The Cubs have signed right-hander Carl Edwards Jr. and catcher Ali Sanchez to minor league deals, as announced yesterday by the team’s Triple-A affiliate in Iowa. Tommy Birch of the Des Moines Register (X link) was the first to report that Edwards was working out with the Iowa pitching staff on Thursday.
Edwards is back for what is technically a third stint with the Cubs, after he opted out of his previous minor league deal with the club two weeks ago. After testing the market, Edwards now returns to a familiar environment to see if another MLB opportunity might yet emerge in the Wrigleyville bullpen, and it be assumed that his new minors pact probably has at least one opt-out clause.
A veteran of nine Major League seasons, Edwards posted a 3.69 ERA in 31 2/3 innings for the Nationals in an abbreviated 2023 campaign. Edwards didn’t pitch after June 19 due to a diagnosis of shoulder inflammation and later a stress fracture that developed in late August. The injury brought a sour end to what had been a pretty successful run in D.C., as Edwards revived his career with a 2.76 ERA over 62 innings for the Nats in 2022. The righty had mostly struggled in the previous three seasons, which hastened the end of his original run with the Cubs when Chicago traded him to the Padres at the 2019 trade deadline.
With Edwards bringing some bullpen depth to the Triple-A, Sanchez will do the same to the Cubs’ catching ranks. Yan Gomes and Miguel Amaya seem to be entrenched as the active roster’s catching duo, so Sanchez joins veteran Curt Casali in Iowa, and Joe Hudson (who signed a minors deal with Chicago in the offseason) has been moved to the Triple-A affiliate’s developmental list. This placement might be a way to keep Hudson sharp while the Cubs sort out their catching situation, or it could possibly hint that Hudson could eventually be the odd man out.
Sanchez signed a guaranteed big league contract with the Pirates in December, though Pittsburgh designated the catcher for assignment on Opening Day. Since Sanchez had previously been outrighted in his career, he had the right to opt into free agency rather than accept Pittsburgh’s outright assignment to Triple-A, and the backstop indeed took the chance to re-enter the open market.
The Cubs are Sanchez’s sixth different organization in less than 38 months. His only MLB experience consists five games with the Mets in 2020 and two games with the 2021 Cardinals, as the catcher has otherwise bounced around as a depth option. While not really known for his bat, Sanchez has a respectable .275/.345/.402 slash line over 893 career plate appearances at the Triple-A level, though those numbers were boosted by a nice 2023 season with the Diamondbacks’ top affiliate in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.
Cubs will win that horrible division by 5+ games
Horrible division with the best record of the six so far?
best record playing with half their games against the teams that were considered the worst in baseball with virtually no chance at even a wildcard. Those being the Rockies (garbage), Nationals (rebuilding?) or Marlins (rotation and a half of injuries) and Mets (ceiling of under 500) … might as well say sean manea is the best starting pitcher in baseball.with no runs and 1 hit so far.
They’ve also played Dodgers, Orioles, Phillies, Padres.
Padres are another team that are maybe a 500 team and may sneak in as the last wild card and are under 500 currently and they were barely 500 last year and lost a lot of good pieces and didnt replace that talent.
the division against teams mentioned
Dodgers the division has lost 3 out of 5
Orioles the division lost all games against them (one game)
Phillies the division has lost 1 out of the 3 games
Padres the division has lost 1 out of the 3 games
so for the teams mentioned they lost 6 out of 12
you also conveniently left out the rangers
Rangers the division has lost 2 out of 3
so if you include good teams the division has lost 8 out of 15 so are not even 500 against them.
WTF are you babbling on about?
that a 2 year old knows more about baseball than you do
blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-power-rankings-march…
Three top ten teams plus 13 & 22. Best division in baseball so far in 2024.
In what universe is this ‘horrible’?
so your proving my point more? …. in the rankings:
” The playoff odds listed in the tables below are our standard Depth Charts odds, not the COIN FLIP odds that are used in the ranking formula.”
If you notice only one team in the horrible division would make the playoffs according to this article which there must be a division winner in the playoffs. So yes they are a horrible division that only looked good playing bad teams. If my quick eyeballing is correct every other division has atleast 2 teams making the playoffs except NL Central.
Delude yourself with cherry picked stats all you want. The NL Central has the best record in baseball in 2024…. fact.
It’s not a ‘horrible’ division – that is my one and only point in this argument.
How am i cherry picking a stat that YOU brought into the conversation and says what to do right above the rankings YOU reference. So you are using the coin flip rankings that they are saying not to use. I even quoted it for you from your source. .
Thats like saying use a map but it doesnt matter which direction its facing the compass has no relevancy.
Lets put the Pirates to play nothing but single A teams and declare them the best team in baseball history ever … just forget that they played nothing but horrible teams to get there.
I used the raw ELO rating in the table that uses wins plus coin flip correction factor and highlighted the success of the NL Central so far in 2024.
YOU then chose to point out a different column highlighting playoff odds that are influenced by FG’s old ranking system using depth chart projections then quoted the disclaimer warning the user explicitly against doing this!
I made no mention of the playoff odds part of the table because it has no relevancy to pure ELO rankings.
I’m using already compiled wins and you’re determined to force projections into the discussion with silly strawman arguments.
blogs.fangraphs.com/fangraphs-power-rankings-april…
From Fangraphs: It’s still very early, but the most hotly contested division in baseball is the National League Central. The preseason projections didn’t have the Centrals’ five teams separated by all that much, and their respective ceilings weren’t thought to be all that high either. Well, after a few weeks of play, the Brewers hold the best record in the NL, the Pirates are hot on their heels, and the Cubs and Reds have looked solid as well. All four have won at least 60% of their games and boast a positive run differential — the NL Central is the only division with four teams that can claim both of those marks. Surprisingly, the Brewers are winning not by preventing runs, as has been their modus operandi in the recent past, but by leading the league in runs scored per game.
are you still on this good god
fine … so you are saying that they beat bad teams by a lot look at my shocked face. Look at yesterday is a perfect example of what i said previously 500 teams or better beat the nl central and the below 500 teams lost to the nl central. As they start playing better teams that record is going down further and further which includes the brewers and pirates. You probably thought Sean Manea would have been cy young as well before his last start he only gave up one run in 11 innings in two starts then got shelled.
you keep ignoring the fact that they will play actual good teams in the future which projections account for which i am using your chart and the way the person that wrote the article said to use but cherry pick it however you want. Let me guess you are going to go start a car by trying to rotate the starter by hand instead of listening to the instructions turning the car key.
Run differential is your argument now huh? Perfect example is the mets not even a week ago they were negative 15 i believe this week they are positive 4 … a 20ish run difference in less than a week. Maybe they are better than i thought but they are not built to win and will probably end the season maybe 500 but probably just under as i put them around 80 wins. and look at the fillies they are 9-8 with a -12 run differential which means they are winning close games which matter more imo.
Word salad.
Simplified outline …..
Terrier : Best division (throws out cherry picked stats)
Roll : They havent played anyone decent provides him the stats
Terrier : Doesnt matter best division ever see random article
Roll: Reads article and shows Terrier how the stats should be read per authors own notes and how it disagrees with everything terrier cherry picked.
Terrier: Stamps feet no throws out gibberish and cherry picked stats again that have no merit
Roll: shows why cherry picked stats are wrong
Division plays decent teams and lose all those series and swept in many and all Terrier’s cherry picked stats fall off cliff and follows exactly what roll said
Terrier disappears then comes back after they win a game or two against bad teams again and just throws out insult
have fun
I can’t stress enough that I only said the NL Central wasn’t ‘horrible’.
AT NO POINT DID I SAY IT WAS THE BEST DIVISION OR EVEN VERY GOOD.
FFS… this is like talking to a child.
What are the divisional records after one month?
Don’t forget that to be ‘horrible’ the NLC has to be the worst MLB division by a decent amount.
Looking forward to actual facts rather than your silly blurb nonsense.
Revised simplified outline:
Terrier1980 in replay to ‘horrible’ division comment – NLC has best record so far.
Roll struggles with reading comprehension.
That’s great news, Hotdog. I was just hoping they won it by a tiebreaker or by one. Now I don’t have to pay too much attention until October. Greatly appreciate the foresight.
Has anyone ever actually had Carl’s Jr?
You need to move to the western part of America or at least travel out of your region
I live on the West Coast, and we do not have Carls Jr’s around here. think it’s like, a California thing or something
Carl’s Jr. in the west is Hardees in the east.
Edward’s returning with his tail between his legs
Very talented crossover athlete who is probably a better driver than pitcher yet it’s still a cool feat.
Cubs already have enough middling relievers they don’t need another one. I suppose a fresh arm is needed so that’s what Hoyer is thinking. But Edwards certainly isn’t a long-term answer.
What was the logic behind Sanchez opting out of his contract with the Bucs just to sign a minor league contract with the Cubs?
The Bucs gave him a major league contract
He must’ve been annoyed at hardly being used in ST and the Bucs signing of Grandal.
IIRC, it wasn’t a major league contract, but rather a split deal.
McCutchen was only given 13 plate appearances during ST which could explain why he still seems rusty, but with Sanchez and the Bucs, he probably would have been promoted had he stayed, after Delay went on the IL
Like a bad penny