Since the beginning of 2023, when Isaac Paredes became a full-time starter, here are the current Cubs with at least seven wins of fWAR:
- Isaac Paredes (7.3)
- Justin Steele (7.0)
It’s an exciting trade for the Cubs. It’s a big trade for the Cubs. Paredes is a third baseman with experience at first, second, and even a little shortstop, one with a reliable glove and a solid bat. (His 121 career wRC+ would rank third among this year’s Cubs regulars, and his 2024 wRC+ and his projected wRC+ by ZiPS and Steamer is slightly better.) Paredes is 25 years old, not eligible for free agency until November 2027, and became available mostly because he was blocking Junior Caminero’s impending debut in Tampa Bay. This afternoon, Paredes is arguably the best player on the 2024 Cubs, and given his age, he is also the best player currently rostered on the 2025, 2026, or 2027 Cubs. Will he be the best player on those teams? Hopefully not. Hopefully the Cubs will develop or sign multiple players better than he. But that’s the quality of baseball player the Cubs acquired.
The biggest criticism of the trade seems to be that Paredes hits a lot of home runs down the left field line. This sounds like an absurd piece of nitpicking, but given Wrigley Field’s wells, it’s legitimately significant. Statcast says Paredes would have missed out on 13 of his 67 home runs the last three years hitting at Wrigley. That’s a lot, and even if half of those are still long balls because half of Paredes’s games will be played on the road, it’s a 10% drop in long balls (I believe this is how that estimator works, but my apologies if I’m leading us all astray). To be fair, that should come with an increase in doubles, but yes, Paredes might fly out more often on the Cubs than he did as a Ray.
The second-biggest criticism of the trade seems to be that Paredes doesn’t hit the ball very hard. The evidence is real: Paredes’s xwOBA has been dramatically worse than his wOBA each of the last three seasons. Where this gets confusing is that generally, players whose wOBA outperforms their xwOBA enjoy a great BABIP. These types of players are hitting the ball weakly and getting away with it. Paredes, though, has a bad BABIP. His BABIP is worse than those of 86% of qualified hitters.
What does this mean? It’s possible Paredes is an outlier, and that xwOBA is struggling to accurately measure his performance. It’s possible his bad BABIP is authentic and will be persistent, but that he’ll continue to achieve great results in spite of it. Looking at Paredes’s Statcast profile, we do see Paredes near the bottom of baseball in average exit velocity. The man is getting on base via a lot of soft contact. So far, it’s been sustainable, but it’s a legitimate red flag. It’s more uncertain but also more consequential than the Wrigley Field home run thing, and whenever you’re trading with the Rays, you have reason to be nervous. The Rays have a strong track record of successfully unloading unproductive assets. It’s not a perfect track record—Willy Adames has thrived in Milwaukee after being unloaded in another position-clearing trade—but it’s scary.
Paredes does draw a lot of walks. He’s generally around the top ten percent of baseball at this, and that’s escaping notice in a lot of these blogosphere debates. To put a bow on Paredes, the player: Expectations should be high, but he’s an unusual hitter, and unusual hitters come with more uncertainty.
The third-biggest criticism of the trade seems to be that Jed Hoyer was involved. When Jed Hoyer is involved with a personnel move, a certain subset of Cubs talkers are loudly unhappy with it. Whether it’s signing Dansby Swanson instead of committing four years to the oldest version of Xander Bogaerts, signing Shōta Imanaga instead of working with Scott Boras to land Blake Snell, or putting Christopher Morel at third base after manufacturing a positional crunch, people get angry at Jed Hoyer. This is natural when a wealthy team hasn’t made the Division Series in seven years. Coupled with confusion about the Cubs’ deadline approach, there were a number of soiled internet diapers yesterday afternoon.
The confusion was reasonable. Hoyer’s quote last week was, “I would have to say that…we probably won’t do a lot of moves that only help us for this year. If moves help us for 2025 and beyond, I think we’re exceptionally well positioned.” This came across as code for, We’re selling. Often, front office executives do dress up the selling decision in terms like these. Which makes it funny now to realize that Jed Hoyer actually meant it. A lot of people took Hoyer’s official statement yesterday as a bizarre shot at Morel, but I don’t think that’s what it was. I think the Cubs saw the reaction, and Hoyer said, For fuck’s sake, I’m doing what I said I was going to do. Notably, insider Jeff Passan also felt it necessary or prudent to explain to fans what the Cubs were doing. (Note to future selves: Passan is friendly to the Cubs. Every insider has their sources.)
Morel.
A lot of us will really miss Christopher Morel.
Christopher Morel was a ball of joy in Chicago. From the first-inning greetings to the umpire and opposing catcher to that legendary moment against the White Sox, Christopher Morel was a delight to have around. It is very sad to lose Christopher Morel, the person. It’s surprising, too. With his defense abysmal and his results poor this year at the plate, Morel seemed like such a depreciated asset that we didn’t even think him worth mentioning in Friday’s post. Morel’s departure is even more surprising than Paredes’s arrival.
Hopefully, Morel thrives in Tampa Bay. Bearing no ill will towards the Rays and only good will towards Morel, I’m not sure how anyone could want anything but success for that man. It’s likely he’ll succeed in that organization, and it does make the trade scary. Morel’s own xwOBA is just as good as it was last year. He’s a prime candidate for a bounceback these next two months. He’s under club control for one more year than Paredes, and the Rays have a better recent track record of MLB-level development than the Cubs do. I will offer one note of caution: The Rays are very good at utilizing complicated platoons. Morel’s rate stats (batting average, on-base percentage, wRC+, etc.) should benefit from this. If that happens, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s producing more than he would have with the Cubs. The Rays might simply be taking him out of positions in which he’s likelier to be unsuccessful. (Whether the Cubs should be doing this aggressive platooning is a debate for another time. I lean towards no, but am heavily biased towards enjoying watching baseball.)
Ultimately, the fairest criticism of Jed Hoyer’s roster construction has been that he operates as though the future is infinite. He maximizes value over the longest term. Unfortunately, we will all die one day, and sometimes it’s better to upgrade to Isaac Paredes at the cost of a little value in 2029. The best conceptualization of this trade is just that—it was an upgrade. Hoyer upgraded from Morel to Paredes at the expense of two pitching prospects.
One of those prospects, Hunter Bigge, is a reliever, which makes him naturally expendable. We’ve written for years on this site and others about how hard it is for good relievers to replicate strong performance, and how foolish it is to become attached to one specific reliever. Bullpens are best built in bulk. As with Morel, I have no doubt that the Rays will maximize Bigge’s potential, in terms of both ability and statistics. Even more than with Morel, though, this will not be some indication the Cubs “lost the trade.”
Ty Johnson, the other prospect in the deal, is a better prize than Bigge. He’s much younger, a more highly-rated prospect (at least on FanGraphs), and still being developed as a starter. Even he, though, is hardly in the top 20 of the Cubs’ farm system. He’s also unlikely to reach the majors in the next year and a half, again pointing to how much more valuable he is in an infinite future than a finite one. What will the Rays do with him? A stereotypical Rays path would involve developing him into a stud, getting one and a half good seasons out of him, and then sending him into a Tommy John doom loop. This is a stereotype—it’s dramatic and not the actual likeliest path—but there is some truth to the idea that the Rays get more out of all prospects than the Cubs do, and there might also be some truth to the idea that the Rays chew up pitchers’ ligaments.
In this “upgrade” framework, using FanGraphs’s Depth Charts projections and FanGraphs’s Farm System value rankings, the Cubs acquired 4.1 expected wins over the remainder of Morel’s period of club control (4.3 years) in exchange for $4M in prospect value. Maybe Paredes is a unicorn in a bad way. Maybe the fact he could be had this cheap reflects this. But on the surface, this is an absolute no-brainer of a deal to make. It isn’t a game-changer. The Cubs should only be maybe two wins better next year because of it. But it’s a great trade for the Cubs on paper, and the Caminero factor (that prospect we think helped make Paredes available) offers an angle where maybe the Rays weren’t low on Paredes as much as they were high on what they could do with Morel.
Other news/moves/injuries/speculation:
- By the sounds of it, the Cubs can trade Jameson Taillon if they want to. By the sounds of it, they can also move Nico Hoerner, probably for a huge haul. The Blake Snell rumor smells like smoke without a fire, and I do kind of have the perception that Jon Heyman (who reported it) can be a volume scorer in the scoops game. But, maybe Hoyer really is facing an ultimatum to make the playoffs or lose his job. If that’s the case, Snell would be the ultimate Hail Mary. (Also, this trade deadline would become hilarious in hindsight, as would the next two months of baseball.)
- With Hoerner, it should be noted that the Dodgers have so many pitchers on the IL fringe that they could afford to DFA James Paxton. I don’t think Dustin May or Tony Gonsolin (likely out for the year with a torn esophagus and Tommy John surgery, respectively) would fit with the Cubs’ preferred timeline. May is a free agent after next year. Gonsolin’s already 30 years old. I don’t think the Dodgers would part with River Ryan, but the angle’s worth consideration, because even the veiled threat of May–for–Hoerner could possibly drive up the price for another interested team, like the Yankees. (If I were the Cubs, I would want more than Dustin May for Nico Hoerner, but I’m resigned to potentially being the highest person in the world on Nico Hoerner right now.)
- In the other Cubs move so far, they traded two ranked but lowly-ranked prospects to Toronto for Nate Pearson. Pearson sports a 5.21 career ERA and a 5.11 career FIP, but the FIP’s been more respectable since returning to the majors in 2023 in a more relief-specific role. He expressed interest recently in a return to starting, so that’s still on the mind, but this is mostly a buy-low opportunity from the Cubs. It might end up biting back, but bullpens are a numbers game, and the Cubs might feel a need to clear some minor league roster space, given the farm system is also currently a numbers game.
- The Cubs designated Jesus Tinoco for assignment to make roster room for Pearson.
- In a funny twist to the Paredes deal, he and Jeimer Candelario were the prospects moved for Alex Avila and Justin Wilson back in 2017. Now, on back-to-back trade deadlines, the Cubs have gone and retrieved their guys. Torres–for–Hoerner??????????????????
Games:
- Monday, 6:10 PM CDT: Cubs at Cincinnati (Marquee)
- Tuesday, 6:10 PM CDT: Cubs at Cincinnati (Marquee)
- Wednesday, 6:10 PM CDT: Cubs at Cincinnati (Marquee/MLB Network)
If Patrick Wisdom moves at the deadline, how great for him to have that kind of sendoff. What an awesome series. He vindicated Craig Counsell a bit, too, after a lot of seemingly odd pinch-hit decisions throughout the year where OBP may have been more valuable than SLG.
‘Twas also great to see Javier Assad pitch well. That was his best single start by walks-per-inning since May 15th. Meanwhile, Dansby Swanson’s got a little six-game hitting streak going. A pretty positive weekend.
This week: Taillon is listed to pitch against Carson Spiers tonight, while Justin Steele gets Frankie Montas tomorrow and Kyle Hendricks draws Nick Lodolo on Wednesday. On paper, Wednesday’s is the toughest, but both Spiers and Montas have also shown positive flashes at times this year for the Reds. There are no obvious pushover games. There will be plenty of distraction on both sides, but someone will win the series, and whoever that is will be out of last place.
Garrett Crochet Watch Continues
One interesting nugget from Ken Rosenthal which is very relevant to our discussion on Friday: Garrett Crochet works with the same agency, CAA, who imposed Josh Hader’s usage restrictions on the Brewers. CAA received a lot of praise for that in the wake of Hader securing his five-year contract with the Astros. CAA will not receive a lot of praise for their Crochet stance if Crochet goes untraded or really doesn’t pitch in October.
If CAA and Crochet are bluffing, it’s a complicated bluff. If a team calls them on it and they back down, future CAA bluffs lose credibility. If a team calls them on it and they stick with it, Crochet gets the crap beaten out of him in the press,* and teams likely grow more tired of working with CAA clients, similarly to what we saw with Scott Boras’s bluffs failing this winter. We know Crochet is in a shitty place due to baseball’s CBA.** Is his agency further turning him into a pawn? Does he want this?
In the meantime, Crochet threw another short start yesterday, with either CAA, the White Sox, or both further deflating his trade value by signaling to the world, “THIS GUY MIGHT GET HURT.” He allowed five runs, three earned, in three innings of work. One day prior, Erick Fedde was pulled after throwing 79 pitches across four innings. He allowed three runs, all earned. Luis Robert Jr.? 0-for-11 on the weekend with ten strikeouts and one walk. The White Sox’ losing streak extended to 14, tying their season long. Robert’s trade value is likely unaffected, but goodness. What a weekend.
News/move/injuries/speculation:
- On Saturday, the Sox brought Davis Martin back up for the first time since he got hurt in 2022. Sammy Peralta went to Charlotte in return. I’d imagine Martin will be in the mix for post-deadline starts, provided the White Sox do successfully move Fedde and/or Crochet.
Games:
- Monday, 7:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Kansas City (NBC Sports Chicago)
- Tuesday, 7:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Kansas City (NBC Sports Chicago)
- Wednesday, 1:10 PM CDT: White Sox vs. Kansas City (NBC Sports Chicago)
The Sox don’t draw Cole Ragans or Seth Lugo in the series, but they also won’t start Fedde or Crochet. The deadline comes before Tuesday night’s game.
*There was a rumor when Crochet was in college that Tennessee was lying when they attributed some of his missed time to a mild injury. The rumor was that Crochet had gotten himself suspended and Tennessee didn’t want to admit that. Just a rumor! But that rumor went around front offices with enough vigor that it got published by a few respectable outlets. I would imagine someone at MLB Network would be more than happy to allude to it in a “Holy shit Garrett Crochet isn’t pitching in the playoffs” news cycle.
**As we like to point out, CBA issues don’t only come from owners. Veterans have incentives to decrease young players’ earning potential, and veterans hold the most power in the MLBPA.
The Problem With “On the Rise”
While we wait for Caleb Williams’s MVP trophies to arrive for stepping between Gerald Everett and DeMarcus Walker on Friday, let’s talk power rankings. The Bears have risen mightily through power rankings. I’m seeing them as high as 15th in some places, just one spot out of the playoffs. Quite a few power ranking headlines cite the Bears as a team “on the rise.” Overall, their average spot seems to be 17th or 18th in many analysts’ eyes.
Steps forward are good. They’re a good, necessary part of the process. Rising is better than falling. The first problem, though, is how easy it is to get carried away. 17th or 18th is sub-.500. Finishing the year 10–7 is a reasonable hope, but 6–11 is a reasonable fear, and a handful of plays could be the difference between those outcomes (meaning: a 6–11 Bears team might be just as good as one who could have gone 10–7 with a few breaks, and vice versa). The Bears might win some games they shouldn’t win, but they’re equally likely to lose games they shouldn’t lose, and this is a franchise that is very prone to melting down in the latter situation.
The second problem is how far even 10–7 is from Super Bowl contention. Rebuilds are their most fun at this point in the arc. The progress is happening, the plan is clear, and everything’s on track. As time moves, it gets a lot harder. The rebuild stops happening in a vacuum and starts colliding with other teams’ plans. If Caleb Williams becomes a top-ten quarterback in the NFL within the next four years, that will be a good result for the Bears. A reasonable fear is that if he isn’t top-six in two years, the Bears ecosystem won’t be able to handle it, Matt Eberflus will get fired, and the situation will be thrown into flux.
News/moves/injuries/speculation:
- Nate Davis went down on Saturday with what Matt Eberflus called a strain. Eberflus went on to indirectly criticize Davis’s offseason preparation. If the injury is lasting or recurs, the Bears do have cap space available, but they’re unlikely to be the only team with cap space to see an offensive lineman go down. In the meantime, Ryan Bates has shifted to right guard, pausing his center competition with Coleman Shelton.
- The Bears got an international player exemption approved for Tory Taylor, who is Australian. This opened up a spot to sign Demetric Felton, a running back who’s spent time with the Browns and on the Bengals’ practice squad.
Buzelis’s Turnovers
In the comedown from Summer League, Matas Buzelis’s turnover numbers have been in the crosshairs a little bit. He turned the ball over twelve times in five games, and he only recorded four assists despite taking the fourth-most shots of the tournament. The “1:3 assist/turnover ratio” knock is an easy line.
It was also only five games.
Should we be worried about…
- The turnovers? Maybe. He did average 2.1 per game in the G-League, which outpaced his usage if you compare his rankings in each category.
- The lack of assists? Probably. He averaged 1.9 per game in the G-League, which is a small number, and while he isn’t a point guard, he does get the “point forward” label at times. He’s not an effective distributor.
- The bucket-getting mentality? Yeah, this is the real potential issue. Buzelis played like he loved being the number one option in Summer League. As plenty have noticed, though, his shooting numbers are bad.
The best case with Buzelis is that his shooting accuracy develops (and his form does indicate this could be the case) and the bucket-getting mentality works out. The immediate hope would be that he restrains himself once he’s on a real NBA roster while keeping the intensity up on the defensive end, where his athleticism should shine. The bad case is that Buzelis loves the idea of getting buckets too much without improving at the practice of actually getting those buckets.
It’s Good to Play for the Blackhawks
The Athletic does an annual ranking of franchise success in the NHL’s salary cap era. It’s mathematic, with points awarded for playoff appearances, conference final appearances, conference championships, and Stanley Cups. In this year’s, the Blackhawks rank third.
First place on the list is the Penguins, which is fair. Three Stanley Cup titles ties for the most over the relevant time period, and making the playoffs 16 years in a row was impressive. In second place come the Lightning, and that’s where my eyebrows rose.
I’ve added and removed a category here, but this is the comparison. Which franchise would you rather be?
| Category | Team A | Team B |
| Stanley Cups | 3 | 2 |
| Conference Titles | 3 | 4 |
| Playoff Appearances | 10 | 13 |
| Biggest Icon | Patrick Kane | Steven Stamkos |
| Second-Biggest Icon | Jonathan Toews | Martin St. Louis |
I’d imagine most hockey fans would prefer to support Team A even before getting to Patrick Kane. In terms of objective success, sure, the Lightning have been better than the Blackhawks the last twenty years. The Blackhawks are probably a little lucky that they never lost the Stanley Cup Finals during this stretch. But it is not fun to lose in the Stanley Cup Finals. Anyway, once you get to Kane, it feels like game over…at least to me.
This is where the subjectivity kicks in. Kane is a bigger star than Stamkos, right? Or am I just someone who’s followed the Blackhawks more closely than I’ve followed the NHL the last twenty years?
Where I’m going with this is that I’m curious if my perception is accurate that Kane is more iconic than Stamkos in the sporting world, and if so, how much of that comes from having played in Chicago. This isn’t to rip on Tampa. Tampa and St. Petersburg are fine. Chicago is just such a city’s city that I think it makes the big moments bigger. It makes things matter more.
(Yes, some would probably put Nikita Kucherov in for St. Louis, or maybe Duncan Keith or Marian Hossa in for Toews. I do think Toews was the bigger Blackhawks icon than those two, though. It was Kane & Toews. It was always Kane & Toews.)
Moves:
- The Hawks re-signed restricted free agents Louis Crevier and Isaak Phillips. Each is on a two-way deal.
Will “Unrivaled” Work?
The WNBA is off so that its All-Star Game runner-up can play more easily in Paris. In the meantime…
What’s Unrivaled?
Last week, Unrivaled announced Angel Reese would join it for its inaugural season this winter. Unrivaled is a three-on-three women’s league co-founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier. It’s supposed to be a 10-week, six-team, 30-player league. Players already signed up include Reese, Stewart, Collier, Arike Ogunbowale, Jewell Lloyd, Kelsey Plum, and Chelsea Gray. The league has promised more announcements August 12th.
One of the key premises of Unrivaled is that it’ll pay its athletes well, something designed to keep WNBA players from feeling the need to play abroad in the offseason. Could the impact be bigger than that, though?
This is where it gets interesting. Investors include Alex Morgan, Megan Rapinoe, Steve Nash, Michelle Wie West, Carmelo Anthony, and Geno Auriemma. Are there bigger business interests behind the scenes? That’s a question that’s a little unclear right now. Gary Vaynerchuk, John Skipper, and David Levy (formerly of Turner Sports) are all rich white dudes, but I’ve yet to see other names listed. There’s nothing wrong with rich white dudes, but if these are the only three who come from backgrounds other than competing in sports, the league really does have a “by athletes, for athletes” identity.
Regardless of your opinions on salary caps, drafts, and revenue sharing, I’d hope we could all agree that at least Jerry Reinsdorf and the McCaskeys are not good for sports. As we continue to move into these generations where athletes are competent businesspeople, then, I’m curious if “by athletes, for athletes” can work. It’s hard to believe something of this nature could succeed against the NFL, NBA, MLB, or NHL. The tradition of those leagues is too valuable. In soccer and in women’s sports, though, there’s only meager institutional value, if any. Something to track. For soccer in particular, this could be a solution to the United States’ MLS problem.
