MLB Mailbag: Cubs, Tatis, Brewers, Yankees
This week's mailbag gets into how the Cubs' recent big contracts will age, Fernando Tatis Jr.'s future at second base, the left side of the Brewers' infield, the Yankees' bullpen, and more.
Alex asks:
How overdramatic of a take is this? Within 2 years, all three of Alex Bregman, Nico Hoerner, and Pete Crow-Armstrong will be upside down on the value of their deals. I've thought the Bregman deal would age like milk from the jump. Hoerner is solid but it's a lot of money to pay a Luis Arraez that can play a good 2b. And PCA's bat has always been suspect. There will a lot of good defense and PCA will steal some bases, but not a ton else.
I agree with your broader point: the Cubs recently committed to a $431MM to a fairly risky trio.
Back in January, I felt Davy Andrews of FanGraphs did a nice job articulating the downside risk of signing Bregman through the age of 36. The key passage: "He’s not starting out with much margin for error, so things could get ugly when his bat speed or his contact skills start to go. And Bregman is already slow and a below-average baserunner. He already has a weak arm. When the first-step quickness goes, the defense could crater pretty quickly too."
Baseball player aging does not happen in a nice, linear, predictable fashion. At some point during this contract, Bregman is going to be pretty bad. The Cubs are betting it'll be the last year or two. It would not be crazy to bet major decline and/or increased missed time due to injury sets in earlier than that.
Bregman had 42.9 Baseball-Reference WAR through the age of 31. That ranks 17th in baseball history for those who played at least 90% of their games at third. Let's make a list of those near Bregman on that list, excluding Harlond Clift and Bill Bradley for playing too long ago. Here's their WAR from age 32-36:
- David Wright: 0.5 WAR age 32-36
- Sal Bando: 15.1 WAR
- Robin Ventura: 9.9 WAR
- Ken Boyer: 17.4 WAR
- Graig Nettles: 18.0 WAR
- Matt Williams: 8.8 WAR
- Troy Glaus: 0.0 WAR
Williams and Glaus were linked to PED use, so we might set them aside. If we do that and assume Bregman will not enter a Wright-level injury spiral, these comps suggests there's actually a decent chance Bregman puts together a 15-WAR Cubs career. That might put him in "Hall of Very Good" Evan Longoria territory. More germane to this question, the Cubs would feel they got their money's worth.
Longoria is actually another cautionary tale, as a third baseman who had a better career than Bregman by age 32 but managed only 6.8 WAR from 32-36. It's also worth considering that Bregman had a 125 wRC+ at age 31; Longo was a league average hitter by that point. It was his early Rays career that had Longoria on a Hall of Fame track through age 30.
If Bregman can manage something around 5.5 WAR for 2026-27, then I probably wouldn't call his contract upside-down at that point. You can read up on some good dollars-per-WAR stuff from Ben Clemens at FanGraphs here, but I'll ballpark the market at $12MM per WAR (per year) for a regular-caliber player based on that. And that's putting aside the insane amount of money big market teams occasionally pay per star player WAR, like the Dodgers with Kyle Tucker.
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The Giants’ Punchless Early-Season Offense
The Giants are among the three teams off to a 6-11 start, tying them with the rebuilding Rockies and White Sox for the worst record in MLB through three weeks. It's much too early to write them off, but it has unquestionably been a rough start. They're riding a three-game losing skid into tonight's game in Cincinnati and have been outscored by 22 runs. Only the White Sox and an injury-riddled Blue Jays team have a worse run differential.
San Francisco has been mostly healthy. Their only rotation injury was losing projected sixth starter Hayden Birdsong to elbow surgery late in camp. Their position players had been fully healthy until this afternoon's injured list placements for center fielder Harrison Bader and pinch-runner/fifth outfielder Jared Oliva.
They do have a number of injured relievers, though most of those were known coming into the season. Randy Rodríguez went down to Tommy John surgery last September. They signed Sam Hentges and Jason Foley knowing neither player would be ready for Opening Day. They've lost a couple middle relievers (Reiver Sanmartin, Joel Peguero and José Buttó) since Spring Training, but that's about it. Their early-season struggles have been much more attributable to underperformance than injury.
That's especially true since the bullpen hasn't been the biggest culprit to the slow start. It hasn't been good, but they're 18th in ERA (4.39) and have blown two leads on the season. The pitching in general has been average, about what one would expect given the personnel. The offense has been the much bigger disappointment.
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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Anthony Franco
- Good afternoon, hope all is well!
- Let's get another of these rolling
Jimmy Wynn
- What, if anything, can the Astros do pitching-wise to salvage their season?
The Biggest Loser
- Thank you for the chat. Early of course, but which losing streak concerns you the most? Yankees (5), Mets (5), Brewers (5) or Astros (7)
Anthony Franco
- Astros most alarming just because it's paired with the all the pitching injuries. Clearest on-paper fit for Giolito at this point
- It's tight with the CBT, which is the obvious hangup. But we've got them about $7M below the line right now and I have a tough time seeing him get that much at this point
- Limits their flexibility for deadline trades but that doesn't matter much if the pitching in April is so bad that it tanks their season anyway
Mason Miller trade
- The A’s trade of Mason Miller is not looking good. They thought they were going to be a few years away from Contending but here they are tied for 1st Place. Factor in Mason was making essentially Minimum Wage and I need to be walked back from the ledge ……
Anthony Franco
- Leo De Vries is one of the top 5-10 prospects in MLB
- Obviously the A's were aware that Miller's unbelievable. They wouldn't have done it if the Padres didn't offer them a potential franchise shortstop
Debuts
- Thoughts on White Sox promoting P Noah Schultz ... is this a one off , replacing Shane Smith's spot in the rotation? Since he isnt being promoted until after the 16th day of the season and that delays his service time by a year
Anthony Franco
- Don't see what the point would be in calling up your top pitching prospect, especially one who wasn't already on the 40-man, for a spot start
- Might need to option him midway through the season for workload management but he should get at least a few turns through the rotation. Jonathan Cannon
- Jonathan Cannon's not exactly an obstacle
Josh
- More likely: best record in AL at season’s end is 95 wins or less, or the Dodgers win 105+ games
Anthony Franco
- Hmm I'll say the AL one because the Dodgers tend to take their foot off the gas in the regular season to keep pitchers fresh for October
- 105 is plausible but I'd be closer to 100
The Doctor
- If Boston is in the playoff hunt at the deadline should they move Duran to address other needs?
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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Anthony Franco
- Good evening, hope you're all doing well!
- Looking forward to another of these, let's get it rolling
Guest
- Despite his low EVs and 1st percentile bat speed, Jacob Wilson's elite bat-to-ball skills helped him to compete for a batting title his rookie season. But so far in 2026 his hacktastic 'swing at everything' ways have gotten him a .196/.196/.255 slash line that has not been the result of bad luck. Given what he did in 2025 and what he is doing (in a 12 game sample) in 2026, what do you see for him as a hitter moving forward?
Anthony Franco
- Whiffs are up, relatively speaking, because he's really taking the 'swing at everything' approach to heart but it's a tiny sample and they're pressing up and down the lineup right now. Not worried about it and still think he's a true talent .300 hitter
- 13 homers again seems optimistic but 8-10 with 25 doubles is reasonable
Kevin Cash
- Is my job safe beyond 2026 if I can't right the ship for a 3rd straight year?
Anthony Franco
- They're the worst team in the AL East on paper and it's not like they've been disastrous over the past couple years. Unless new ownership just wants to shake things up, can't see why they wouldn't remain committed to Cash moving forward
Jordan
- I'm pleasantly surprised by the Braves start and if they're able to remain in the mix until the deadline who would be some realistic targets for them to go after that Profar money?
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MLB Mailbag: Jordan Walker, Cubs, Guardians, Tigers, Riley
This week's mailbag gets into Jordan Walker's hot start, the Cubs' approach to Cade Horton's season-ending injury, the future of the Guardians, and slow starts for the Tigers as well as Braves third baseman Austin Riley.
Sam asks:
I know it way too early to ask this question I cannot help it. Jordan Walker has a 183 wRC+ and is on pace for 39 HRs is he has 456 ABs (ZIPS AB projection). He will cool off a bit—at least. But say he has finally arrived (met his potential, however you want to call it) and settles into being a 130-135 wRC+ and 30-35 HR hitter, how do you think that impacts the Cardinals' short and long term outlook with their rebuild?
Walker, 24 in May, sits at a 181 wRC+ through 44 plate appearances after hitting a solo home run in five trips to the plate Tuesday at Nationals Park.
I pulled up the wRC+ leaderboard last year through April 6th, with a minimum of 40 plate appearances. Here's a list of the top 20, first showing their wRC+ through April 6th and then showing what it was for that player for the rest of the season.
- Aaron Judge - 246 / 202
- Kyle Tucker - 224 / 126
- Kristian Campbell - 207 / 63
- Tyler Soderstrom - 206 / 119
- Jackson Merrill - 201 / 108
- Spencer Torkelson - 193 / 112
- Anthony Volpe - 192 / 75
- Corbin Carroll - 181 / 136
- Nolan Arenado - 178 / 75
- Kyle Schwarber - 178 / 151
- Lars Nootbaar - 171 / 90
- Alex Bregman - 166 / 121
- Fernando Tatis Jr. - 164 / 129
- Sal Frelick - 162 / 110
- Heliot Ramos - 159 / 103
- Brendan Donovan - 157 / 115
- Jose Altuve - 155 / 111
- Teoscar Hernandez - 153 / 97
- Eugenio Suarez - 152 / 123
- Jazz Chisholm Jr. - 150 / 124
- Jordan Westburg - 149 / 110
- Shohei Ohtani - 148 / 174
- Andres Gimenez - 147 / 60
- Julio Rodriguez - 144 / 125
- Nico Hoerner - 138 / 108
- Jackson Chourio - 136 / 109
- Seiya Suzuki - 135 / 121
- Lawrence Butler - 134 / 93
- Rafael Devers - 134 / 135
- Brice Turang - 134 / 123
Walker came into the 2026 season with 1,039 Major League plate appearances and an 89 wRC+. Every player is different, but the best comp here might be Torkelson, even though the latter had a little more experience and success in his career to that point. But I'd say the range of rest-of-season outcomes on Walker remains very wide: this could be nothing, or a full breakout. Sorry, the truth is often boring.
I also think it's worth asking whether Walker has hit like this in the Majors before. For that, we use the Stathead Span Finder. I'm not a huge OPS guy, but that's probably the best "overall offense" stat in this tool. Walker's OPS is currently 1.014, spanning 11 games and 44 PA. He has had a couple of streaks at least this good, basically in June and August of his 2023 rookie season:
- 6-6-23 to 6-18-23: Walker hit .395/.477/.789 (1.267 OPS) with 4 HR in 44 PA
- 8-22-23 to 9-5-23: Walker hit .432/.488/.838 (1.326 OPS) in 4 HR in 43 PA
Even in his lousy 2025 season, Walker had a 43-PA July run where he hit .342/.419/.500 (.919 OPS) over 43 PA, though he did not homer during that streak.
What kind of evidence is on the breakout side of the ledger?
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Free Agent Power Rankings: Players #11-15
Last week, MLBTR took our first look at the top 10 players (based on predicted earning power) in the 2026-27 free agent class. There's always a lot of volatility this early in players' walk years. That's especially true of next year's group, which has a clear headliner in Tarik Skubal but is otherwise light in high-end talent.
MLBTR's free agent rankings are an attempt at consensus between Steve Adams, Darragh McDonald, Tim Dierkes and myself. There's usually overlap within the top handful of spots, but our individual lists typically start to differ within the back half of the top 10. The second and third tiers of free agents become more muddled and personal preferences come more into play. Skubal was a consensus pick at #1, and we each had Freddy Peralta and Bo Bichette in some order at #2 and #3. It diverged from there.
For example, Steve Adams had Trevor Rogers as his #4 free agent, while I had Rogers outside my personal top 10. (The Baltimore lefty ended up at #5 in the consensus ranking.) There's not much separation between players at the back of the top 10 and the best of the honorable mentions. With that in mind, let's take a look at five players who landed just outside the top 10. Most of these players had some support from at least one MLBTR writer for making the list, and any of them could plausibly jump into future iterations based on their performance over the next few months.
Kevin Gausman, SP, Blue Jays
If we were ranking players by the projected annual value of their next contract, Gausman would probably have landed in the top five. The two-time All-Star should do very well on a per year basis. It's nevertheless difficult to see him getting to a nine-figure deal when he'll turn 36 next January. There hasn't been a four-year deal for a 36-year-old free agent pitcher in almost 20 years.
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What’s Next For Sandy Alcantara?
For the past few years, the Marlins have been shopping pitching almost constantly, even guys with multiple years of club control. Despite persistent rumors, Sandy Alcantara has usually been off the table, for different reasons at different times. As time goes on and we move closer to the end of his contract, the Marlins will have to make a decision, with still several ways for the situation to play out.
The Marlins and Alcantara agreed to an extension in November of 2021, a five-year deal covering the 2022 through 2026 seasons. It guaranteed him $56MM and also came with a $21MM club option for 2027, with a $2MM buyout.
That deal was well-timed from the team perspective, as Alcantara went on to have the best season of his career in 2022. He logged 228 2/3 innings, allowing 2.28 earned runs per nine. He wasn't the most dominant pitcher in terms of strikeouts, but thanks to his strong ground ball rate, no one was more likely to just carve through a lineup for an entire contest. He tossed six complete games that year. From 2018 to the present, no other pitcher has tossed more than three complete games in a season. Alcantara was given the National League Cy Young award for that dominant campaign.
Despite Alcantara's efforts, the Fish were still rebuilding, as they went 69-93 that year. Going into 2023, they were willing to listen to trade offers regarding their pitchers, but Alcantara was reportedly not available. That made plenty of sense at the time. Though the club wasn't in great shape, Alcantara was still under club control for five more seasons and was just coming off that dominant showing.
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Read The Transcript Of Today’s Front Office Chat With Tim Dierkes
MLBTR owner Tim Dierkes held a live chat with Trade Rumors Front Office subscribers on Monday. Click the link below to read the transcript.
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Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript
Anthony Franco
- Good afternoon, hope you're all well!
- Looking forward to another of these, let's get it going
Brewer Fan
- Is it weird that the Brewers haven't actually announced the Pratt extension? And on that topic, if it does get done, it wouldn't rule out a Made or Pena extension right?
Anthony Franco
- It's a little atypical but I don't think any cause for concern. Adam McCalvy hypothesized yesterday that it's just a logistical holdup on completing the physical
- Which would make sense. He played for Nashville through March 29, the extension report came out on the 30th, and he hasn't played any of their past three games despite being on the active roster. Could just be a travel thing to get him to Milwaukee and get final sign-off on the medical
thebeatlesshow
- Anthony, Thanks again. Is the complete game no hitter on the way to being extinct (if it isn't already)?
Anthony Franco
- I don't think so. Less common, yes, largely because teams are more concerned about pitch counts and there's a decent chance you're running a pretty high number in a no-hitter because it's probably coming with some strikeouts
- But it's still a hell of an accomplishment for a pitcher and managers care about that
- Whoops, just realized I didn't answer the second part of that first Brewers question:
Don't see why Pratt would take a Made or Pena extension off the table, no
Cubbies
- What are the Cubs gonna do with their OF after this season? Happ and Seiya both FAs and Cassie was traded for Cabrera.
Anthony Franco
- QO to both, ideal if one of them accepts and takes that decision off the table. Feels like Happ is the likelier of the two to return if they're signing one to a three-year deal
- If they believe in Kevin Alcántara at all, have to give him a real opportunity next year. He'll be out of options and the strikeout questions aren't getting answered if he's only playing twice a week
Little Texas
- I’m my way to the Rangers home opener to see Gore pitch, Here’s to his CY Young season.
Anthony Franco
- Enjoy!
3D-space ABS
- Why would the Mariners forgo managing a signing like Emerson's so that PPI was still in play?
M
- now that he's signed an extension and thus no longer eligible for the PPI, how long before Emerson is up with the Ms?
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Will Any Pre-Arbitration Pitchers Sign Extensions?
From a transaction perspective, this time of the baseball calendar is defined by extensions. Within the past month, we've seen two impending free agents (Nico Hoerner and Jesús Luzardo) come off the board. The Cubs got a deal done with pre-arbitration center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong. Philadelphia extended Cristopher Sánchez even though he was already potentially signed through 2030.
The Orioles extended arbitration-eligible starter Shane Baz. The Mariners reached the largest pre-debut extension with shortstop prospect Colt Emerson. That's likely to be a brief record with the Pirates reportedly working on a deal with #1 overall prospect Konnor Griffin. Milwaukee infield prospect Cooper Pratt is nearing an eight-year contract of his own despite being a couple tiers below Griffin and Emerson according to scouts.
Despite all that activity, there's one demographic that has stayed out of the early-season extension run. There have not been any long-term deals for pre-arbitration pitchers this spring. Teams aren't quite as aggressive in extending pitchers early in their careers as they are with elite position player talents. There's more injury uncertainty with young arms.
However, there are generally a few extensions for pre-arbitration hurlers each season. Tanner Bibee, Brandon Pfaadt and Arizona closer Justin Martinez signed extensions last spring. Brayan Bello agreed to a six-year deal the year before that. Hunter Greene, Spencer Strider, Aaron Ashby, Garrett Whitlock and Emmanuel Clase were among those to sign between 2022-23.
Will any young pitchers sign extensions within the next few weeks? Let's run through a few speculative possibilities in each service class and the kind of money which those pitchers could command.
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