

 

[ISUCubswin]

So currently the Cubs are 30 mil under tier one cap according to Sharma and Mooney’s podcast per baseball reference. We know FO won’t go over especially in the offseason.That’s barely enough to add one of the top hitting targets maybe and leaves nothing for in season acquisitions.

What’s your plan to clear salary if you’re not willing to part with Taillon?

Just so you know. They are suggesting dealing Nico to replace his clubhouse presence. I definitely would rather part Taillon and sign a reclamation guy for depth.

There's some solid sourcing out there that shortly after the Cabrera trade, the Ricketts opened the purse strings for one big bat with the expectation it is a smart investment (i.e. not giving Tucker $500M / 10 years)

Mooney and Sharma hit on this in their latest pod - there's a belief amongst the industry that there will be a salary cap and floor in the 2027. Ricketts are wanting there to be a cap and, in the instance one is put in place, don't want to be in a position where they're already over the cap. And they use the Phillies and Dodgers as evidence this is an expectation, as the Dodgers would've already signed Tucker by now if there were no concerns about a cap.

(insert **** the Dodgers for requiring a cap because they decided to break the system)

 

[cyatheart]

Get Bichette and sell high on Nico. He's got that big shiny WAR number that's all defense and base running. Let the Giants pay the price for that and get some slug at 2B.

Leave Shaw at 3rd. He's pretty good there and he's going to hit.

Insane to get rid of Nico, guy should retire a cub.

 

[BigJCy]

Cubs Convention is next weekend. Could be some interesting interactions with the Front Office/Ownership and the fans if no more moves have taken place by then.

 

[BigJCy]

Insane to get rid of Nico, guy should retire a cub.

Yeah Hoerner is my favorite current Cub. Just a damn good ballplayer.

 

[cyups2323]

If the cubs have the go ahead run in scoring position with 2 outs and I could choose anyone to be at the plate I'd choose nico. He's the only one I trust to put the ball in play.

 

[ISUCubswin]

If the cubs have the go ahead run in scoring position with 2 outs and I could choose anyone to be at the plate I'd choose nico. He's the only one I trust to put the ball in play.

Agree with this.

I do think Ballestaros and, if you get him, Bregman, will fit in this category as well.

Hoerner hit .303 and struck out just 8% of the time in this scenario last year.
Bregman is a career .268 striking out 14% of the time.

Harder to find those specific stats in the minors but I do know MoBaller hit .353 with a runner on 3rd, .444 with runners on 2nd and 3rd, and .298 when the bases were empty in Iowa.