This week's mailbag gets into offseason possibilities for the Cubs and Mets and also includes questions on the Angels, Guardians, and A's.
Walter asks:
With the Cubs probably not getting serious on Tucker, how much money will the Cubs have to spend and what are the likely targets to hopefully build a champion next year? Starting pitching? Bullpen?
Colin asks:
How should the Cubs replace Kyle Tucker? It feels like keeping it internal with a combo of Seiya and Caissie and Alcantara in RF and the first two and Ballesteros at DH won't make up for Tucker's production. Curious if there are any good targets out there for them to pursue.
Kelly asks:
The Cubs have several players going into next season in their final year. What do you predict will happen with Boyd, Suzuki, Happ and Hoerner? I know some of it is predicated on Tucker, but which are the priorities in your opinion to extend or trade this off-season? Where do Ballesteros, Amaya, Cassie and Long factor into their decision?
Nick asks:
Tucker leaves, Caissie in right, and sign Bregman. Can the Cubs package Happ and Shaw together for a controllable starter? Anybody come to mind?
It seems odd to get into the Cubs' offseason as they host the Padres in the Wild Card Series, but I received many of these questions and I aim to please with this mailbag.
The Cubs will easily come in below the $241MM competitive balance tax this year, after going a little bit over in 2024. They were also under the CBT from 2021-23.
Regular season attendance was up 3.7% this year, plus at least a few playoff games are taking place at Wrigley Field. In theory, the Cubs could get into the range of the $244MM threshold, if president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer sees reasonable ways to spend that money. So what do the 2026 commitments look like?
- Dansby Swanson - $25.3MM
- Ian Happ - $20.3MM
- Seiya Suzuki - $17MM
- Jameson Taillon - $17MM
- Matthew Boyd - $14.5MM
- Nico Hoerner - $11.7MM
- Carson Kelly - $5.75MM
I'll also make a few option assumptions:
- Cubs will pick up Andrew Kittredge's $9MM club option
- Cubs will pick up Colin Rea's $6MM club option
- Cubs will pick up Shota Imanaga's three-year, $57MM club option. I'm not entirely sure on the CBT hit in this case, but $19MM should be close enough for our purposes.
There is a case to be made for declining Imanaga's three-year option, but we can get into that another time.
I dared to enter Matt Swartz's top-secret arbitration lab, in the basement of the MLB Trade Rumors building, to beg for some early numbers. But the Cubs' class is only Justin Steele, Javier Assad, Reese McGuire, and Eli Morgan. We can just worry about Steele and Assad, who have respective projections of $6.55MM and $1.9MM.
These 12 players, plus other stuff such as player benefits, brings the team's estimated CBT payroll to $176MM. If these estimates are generally correct, the Cubs will enter the 2026-27 offseason about $68MM shy of the $244MM CBT threshold. There's space to spend some serious money this winter!
Assessing potential Cubs targets will require a team breakdown!
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My early hunch is that the Cubs will win 83 games in 2026.
“Okamoto, a right-handed hitter, played 52 games at third base and 28 at third this year.”
Huh? Is there a copy editor in the house?
Well you can’t play 52 games at third unless you’ve played 28 there first.
Fixed, thanks.
There are only so many rotation spots. Mets are not going to use Manaea and his 25 million unless he forces their hand early. Getting a rotation spot. Should trade both Holmes and Peterson. Save $20 million and attain prospects/players…maybe an upgrade in center. Sign an ace caliber pitcher.
Ace
McLean
Senga
Sproat
Manaea
Tong (Minor)
P.S.
Hoping injury, after Alonso’s errant throw, affected Senga. Offseason healing and conditioning might help
When you see these mailbags, you get the impression that Tim misses writing.
It’s no knock on any of his site’s excellent writers, to say that I always anticipate and enjoy Tim’s own writing/POV the most.
None of what was written about the Mets was even close to being true, or correct. Almost like it was written by a Braves, Yankee, or Philly fan. Let one of the best closers in the game walk? Let the best 1B on the market walk?
Putting the ball in play means fewer pitches thrown, which mean more innings from your starters, which means less stress on your bullpen. Which, BTW, was the Mets biggest pitching problem all season. They got no length from their starters, and it very negatively affected the bullpen, as one would expect.
Christian Scott, and Brandon Sproat trade bait? Have you listened to a single word David Stearns has said?
As far as spending on relief pitching, You don’t let Diaz walk. And this finding the diamond in the rough approach worked real well this season, with the 45+ pitchers that the Mets trotted out there. Your argument here holds no water because it didn’t work here. It may have had better results if we did pitch more to contact from our starters, and kept them in the games longer.
Senga’s control problems stem from the injury. There is no comparison between Senga at his best, and Manaea at his best. Senga wins that battle every time. Senga was as reliable as reliable gets before the injury. And he stated that he just couldn’t feel the power through his legs because of it.
Carson Benge, and Jett Williams will get invites to spring training. CF, and 2B will be taken care of thee, more than likely. I don’t see them trying to go after Bellinger at all. If they do, it’ll be to drive up the price for the Yankees. I don’t think he’s going to go the Soto route. And I don’t think the Mets would want to replace Alonso with Bellinger. If memory serves, Bellinger likes playing the outfield more, and they would create another log jam, like the one we have at 3B, in the outfield. If they’re going to sign an over 30 player to a long term deal, it’ll be Alonso.
“Let one of the best closers in the game walk? Let the best 1B on the market walk?”
Do you trust Diaz/Alonso on longer deals? You being a Mets fan, I assume you’ve watched them both a good deal.
I tend to agree with the author that it would be short term thinking, and feel the deals they sign will look quite bad in a couple of years
Do I trust them? Yes. They have performed in THE toughest baseball market in the world. Will the back end of their contracts look good? Probably not. But where are the Mets gonna go in the short term? There is nobody at those positions of the same caliber as Diaz and Alonso that are available. Even Bellinger has different tools, and can play a good 1B would be a step down from Alonso at the plate. And let’s face it, the 1B position isn’t the most physically demanding. And I’m not sure what they think about Ryan Clifford yet. He hits for power in AAA, but he’s not ready yet. If you let Alonso go, you lose big offense in the lineup. If you lose Diaz, you lose security at the end of the game. And Diaz doesn’t care what inning it is. He’s not a diva like that. You need him in the 7th-8th, he’ll come in and do his job. With all due respect to the author, I watched or listened to all 162. The Mets need Diaz, and Alonso more than they need to save money, and can worry about the back end of those contracts when the back end gets here.
Those were my ideas, so there’s not really a “true” or “correct.” I think you are just saying that you disagree, which is fine.
Re-signing Diaz is the easy thing to do, so sure, I can see it. I’ll be shocked if they sign Alonso long-term.
If you want a guy who goes deeper into games, sure, who wouldn’t want that? That’d be Framber Valdez or Ranger Suarez. They strike enough guys out. It’d be a first for Stearns to go long-term on SPs like this, but not unreasonable.
But if you feel the Mets should go even further away from strikeouts and go after the likes of Tomoyuki Sugano, Jose Quintana, Chris Paddack, and Zack Littell, I disagree.
I am talking about moving away from the truly subpar K% starters like Holmes and Peterson.
“Reliable” is not a word I’d use to describe Kodai Senga.
“Your argument here holds no water because it didn’t work here. ”
Great bullpens are typically not built through free agency. The biggest names last winter were Tanner Scott, Jeff Hoffman, Blake Treinen, and A.J. Minter.
The argument to re-sign Alonso is obvious, where are you going to replace his offensive production? Where are you going to replace his ability to save your other infielders throwing errors? I can see them going 5-6 years for Alonso just because there is no one out there on the market who can play 1B and provide that kind of offensive production.
Resigning Diaz isn’t just easy. It would be stupid not to.
How do you not want your starters going deeper into games? The Mets couldn’t get 5 innings out of their starters for a long stretch this season. 5 innings is what it takes to qualify for a win. That’s the minimum. And they went over a month without a starter, except Peterson, going 5 innings. You can’t just try to strike everyone out, and expect to last deep into the game. I don’t care about how they get outs, only that they get outs before their opponent scores runs.
“Reliable” was used referring to the beginning of this season. Context is everything.
Again, I don’t care how they build a bullpen, only that it is effective. If there were only one way to do things in this sport, It’d be pretty boring.
You can say that there is no “true” or “correct” in your ideas, but I respectfully disagree. I found your opinions lacking because I watched or listened to this team all season. I barely missed a game, and I saw different things to base my opinion on. I’ve been watching this sport for over 50 years, and I’ve seen a lot of things, and a lot of changes, both good, and bad. This is a great sport, and can be analyzed from different perspectives, and with data. But one of the great things about it is that there is no one winning formula. I do not, in any way, mean to be disrespectful. Everything I’ve written in response has been meant to discuss. If I came across as disrespectful in any of my posts to you, I apologize. Thank you for responding.
It is hilarious that some Cubs fans, and national reporters, are fretting about how will the Cubs make up for the loss of Tucker’s “impact” bat. With the exception of 3 or 4 games, Tucker had no impact. For much of the season–injuries might have played a role, but so what–he was a drag on the lineup. They will be better without him.
Are u kidding? Cubs under hoyer and rickets will continue to be run like a small market team and the fans will continue to pour into the ballpark as the ticket prices continue to go up and up!