Héctor Neris’s numbers weren’t that bad. Even FIP, which does a better job than ERA of accounting for how far a pitcher can bend before they eventually break, has Neris as a 4.09 guy. Would you want to be paying him nine million dollars this year? No. But whoever signs him won’t pay that, and provided they debut him late enough and use him judiciously, they’ll avoid triggering his vesting option for next year, an option which comes at that same nine-million-dollar price. In the end, this was best for the Cubs in that they’ll avoid triggering that option. It was best for Neris in that he’s probably about to join a contender and have a fun two months, most likely back in his more suitable setup role.
Neris wasn’t terrible, but he had his worst season in nine years, and he had it at a bad price. He was signed to anchor the Cubs’ bullpen. It didn’t happen. For every 2022 David Robertson pickup, there’s a 2024 Héctor Neris. Such is life with the fickle arms of relievers.
Where are the Cubs now, after a treading–water series win over Toronto?
Well, the division door is almost certainly closed. The Brewers took that possibility away. Milwaukee skidded and slumped and then turned and reeled off five straight wins against two teams at the top of the MLB-wide standings. Now, they’re the most overwhelming division favorite in baseball. What a season from Pat Murphy’s team, and yes, I think some of this should be attributed to the manager.
The Wild Card door is open, but the Cubs are deep in line. No matter how many pets’ heads fall off in Arizona and Atlanta, the Cubs still have to jump four teams and hold off the Reds to get into the playoff field.
On Friday, we ran some numbers on what the Cubs might need to do over these 18 games against sub-.500 teams to get back in the playoff picture. It looked like a 13–5 record would get them to a believable playoff chance. After opening 2–1, that would imply they’d need an 11–4 performance from here. Unfortunately, other teams winning has made the situation worse. If the Cubs go 11–4 over these next two and a half weeks, that might not be enough.
Chicago enters tonight, per FanGraphs, with a 3.4% playoff chance. The chance they win 11 or more of these next 15 is 8.1%. Finding conditional win probabilities from those two numbers isn’t as simple as dividing one by the other, but we can do some guessing. Atlanta’s likeliest record over this upcoming stretch is 9–7. That would leave the Braves ten games over .500. If the Cubs go 11–4, they’d be only four games over .500, leaving them three games back. The Giants are 3.5 games back right now with more season left to play, and they’ve got a 9.5% playoff chance. The Cubs would probably be in a similar range in this hypothetical.
That is a lot of numbers, but to distill this for us all: If everyone else plays about as we’d expect, the Cubs probably need to go 12–3 or better over these next 15 to come out of here with a realistic playoff shot. More likely than not, that means sweeping the Tigers this week. Three of the next four series are on the road, and the Cubs are currently in line to face Paul Skenes twice.
News/moves/injuries/speculation:
- Jack Neely, whom the Cubs acquired in the Mark Leiter Jr. trade, is up to take Héctor Neris’s roster spot. Over a total of 37 minor league appearances this year across Double and Triple-A, the man has a 2.24 FIP and is striking out more than 1.5 batters per inning. That’s all good enough to get him in the top-20 range of Cubs prospect lists. It’s rare for relievers to receive much mention as prospects, so while it’s likelier than not that Neely is just another reliever, the fact he’s even called a prospect makes him something of a big deal.
- Javy Báez returns to Wrigley Field tonight, which will be fun and sentimental and probably a little sad. I don’t think either party thought things would look like this when we parted ways.
Games:
- Tuesday, 7:05 PM CDT: Cubs vs. Detroit (Marquee)
- Wednesday, 7:05 PM CDT: Cubs vs. Detroit (Marquee)
- Thursday, 1:20 PM CDT: Cubs vs. Detroit (Marquee)
In order for the Cubs, it’s Javier Assad, Jameson Taillon, and Justin Steele. It gets better as it goes along. For the Tigers, Alex Faedo is the opener tonight and then I don’t think anyone else has been reported. It will most likely be three openers in a row, with Bryan Sammons, Kenta Maeda, and Brant Hurter the bulk relievers. Hurter is the best of those three, followed by Sammons. The Tigers’ shred of playoff hope is a third that of the Cubs, but they do have the same record.
Soldier Field and Caleb Williams
The most bullish indicator from Caleb Williams on Saturday came after the game, when he attributed his lone sack to holding the ball too long. When a quarterback prospect has spent his whole life hearing, You’re the best! Nobody’s better than you!, you start to fear they can’t recognize their vulnerabilities.
The most bearish indicator from Caleb Williams was the partially re-sodded turf at Soldier Field following Metallica concerts last week.
It’s messed up to put this out into the universe, but when you’re building a franchise around one man who relies heavily on his agility, you want to be really, really confident in your turf. It stopped being a story once the game started, but it was a good reminder of how rough that situation has sometimes been. Soldier Field’s condition does not get better as the year goes on.
News/moves/injuries/speculation:
- Kiran Amegadjie’s been activated off the NFI list, which deepens the offensive line at least a little bit. Ryan Bates is still sidelined, but unless I’ve missed something, it doesn’t sound yet like he’ll be out for long.
- On the defensive side, Albert Breer reported that the Bears have been keeping in touch with Yannick Ngakoue, as many expected. Maybe they wouldn’t have signed Matthew Judon to an extension if they’d landed him, but I do think a one-year Ngakoue situation would be better for the Bears than a long-term Judon situation. Especially since with Ngakoue, they wouldn’t have to give up a third-round pick.
Game:
- Thursday, 7:20 PM CDT: Bears at Kansas City (NFL Network)
The Bears look to finish the preseason undefeated. I’m sure that would be received reasonably by the ecosystem.
What If Garrett Crochet Doesn’t Get Hurt?
Garrett Crochet and his agents handled the trade deadline poorly. We’ve discussed this at length and don’t need to revisit it too much. At this point, it’s time to move on. So: What might a Garrett Crochet extension look like?
Spencer Strider was coming off a better season than Crochet’s when he signed his six or seven-year, $12.5M/season deal. Strider also, though, had only used a year of service time. Hunter Greene? A similar story. Only one year of service time under his belt (and while Greene’s expectations were higher than Crochet’s, he hadn’t been as good as Crochet’s been this season). By the end of this year, Crochet will have used up four years. He already hit arbitration last offseason.
If we cut off the first three years of the Strider and Greene deals, eliminating those three comparable seasons of club control, we’re left with Strider on a two-year, $22M/year extension and Greene on a two-year, $15.7M/year extension, each with roughly a $21.5M team option for an extra season. Each is only signed through the end of what would have been their period of team control. In exchange for guaranteeing their pay that long at roughly expected arbitration rates, their teams got the club option in return.
If the White Sox go this route with Crochet, the value might feel underwhelming. They’re eating the risk of him getting hurt next year, and all they’re getting in return is a team option?
This isn’t entirely wrong. If the White Sox sign Crochet to two more years at something like $20M/year (his injury history and his agency’s very public injury concerns should hold him back at least somewhat), that becomes $40M in risk. The thing is…that’s not very much money? In free agency markets, that would only buy you about five wins. If Crochet performs as he’s performed this year, he should be worth roughly eight wins over those two seasons, and that’s if he only throws 125 innings per year. The downside isn’t that big, especially if the White Sox keep the term short (which Crochet might also want, given it would allow him to hit the free agent market while still in his prime). The upside is enormous, especially when considering the option.
Crochet comes with a lot of red flags. But if the White Sox can get a price in that $20M range, they should go for it. With the six-team playoff, accidental contention is possible.
News/moves/injuries/speculation:
- The Sox grabbed Enyel De Los Santos off of waivers from the Yankees, moving Steven Wilson to the 15-Day IL and Mike Clevinger to the 60-Day IL in corresponding moves. I don’t think they activated De Los Santos until yesterday, which allowed them to bring up Gus Varland for the weekend. With De Los Santos now active, Matt Foster is back in Triple-A.
Games:
- Monday: San Francisco 5, White Sox 3
- Tuesday, 8:45 PM CDT: White Sox at San Francisco (NBC Sports Chicago/MLB Network)
- Wednesday, 2:45 PM CDT: White Sox at San Francisco (NBC Sports Chicago)
Jonathan Cannon had a good thing going last night, but the Giants eventually strung together too many hits. Davis Martin looks to take down Robbie Ray tonight (very possible—Ray’s been struggling and Martin’s been solid) before Crochet squares off with Logan Webb tomorrow. Crochet has faced 16 or 18 batters now for five straight starts, a stretch which began coming out of the All-Star Break. Expect him to go two times through the order again tomorrow, although there’s a funny incentive now for the White Sox to not pitch him at all in order to keep his value down should they indeed want that offseason extension.
Angel Reese Set Another Record
The Sky split their two games over the weekend, winning in Los Angeles before losing in Phoenix. Notching 20 rebounds and 19 points in the loss to Phoenix, Angel Reese became the fastest WNBA player to reach 20 double-doubles. Of course Caitlin Clark had to go break the rookie assist record the same season. I can’t wait for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s great-great-great-great-grandson to write a musical about these two.
No games until Friday, but Atlanta does host Phoenix tomorrow night, and Atlanta’s cut the gap to 1.5 games for the final playoff spot.
**
On the United Center front, the only big news is that Taylor Hall should be good to go for the preseason. More on the Bulls and Blackhawks soon. We continue to lose our battle with time.
