Building The Bullpen And Trading Smart - Let's Be Realistic

Hope is not a plan, and payroll isn’t a magic wand. We dig into a clear, realistic path for the Cubs to win the Central: stack a fearless bullpen, trade for a rotation stabilizer, and sharpen platoons that punish left-handed pitching. Instead of chasing tier-one free agents, we map out how to convert close games into wins and use our prospect capital where it matters most.

We start by unpacking the spending gap fans feel when comparing Chicago to the Braves and Blue Jays, and why public-company transparency makes those clubs look aggressive while the Cubs operate conservatively. That contrast sets the stakes for smarter roster building. From there, we focus on leverage—how two or three veteran relievers with command, chase, and playoff temperament can change the math of a 162-game season. Phil Maton signals a shift; adding two more proven arms could turn a soft spot into a signature strength.

Then we turn the wheel to starting pitching. Joe Ryan sits atop the trade board for makeup, stuff, and control, with alternatives like Pablo López and Sandy Alcantara offering different cost curves. We weigh prospect packages, define who’s truly untouchable, and explain why a trade can deliver more innings per dollar than free agency. On the position-player side, we outline a simple, high-impact adjustment: pair Michael Busch with a right-handed bat that crushes lefties, tighten run prevention behind Swanson and Hoerner, and let the bullpen protect narrow leads.

This is an offseason blueprint built for the team the Cubs are right now—cost-aware, prospect-rich, and closer to contention than the headlines suggest. If you’re ready to move beyond rumor-season daydreams and into the moves that actually swing standings, you’ll feel right at home here. Tap play, then tell us: would you spend on a closer, trade for a starter, or add a RH bat first? If you enjoy the show, hit follow, drop a five-star review, and share it with a fellow Cubs fan who’s ready for a smarter winter.

Thanks for tuning in!

- Carl & Mahoney

Chapters

• 0:00 Late Start And Broken Pipes
• 1:14 Sponsor Shoutouts And Setup
• 3:17 Roster Check-In And Cap Reality
• 7:30 Setting Realistic Free Agency Expectations
• 13:45 Bellinger, Schwarber, And Payroll Limits
• 21:10 Blue Jays And Braves Spending Comparison
• 27:40 Revenue, Concessions, And Cubs Philosophy
• 34:40 Where The Cubs Can Actually Improve
• 38:20 Bullpen Market And Targets
• 46:10 Reliever Contracts And Strategy
• 54:05 Trade Chips And Prospect Priorities
• 1:01:10 Starting Pitching Targets By Trade

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:05

And we are clear. Good morning, good afternoon, and evening, Chicago Cubs fans, and welcome back to the Monday Morning Cubs Show. Today is Monday, December 1st. It is Carl. This is a solo show. It's out much later than we anticipated today. Nobody cares, but I gotta say, a pipe broke in the middle of the night last night. So, and if you know me, you know we're on Wellseptic out here, kind of off the grid a little bit. A pipe breaks. This is a big deal. These are, I don't want to say 100-year-old pipes, and nobody really cares because the Chicago Cubs have to beat the Milwaukee Brewers next year and win a division championship. So obviously, long day here, stressful day. These projects aren't cheap. Nobody cares. There's your opening intro theme. We're all coming out of Thanksgiving. Hopefully, everybody had a great Thanksgiving with family, friends, those you hold close. Uh obviously, wonderful here. Wonderful here. And I wish everybody hopefully had a wonderful Thanksgiving and we'll have a great holiday season. Mine starts with broken pipes and a solo cub show. Off the top, got to say thank you very much to Thirsty Vaquero for sponsoring today's show. Thank you for being an all-bite, no rattle Mexican-style soda with the signature spicy finish that you guys can get on Amazon. Three bold flavors. Ship all over. If you don't believe me, just go to Amazon and order it. Thursday Vaquero, the official beverage sponsor of the Monday Morning Cub Show. And we have stuff to talk about today that Thirst of Caro has sponsored. We have some offseason primer stuff. I have some trade speculation. We're going to talk about the bullpen. We'll talk about relievers, some 40-man check-in thing with the five with the rule five draft. Maybe an opportunity to get educated. But none of this happens without Thirsticaro. I cannot thank him enough. And if you like the Monday morning cub show, if you're somebody who supports the fact that my pipe's broke in the middle of the night. This is the thing, homeownership, and we're we have to talk about the Cubs. We're going to talk about the bullpen, free agency, a lot of stuff going on in the market that helps us kind of understand where the Cubs are headed. But when you get up after a long holiday break, you're just thinking to yourself, we're going to put together a nice tight show. It's going to be out there for everybody. So yeah, there's a monkey on my back. Show doesn't go out till night. It's called the Monday Morning Cub Show. So we're just working through this. I'm just saying, I'm sorry it's taken this long. Some unforeseen stuff on my end. Fucking pipes. Galvanized? I don't know. Here's what I do know. Other than the fact that you guys can get three bold flavors of a Mexican-style soda with a signature spicy finish delivered to your front door. Thirsty vaquero. Thirsty vaquero. Say it with me one more time. They're going, stop doing the ad read, Carl. What have you heard? Who have you talked to? What insiders do you know? And I'm over here going thirsty vaquero. Thirsty vaquero on Amazon. Signature spicy finish. Get it for the holidays. All right, guys. We have we're going to do a roster check-in first. Obviously, we set the theme. The theme is we got to move on. Did my pipes break in the middle of the night? Yes. Is our water pressure at 20%? Yes. Okay, but there's some juicy stuff I did. I dug up on the Braves and the Blue Jays because they're publicly traded companies. And when we talk about the Chicago Cubs and we hold them to a financial standard, I think it's fair this offseason. Can we look at publicly traded companies that are in big markets? Atlanta owns the South. Toronto owns Canada. These are publicly traded companies. I can't say that enough. There's heavy, deep, deep stuff on this. Revenue check-ins. You know. Do you think, let me just ask this for a second. Do you think the Atlanta Braves make more money than the Chicago Cubs? Do you think that? Say it out loud with me. No, you don't think that. I don't think that either. It would be crazy. The Atlanta Braves are a valuable franchise. We're going down a tangent to open up the show. This is not what I wanted to do. It's a solo show. I'm going to ask you guys again. If you get a chance, recommend this show via five stars on Spotify or Apple. We're so close to 200 five star reviews on Spotify. I just need one more person. I know the maniacs are out there. Mahoney sends his best. He wanted me to tell you guys he sends his absolute best. Some scheduling conflicts. This is going to happen on Mondays. But he also wanted me to ask you guys if you get a chance, five stars on Spotify, get us to the 200 mark. Or if you just want to leave a review on Apple, whichever platform you utilize. You know. Okay, let's just check it on the roster real quick. That's our first thing. We're going to check it on the roster. I know I teased a little bit about the Braves and the Blue Jays. We're going to talk about that. But first thing first on the roster. So as it stands, the Cubs just have 31 players on the 40 band. So there's room for obviously, you know, we're going to be adding some bodies. I would guess a lot of pitchers. I would guess that we're going to be adding some pitchers. Now, the big debate in free agency, obviously, you know, how much money is Tom Ricketts going to spend? I think it's important that we off the top and throughout this offseason live in a realistic world. Okay? So we're going to address that up front. So I say that six minutes into the show, up front. I've tried to do this over the last couple weeks. Things will be heating up in December. Obviously, with the winter meetings coming up. Um, this is a real spicy time for people to like formulate really strong opinions about their baseball team. So let's do this. The Monday Morning Cub Show is realistic. We're realistic about the money Tom Ricketts has spent over the last couple years. We're realistic about what this franchise looks like post-COVID. We're just being realistic. Because I've seen stuff float out there. Well, we're gonna trade Mad Shaw. We're gonna bring in Bo Bachet. We just need Alex Bregman at third base. I'm trying to be realistic here, guys. So that's kind of the purpose as I dig deeper into like, you know, if you're listening to the Monday Morning Cubs show, you're a maniac. Can I educate you guys? Can I at least like give you guys some good nuggets to think about as Cubs fans? And the first one is be realistic. So the idea that we would go out and get a bobachette or that we're gonna upgrade third base after Matt Shaw's second half, that's a little that's a little silly. That's unrealistic to me. Another thing that's unrealistic to me, the high end of the free agency market. I hate to do this, but I went through it. I hate to do it, but I went through it. Like Bo Bachet, Alex Bregman get lost. Framber Veldez. What's that? 30 something million. Now, I could be proven wrong, and I would love to be proven wrong. But as we start this conversation or as we're getting into the show, as we're putting our thoughts and opinions together, as we're sending out the group text messages, we're going through whatever. You sit down at Thanksgiving, you listen to Uncle Gary talk about what Tom Ricketts needs to do. We're reeling it in here in this space to be realistic and to be intelligent, you know, to the best that we can be. Which is why it's really easy to look at the free agency list, the top, the tier one guys, and be like, this is crazy. There's absolutely no way. Like Dylan C's just got seven years,$210 million. There's just absolutely no way the Chicago Cubs are going to improve that. There's just not a world we live in. For better or worse. Right now it's for worse. It's the winter time. Of course, we want to see big contracts. Right? Down the stretch, I don't know. I see Dylan C seven years, 210. We don't need to get into him too hard, but like, I don't love that. I don't, dude, that's a lot of money, you know, to be worse than you, Savage. Who's gonna make 750 grand, which is gonna steer me back towards the ultimate goal? This is like, we just need to keep building out player development, which people hate to hear. But if we're being realistic about winning World Series championships, it starts with player development. And this is the time year you're gonna see Diltsy, 7210. Look back at time records and go, how do we have that$560 million worth of operating revenue, whatever it is? How come we don't how come we're not competing tier one? I'm just going through this. Bo Bachette, unrealistic. Alex Bregman, unrealistic. I'm reading off a list that's in front of me. So, you know, we just generally, as I'm saying this, I just want people to lock into being realistic. That's the basically the only thing I ask of maniacs this offseason. Is we're just being realistic. Otherwise, of course, every single storyline here I'm gonna get mad about. Every storyline in free agency gives you an opportunity to be mad as a Cubs fan. You know, Bellinger, here's a perfect example. Should Bellinger come back to the Cubs? We saved money on trading Cody Bellinger and then trading for Kyle Tucker. We saved like$7 million off that because we only paid Kyle Tucker$17 million. We end up saving$8 million on the right fielder, presumably a huge upgrade for the first four months of the season. But now unrestricted free agent Cody Bellinger opts out of a$25 million option with the New York Yankees. People are saying he's gonna get. I wish I was making this up. People are saying he's gonna get$140 million for five years. That's$28 million for five years. I mean, can you put yourself in a situation where you realistically think the Chicago Cubs are gonna do that? Where you think Jed Hoyer and Tom Rickets from where we're at post-COVID? You know, I'm asking you to forget about the fact we signed Jason Hayward and John Wester a decade ago. So I'm just saying the theme. Where we're at mentally, being realistic. You know, as we just look at some of the position players. Kyle Schwarber, people are saying what, four years?$130 million. It's a lot of money for a DH. Would love to see him come back if we had unlimited money. What did I read the other day? The Phillies took an$86 million million dollar loss last year. John Middleton can stomach it, and I'm sure it has to do with taxes. He can stomach it. He has the cash. You know, they're just the idea that Tom Ricketts would take a loss in the tens of millions of dollars, and that's kind of the headspace you need to be in if you're gonna look at a DX and say, yeah, sure, four years,$140 million. We're willing to take a loss. It'll never happen. I wish this was a more positive show where I was coming in here with leaks, news. I heard this and that from free agency. Tommy's open opening up the checkbook. But again, I just have to go back to being this realistic person. It would be great to see Kyle Schwarber back in a Cubs uniform. Would it happen? I mean, put yourself in his shoes. They said no to you after the COVID season. Can't even I can't even imagine the personal stuff that goes behind that. I think he's hit almost 200 homers since we let him go for$8 million. And I'm just using him as one example of why when we talk about improving the Cubs roster for 2026. I I think it's just a waste of time to even be in this space to be talking about it, Kyle Schwarber or Cody Bellinger. Like I just I hate to do it. And recently, the news that showed a Imanaga accepting his qualifying offer has kind of triggered some Cubs fans into saying this is now going to be the excuse why we don't spend money, why payroll doesn't go up. Because we didn't see him accepting a$22.5 million qualifying offer after returning down three years and$57 million. So I don't necessarily believe any of that garbage. If Bruce Levine or if the Cubs are trying to spew that out right now, that's absolute trash, top to bottom. You know, and that reels us back another realistic expectation. Because I'm not gonna take it that far and say with Shoda, I'm sure the right way to explain this is I'm not gonna take it far enough where I say I agree and I believe the Cubs. I believe we have financial constraints. I think we have cash flow constraints. You're not gonna sell me on Shoda Imanaga's$22.5 million qualifying offer from sinking where we want to go in free agency in the rest of the offseason. You'll have me if you want to make arguments about COVID. You'll have me if you want to make arguments we don't want to spend$450 million on Kyle Tucker. You know, we have issues dulling out major contracts to I mean, here's some other names. Ranger Suarez. You know, people will be mad. We don't go out and like Eugenio Suarez is he's a he's a free agent this year. People be mad we don't get him. I'm not telling you guys not to be mad, I'm just asking you guys to be realistic. So that went way longer than I anticipated. And it sucks we're in this state. I suppose we we have been either misled over the last couple years, to what extent COVID is hurting us. So let's just jump into this Blue Jays Braves competition thing. And I brought this up primarily the initial starting point for me wanting to talk about the Blue Jays on today's show is that everybody's just so hellbent on the fact that the Dodgers have ruined baseball and that we will never compete with the Dodgers. If we don't get Kyle Tucker, we're not gonna compete with the Dodgers. If we don't get Alex Brugman, we're fucked. How are we supposed to beat the Dodgers if we don't have Bo Bachet? You know, there's this general sentiment that just the Dodgers, the Dodgers, and I go back to like a half a dozen moments where the Blue Jays almost beat him in the World Series, clearly, like in the last couple innings. Um the reason I got into this Blue Jays Braves tangent was initially to say I don't think the hurdle between the Cubs being World Series contenders is as big as people are saying it is, or as easy to solve as just throwing a couple hundred million dollars around at a couple different free agents. The original reason why I got into this, because I I think there's just like a notable discrepancy in public perception, ultimately the Cubs' competitive outlook for 2026 and beyond. Because I just hate the idea that there's so many Cubs fans walking around and go, We're never gonna be good at we're never gonna be as good as the Dodgers, we're never gonna be good enough to beat the Dodgers. Uh, where obviously the Dodgers are very good, their financial structure is unbelievable. I think they have like another$150 million to spend this offseason. Um, but they almost lost to the Blue Jays. I should just, I'm going back to this. Like the Blue Jays competed their balls up. The Blue Jays could have easily won that World Series, you know, and the Chicago Cubs only played the Blue Jays three times in 2025, but we competed really hard. We lost at game 3-2-1 against Scherzer. If you remember, we gave up two runs very late. We could have taken that series. And the reason, just realistically, is I'm measuring where the Cubs are headed. One of the issues that I have as I point out to the Blue Jays and the Braves, they're both publicly traded, they're owned by publicly traded companies. And one of the problems that I have, and my chief problem, I should say, is that by this time next year, the Blue Jays and the Braves will have conclusively outspent the Chicago Cubs on the 2026 season. And will be in a much more, I should say, riskier or long-term position going into the lockout in 2027, where the Cubs books are super fucking clean. They don't have any debt, they don't own any contracts other than Dansby Swanson, some arbitration years with Pete Crow Armstrong, whatever ends up with Michael Bush. But from a long-term standpoint and planning position financially, the Chicago Cubs have nothing in the long term. And just drawing a comparison to two notable comparable markets, and Atlanta owning the South, you know, Toronto owns Canada. I don't think either team out earns the Chicago Cubs. Even though they have to report this stuff. The Chicago Cubs cannot be less than$595 million under the revenue recognition model that the Braves use. They just can't. And their EBITDA in the same time frame was about seven times the Braves. I think it was$40 million. And you can apply basically the same methodology, I would suppose, to the Blue Jays have at least, I would say, over$500 million in revenue if they're telling me the Braves do. So just from comparison purposes, if we're just talking about these three organizations, um, it absolutely kills me to see that the Chicago Cubs, as a privately held company owned by a multi-billionaire family, that they're up they're operating like bigger pussies, I think is the easiest way to say it. Then compared to two publicly traded companies with dominant market shares. The Cubs are bigger than the Blue Jays and the Braves. That is a fact. That's an there's five huge organizations in Major League Baseball. The Yankees, the Dodgers, the Cubs, the Red Sox, and the Giants. Historically, the biggest, those are the names. So you throw the Blue Jays in here, the Braves, this time next year, both teams will have comfortably spent more money on their payroll than the Cubs. And it bothers me because these two organizations, there's a fight, there's a fiduciary uh responsibility at an individual level. For the the board of directors, it's approving sure go over the luxury tax. We'll take a$28 million excise penalty. And meanwhile, the Chicago Cubs making more money, having uh significantly bigger revenue, I would guess than the Braves. If the Braves are reporting$595 million, now this does include concessions. When the Braves say they've made$595 million, it does include concessions. And I, if you believe me or not, I did put together concession revenue projections for the Chicago Cubs. So they average$37,250 people per game. At$50, the average Chicago Cub fan, the average person coming in the gate at$50 in concessions, beers, hot dogs, not even merchandise. Ticket program. That's$151 million. Average concession price for Wrigley, which I would guess is probably the highest in baseball, up there with the Mets, up there with the Yankees, up there with the Red Sox. So when I'm talking about the Braves are saying, hey,$595 million in 2024 revenue, there's no way their concession merch even touches the Cubs. And I'm bringing up this point to just distance the Cubs from the Blue Jays and the Braves, two publicly traded companies that will comfortably go over the luxury taxes here. The Braves just publicly said they'll be a top five payroll team, which means they have to go above the Blue Jays who were fifth in payroll in 2025. This does get me anxious. This does upset me. This does, I shouldn't say upset me. You know, there's plenty of other things in life that can upset you. But if we're gonna do a roster check and if we're gonna talk about the Cubs in free agency and off-season stuff and winter meetings, can we just at least be realistic about where we stand? Now, this all started with me saying we're closer to the Dodgers competitively. The gap year to year, though, is gonna grow. And it's only gonna put a bigger player uh emphasis on player development. I'll be back here three years from now, just telling you guys. If we had better player development, we'd be much further along. So it I understand that's a little bit of a it's not a double entendre. It's not a Chinese finger trap. But there is a little give and take to understanding this. The difference between the Chicago Cubs, the distance I should say competitively between us and the Nodgers, it's not nearly as big as people think, or is reported in the media, as evidenced by how hard the Blue Jays played him, you know, with a bunch of guys that came up in their system. That's the argument I want to make. You know, the Braves are trash last year. The argument I want to make is the fact that the Chicago Cubs are there's just a couple fix, guys. We're just a couple. Am I crazy for saying this? The area is to improve, you know, and then you have an entire season to improve the ball club. You know, no Willie Castros. In the same respect, though, if we're gonna compare ourselves to the Blue Jays and the Braves, and we're gonna we're gonna talk about how we're spending money in the winter time, it should sting that there's publicly traded companies who don't generate as much revenue, that don't, I mean, despite having huge fan bases, don't compare to the Chicago Cubs. Not in any way you want to slice it, franchise value, TV subscribers, whatever, resale ticket price, however you want to quantify it. And they're gonna lap us an active payroll, and they're gonna have the board approve it. It's gonna be this, it's really remarkable how the Ricketts family have spun this. And the one thing I'd point out is that they know it. Tom knows. He doesn't get in front of the fans at the convention on purpose. He knows deep down inside. He knows. And you know, this is this is again just being realistic about where we're at. You know, at this roster check-in. Where are the Cubs headed with as we get into the winter meetings? You know. I hate to be doom and gloom. I wish I could I wish I could just come in here. I wish obviously I wish COVID never happened. Who doesn't is there anybody listening to this right now who's like, thank God COVID happened? Maybe somebody out there trading Bitcoin, uh, although not even recently, not to go down a bitcoin rabbit hole, but just saying there's no way you could have put me in this position before COVID where I'd be thinking about how like we don't have cash, made$600 million last year. Where are we spending it? You know, and the Rickets finance episodes coming. I'll talk more specifically. I promised you guys this, I I will deliver this offseason. Specifically, how much interest are the Cubs paying? I think it's gotta be over$100 million. It has to be over$100 million. In interest, it has to be some preposterous amount of money that top line revenue before anybody gets a piece of anything goes right back to the bank. Whatever the Ricketts used to borrow against the Cubs. I have a quote from Tom Ricketts in 2019. He called the Chicago Cubs a zero coupon bond. If you're not educated in finance, imagine I lent you uh 15 fucking grand. Whatever, 10 grand, 10 grand. And then I said um five years from now, you owe me 10 grand. Is that a zero coupon bond? That's zero percent interest, right? It bothers me. Again, I don't like to do this. I don't want to sit down the offseason and just sit here and complain about where we're going. But if you consume a lot of content around the Chicago Cubs, there's just so much of this hopeful, wishful, almost like you're doing it to set yourself up to be mad that the Rickets didn't spend the money on Kyle Schwaber, that they didn't go out and get Alex Bregman again. It's not gonna happen. It's just not gonna happen. And that's where I've reasoned myself into this. Like I've I've for better or worse, have just accepted the fact that there's a tier one of teams that operate. The Dodgers, the Mets, I mean, maybe even the Yankees. The Yankees said they're trying to cut payroll now. What the fuck's that about? But there's just a tier of people that spend money. The Cubs are not it. We're I'm making an argument to like be in the second tier. So now I say this, we did give Phil Maton Maeton. Phil Maiton throws 90 miles an hour, amazing chase rate. We did give him a two-year deal. He is a reliever, which is crazy. Cubs haven't given out a two-year deal since. Who is the one guy from the Los Angeles Dodgers who threw his back out putting on a pair of jeans? Brandon Morrow. That was the last time we gave a reliever two years, I believe. Two years and$20 million. The guy threw fucking 16 innings. He sucked. Now, as I do set these expectations, we are seeing a little bit of movement here. We're like, okay, Chad Hoyer did give out a two-year contract to a reliever, which is basically an option for three years. It's basically a three-year deal. Am I wrong? Is all this complaining about Tom Rick gets in the money wrong before the winter meeting start? I don't think so. But if you're gonna ask me to pull a silver lining, Phil May Tom. So let's talk a little bit about relievers. Roster check-in. This is a shitty segment. That's a very bad segment that I had to open the show. It's gone so long. It started with me saying 14 position players, 17 pitchers. I think you're gonna see more pitchers. We have to. Which takes me into relievers. Now we have three relievers at the time of me recording this that I trust to be good next year. Daniel Palencia, Phil Maeton, and Porter Hodge. I expect these guys a couple months from now to go out and do their fucking jobs. Which I think is my first F-word of the show. That there's three guys. Now at the end of last year, there's probably six guys I trust to do their job. Right? We don't have Teal Bar. There's no Brad Keller, there's no Pomerance right now.

unknown: 28:36

Right?

SPEAKER_00: 28:36

Do people like Ryan Brazier? I don't I'm not bringing that up to be cheeky. You know, I'm just bringing it up to say he's not there. You know, do people like Aaron Savale? At the time of recording this, there's three guys at the bullpen I like. You like, we should like, any educated Cubs fan would like. Palencia, Mayton, Porter Hodge. Mayton's gonna give me a hard time this year uh pronouncing his name. Maton, Phil. I like a Phil. Now those are the three guys we're working with. Here's the bright side. I don't think the price of relievers right now is too high. So I don't think I don't think it is at all. Iglesias with the Braves is signed one year$16 million. He had a good season last year. He's 35 years old. And I think Edwin Diaz, crazy. This guy's looking for$20-something million dollars a year. No, no, thank you, my friend. Now, Roldis Chapman, interesting enough, did two years$26 million. That was an extension last August. But you could look at that and say$13 million a year for Roldis Chapman, one of the better back end relievers in baseball. I I don't think I'm not crazy at saying any of this, am I? That I think there's an opportunity for the Cubs to spend. More significantly more money in the bullpen. Ryan Helsley, two years, 28 million, you know, had a terrible second half. But if you said at the start of last season, he would only get$14 million a year for two years. I think that would surprise a lot of people. Would I pay that for Robert Suarez from the Padres? Probably not. You know, we're not even going to talk about Edwin Diaz. But there's plenty of relievers out there already signed. Pat Hentkiss,$1.5 million of the Giants. You know, that guy's going to have a monster year when the Giants go out and sign somebody before December. You know, for less than$2 million, that guy's going to be a stud. But, and I'm not saying we should assign Pat, I can't even pronounce his name. Pat Hentkiss. I'm not my point is that there's quality relievers out there. And I would expect the Cubs to add at least three or four veteran known relievers. If it's Drew Pomerance, great. That should be team friendly. He likes pitching at Wrigley, I would hope. If it's Caleb Thielbark, great. You know, if Brad Keller goes out and tests a free agency market as a starting pitcher, finds out nobody wants him as a starter, he may want to come back and be a reliever for the Cubs with the pitch lab that we have. That's what people are talking about, how great the Cubs pitch lab is. You know. My point, the price of relievers, if you take out Edwin Diaz, who's just going to get way more money than I would ever feel comfortable giving to a reliever. You know, do we like a Pete Fairbanks? If we're willing to give Phil Maeton two years, 15 million, whatever, with a third year option, so is it 16 million? Like, does Fairbanks slide into that? And that's kind of like the last guy in the tier. Once you get after him, it's like, I don't, do you guys love Nick Martinez? Now I'm just naming names to sound smart. But as we're talking about how do we improve the Cubs realistically? And if I'm gonna be the Grinch and say, take Alex Bregman out of your mouth, you know, I would love to see Kyle Schwartz. I would ugh. Is there a way we can trade Owen Casey, make say Suzuki play right field, sign Kyle Schwarber? Like, can we trade for Joe Ryan and sign Kyle Schwarber? That would be a dream come true. But the realistic side of me, the guy that's watched the Cubs team operate post-COVID, that just seen all the bullshit, you know, Jed's had to put up with him talking about the fact we're just gonna be upgrading the pitching staff this offseason or that's our biggest, you know, need and we're not necessarily concerned about the position players. It's easy to for me to take Kyle Schwarber's name out of my mouth. It's easy for me to let Cody Bellinger seven years,$25 million. Get the fuck out of here. It's easy to be realistic and then to focus in on all right, well then the bullpen, let's be realistic here. Now, if you're telling me we're gonna give two years with a three-year option to Maton, now that obviously means it's a departure from where the Cubs have put themselves historically. They don't like giving out one or two plus year deals to relievers. All right, so now maybe this is an area where we're gonna see Jed kind of depart a little bit and invest more in the bullpen. I don't think you're gonna see a free agent pitcher get signed, free agency-wise. I know I want to keep this on relievers for a second here. Because there's a bunch, there's a bunch. Names are all over the place. You know, Scott Efrost comeback. You know, people want to see the comeback. People want to see Andrew Chain come back. I don't know. I I want to see guys that can come out and do their job. I want I would that's what I would like to see. Like Drew Pomerance did his job, Caleb Tielbart did his job. Both those guys are 37, 38 years old. You know, I don't the fastball spin rate, whatever, the breaking ball stuff. Sure, the all the stat cast stuff grades out. But what you get from a couple of those older guys is like, hey, this is my fucking job. This is it, this is the end of my career. I'm not gonna go out there and pussyfoot around. I'm not nervous about facing somebody. I would trust that Jed Hoyer understands that like if you're gonna spend in the budget this year, I want to just see more of these guys. I just want to that's an arrogant way to say it. I think that's an obvious way to upgrade this team. You know, we're starting to put in the pitching depth, the starting pitching depth, I should say. With Shota accepting the qualifying offer, with Justin Steele coming back, with Kate Horton being healthy and having a full season, with Jamison Tian being healthy for a season, with Matt Boyd coming off of his best season of his career. There's a lot of stuff there, and we still have room to trade, I think, for starting pitching. But like, where right now is the uh you know, opportunity to like hone in specifically on this roster and improve it, you'd be crazy not to start with a bullpen. You'd be crazy not to talk about like why would we not just add three, four gangsters and and maybe overpay? If you're telling me a rollish chapman's worth$13 million a year, I'm telling you to get on the phone and start calling the agents of all the fucking tier two bullpen guys. Now, again, I'm not gonna come in here and just name names to name names. I want to see Nick Martinez. Now, an interesting counterpoint to this, what did we do with Kittridge? We just gave him up for cash considerations and the Orioles took him for$9 million. So as I dress up all of this, what are we gonna do with the bullpen? There is an obvious where it's like we don't have nine million for Kittridge, who I think is solid for 65 fucking innings. Another F-word. Watch myself. You know, here's the sad part is that I'm asking all of these questions under the premise of how do we not lose to Milwaukee next year? How do we get the division back from the Milwaukee Brewers who spend almost$100 million less on us? How do we do that? And I'm in the bullpen right now, and people are gonna be mad at me for it. We have two catchers, Miguel Maya and Carson Kelly. We have a third baseman in Matt Shaw. If you want to upgrade him for Alex Bregman, then you know, you live in a world I wish I could be. I wish I could be there with you right now. That sounds awesome. We're gonna, what are we gonna do? We're gonna trade Matt Shaw for Joe Ryan, and then we're gonna sign Alex Brugman. That sounds awesome. Never gonna happen. You know, Dansby Swanson at shortstop, Nico Horner at second base, obviously Michael Bush at first base. There's so many knowns about the team as we're just talking in the offseason, getting into the winner meetings. Where can you absolutely improve this roster? It's obviously in the pitching staff, and it's obviously in the bullpen. And anybody who tells me that, like, you did you feel confident when Teal Barr was pitching last year? He was good. He was good. Palmars is good. You know, Taylor Rogers, great, Brad Keller, all these guys were great last year. We can be better, and they performed great. But be honest with yourself. I'll be honest with myself. We'll just everybody's just gonna be honest. We can absolutely improve that and turn it into a strength, like a top strength of ours, I think, because we have we do have cost-controlled starting pitching or at least locked up starting pitching, we have depth in the starting pitching staff. So, you know, my my expectation, I would like to see a Pete Fairbanks. If we're gonna be weird and get Robert Suarez, that's that I don't love it, you know, 34 years old. No record of him playing baseball before he was 24 years old. If someone can find that for me, let me know. I've done my research on this. Robert Suarez uh from Venezuela came up in the Mexican leagues, got better in in Japan, has been pitching in the big leagues for a couple years now, has been good. But he's gonna get a fuck ton of money this offseason. And that's kind of where I would I would kind of draw the line on like a uh a Pete Fairbanks. If we're gonna go up to Suarez, then I just would have to trust that Jed and Carter and other shit. Personally, don't love him. But that's a gray area. That's a gray area as a fantasy. I don't like this player. There's a lot of stuff I don't have access to. An information I'm not privy to, I don't know. Looking at Robert Suarez, I have question marks. Pete Fairbanks, I do like a lot. You know, and just more of him as an example of like, can we add guys like this? And if it's gonna take two years on a contract to get them, are we willing to do that? I know we're not willing to defer money. I know we're not willing to spend a fuck ton of it. But but could we at least say, like, alright, we're gonna give multiple years to a reliever because that's what relievers want. I sound like I'm crying, I'm not. A frog in my throat. I'm gonna throw in a rally dip so I can I can close this show strong. But basically, you know, to circle back on the big theme of this is just being realistic and keeping realistic expectations for Cubs fans, and the best that I can do it on the Monday Morning Cubs show for my maniacs, is just kind of drive home some of this, like what I think is basic stuff, but then I'll listen to other stuff. I'll I'll turn on 670. You know, there's the Cubs podcast I listen to, and there's a lot of hopeful, you know, this is the year, Tom. I'll be really mad if Tom doesn't spend the money. What are we fucking talking about? And maybe I'm an you know have I moved on too quick? Did I make my assumptions too soon? Or do I think everyone's lacking behind me severely and understanding we're just not that type of team? We're gonna be a player development, pitching lab, you know, basically be the fucking Milwaukee Brewers. Is that what we're trying to do? That's harsh. That's very harsh. And I've had a long day, guys. Pipe burst in the middle of the night. That's a long, expensive day. So I'm not trying to be too harsh about this, but as we're just talking about spending money this winter, where we're seeing it, all tea leaves point to. If there's a big move, it's gonna be a trade. You know, and if there's big improvements to the roster, it's in the bullpen. That it just big splash for the Cubs, trade, big improvements. You know, when you sit back at the end of next year and you look, how do we really get that much better this year? I think it's just bullpen. Bullpen, bullpen, bullpen. I can't say that enough. So that's that's where my focus is moving forward. I I shouldn't say moving forward like that. That's where my focus is to see where Jed's gonna drastically improve the club this offseason. You know, so we can get into some nitty-gritty stuff as far as trades are concerned. I'm fine if we want to get rid of like all of our prospects. The only untouchable people I have in the organization are Matt Sean, Kate Horton, who I don't even know at this point with their major league experience, do we still consider them prospects or trade capital? I sure hope not. And then the one guy that hasn't established himself, I would just say Moises by Esteros, say Mo Baller. I would hate to see him get traded. If we do trade him, then he would have to be the centerpiece. But if like Owen Casey, Jackson Wiggins, who's the big righty that we got from Arkansas, hardly pitched in college, throws 100 miles an hour, Jefferson Rojas, interesting undersized shortstop prospect, had a decent year in double A, I'm fine with him going somewhere. Kevin Alcantara. I haven't seen Ethan Conrad play because we drafted him from Wake Forest in this past year. But if he's in our top 10 prospect list and we trade him for like a Joe Ryan, you know, or like a I guess Pablo Lopez, we can get into that in a second. You know, we trade Jonathan Long. He's the corner infielder. Where'd he go? Charleston, College of Charleston, something like that. Pedro Ramirez, who just got protected. We just put him on the 40-man roster, switch hitting, undersized middle infielder, had a great season at double A. He just got protected. He's like our eighth best prospect now, kind of accelerating out of nowhere as he's getting older. We trade him, go knock your socks off. James Treantos, everybody loves that name. You know, had a terrible season this year. OBP Plummets. I'm fine trading any of these guys. If that's, you know, obviously not all of them. But if we're gonna hit something big this winter, you know, I do think it comes from this list. And that's where I'm like, I don't if we have to trade Owen Casey, fine. That's fine, and then we have to run say out the right field, and then we can solve the DH problem through free agency, you know, or trade. Or trade. That's I'm sorry to do this to you guys this late into the show, but like when we talk free agency with the 2026 Cubs, I'm just there's like nothing there that I think is interesting unless you want to be a nerd. Like, I think Paul Goldschmidt's interesting in free agency. I think the bullpen's interesting in free agency. Like, maybe there's a utility infielder. And I'll come to Rue this. If if if it turns out that we go out and we sign Alex Bregman, we turn that utility guy, becomes Matt Chalk. So then I'm completely wrong. I would be shocked at this point in following this organization and knowing what I know. Which brings me back to the trade, the offseason, the prospect capital that we have, and why I'm comfortable saying goodbye to every single person that isn't Matt Shaw, Kate Horton, or Moises Biasteros. And I say that thinking like why Matt Shaw and Kate Horton should even be in the conversation to be traded. So, really, the only like true minor league prospect we have that I'm sitting here going, don't want to see this guy go somewhere else, is Moises Biasteros. And that's just because I think he is tier one, elite plate presence, swaggy, everything you want from a guy. Be crazy to trade this guy. Even if he's penciled in as a DH for the next one. How I don't give a fuck. I love everything about that guy. Everybody else, you're on the table. For Joe Ryan, number one. Joe Ryan number one. Minnesota Twins, number one. And it just makes there's no point in even arguing or getting upset about do we have too many starting pitchers? Take them all. I don't give a shit. Someone's gonna get hurt, someone's only gonna throw 50 innings. You know, as it stands right now, I'll run through the names again that I like. That we have already, Cade Horton, I love him. Justin Steele, I love him. Shodi Imanaga should be better than he was in the second half. You know, maybe he was a little banged up. Jamison Teon, Javier Assad, Matt Boyd. I'm missing somebody. I like the stable that we have, and I'm thinking Jed Hoyer's gonna go out. And I I think the like easiest way to upgrade to from our prospect capital would be add another starting pitcher. Hopefully his name is Joe Ryan. And if it's not Joe Ryan, you know, who's only he's owed$20 million over the next two years. You know, if it's not him, Pablo Lopez,$43 million over the next two years. I people love saying this name because he was good many years ago. Sandy Elcantara, I don't like him at all. That's$38 million over two years. Most important thing, all these guys be making less money than Shota Imanaga is this year in the qualifying offer. You know? So, like, is it a ton is it a ton of money to say Sandy Elcantara 38 million two years? It's not a ton of money. But you know, if we if we didn't pick up Shota three years and 57 million, are we then sensitive to that? Are we more sensitive to Pablo Lopez 43 million dollars in two years? Well, it'll cost less prospects for either one of those guys. It'll cost more prospects for Joe Ryan or Edward Cabrera because during arbitration years, ipso facto, you're spending less money on the salary. Al Cantera's on an extension, Pablo Lopez, I believe, is on an extension. So you talk about trading to improve for a starting pitcher. I think that's a much, much better path than free agency. Now, when I say much better, that is heavily weighing the realistic concern of just us spending cash. It just the easiest way for us to upgrade the rotation would be to give Frandez a blank check and ask him to throw 130 innings so that he's ready come October. We don't live in that world. We live in a world where I'm willing to say goodbye to everybody but Moises Biasteros for a Joe Riot. You know, and I don't even know how realistic that is. I said Frambert Valdez, I'll just stay on the free agent thing just for a second. I think Zach Gallon's a little too washed up for me. I like Ranger Suarez because he's got balls the size of my head, would not give him a ton of money. And then going back to trade, the Mackenzie Gore trade from this past year, and I'm sorry I'm all over the place, just naming names. If this is what we do in the winter time, this is offseason baseball talk. Mackenzie Gore, if the package at the trade deadline last year was rumored to be Matt Shaw and Kate Horton and prospects, fuck off. Fuck right off with that. Mackenzie Gore's got to learn how to pitch, not just strike people out, not just have awesome stuff. That's a CC Sabbathia package. No, no, the price on Mackenzie Gore would have to come down substantially. Would have to come down substantially. I'm gonna go back to Joe Ryan as my number one, number two through like 57 is C number one. Like it's just Joe Ryan. That's the guy I would trade for. That's the guy who has the Moxie, the balls, the repertoire, like everything that I love about him, or I love about a pitcher, you can find in the way that I think Joe Ryan goes about his business. And if we have to give up Jackson Wiggins, go right ahead. I think he could be really good. I like an alpha male that throws 100 miles an hour. You know, my problem with Jackson Wiggins is I think it's just smart enough to be like, you're a reliever now, and just start training him on that. Like we're just we're gonna waste this development time to see if he can be a pitcher. Like you could spend six years and he'll be as good as Tyler Glass now was like as far along, I should say, pitchability-wise, as like a Glass now, as a guy who just picks up the ball and throws it 107 miles an hour. I don't have that much faith in Wiggins. If we do have to use him as a trade piece, would love it. Like, I just don't see him as being a guy who's gonna give you 17 outs a night. I don't. I'm sorry. And whether it's him specifically or the way the prospect profile shapes up, I don't think he's as mentally soft as a Ben Brown. But as we're just talking about this trade stuff, because we're being realistic about free agency, and we're saying there's people we have to give up. I very casually going through the list was like, yeah, fucking Jackson Wiggins, we'll trade him. And I'm sure some people are like, that's crazy. So I'll just quickly defend that and say, I don't, I mean, I just don't love him. And if he's somebody that gets us Joe Ryan or he's a piece of us getting Joe Ryan back for two years, 100%. 100%. The only other free agency, I said this earlier, I'll go back to it. Just like a nerd thing. I would love Paul Goldschmidt on the Cubs, I think. I've I I would love it if he was the guy who is platooning with Michael Bush at first base. You know, which is a decision. I think the Cubs have to make the decision that Michael Bush does not start against righties and or start against lefties, and then finding somebody who can hit against lefties that can play first base. And I think Paul Goldschmidt had an OBP over 400 last year against left-handed pitching. You know, is it like Justin Turner 2.0? I don't know, but I made the note and I want to bring it up, so I brought it up. Um, couple other things. We're just running, we're running out of time here on this show. I want to thank everybody for tuning in. It's probably the most challenging Monday morning cub show I've had to put out. This includes recording uh from a hotel lobby out of the voice memo app on my phone in London a couple weeks ago while people were just staring at me like I'm crazy. Says it a challenging show for personal reasons. And as I talk through more of this Cub stuff, it it's not making me feel any better, to be honest with you. So some nitty-gritty stuff. I think I went through this already. Trianto's added to the 40 man, Pedro Martinez, a guy named Riley Martin from Quincy, Illinois, went to Quincy College, University of Quincy, one D, what is it, D three, two lefty walks a ton of people, strikes a ton of people out. He was added to the 40 band, which I find to be very interesting. Would like to would like to see if this becomes a name, if you're going to protect him from the rule five draft. You know, this is a guy who throws his shit out of the ball from the left side. And then just two names that were not on the 40 man that have been brought up, you know, in the prospect circles with the Cubs. Christian Hernandez, not on the 40 man. Just not, he wasn't a he just hasn't turned out to be that good. He was a big prospect name. Brandon Birdsell, elbow surgery. He's a top 10 prospect for the Cubs, but he's out for 2026. So you don't have to add him to the roster for the rule five draft, which is a nuance. We're just not at the point in the show where I'm gonna explain. You can't add him to the roster because you can't use him next year because he's out for the year. So he's just no one would ever take him. Frustrating show. Frustrating show because when I originally wrote the outline this morning, it was we need to have a real just continue to hone in on the realistic aspect of being a Cubs fan this time of year. It's the best in June and July and August. Ivy's out, good baseball team, being competitive. Right now, you could argue this is as frustrating as any organization. Especially if you go to the games and you spend the money at Regley and you pay for Marquee Network, and you've been at a playoff game and you've witnessed the atmosphere when the team's electric and it's rolling, and it's like, holy fuck, why isn't Tom just he should want this every year? Can be very frustrating. And it's becoming more frustrating each year we're removed from COVID. Because initially you're like, okay, I get it. COVID losses, cash losses. Now you're years removed, ticket prices have gone up. We raise money on the concessions in the playoffs. This is like all this stupid bullshit, and we still find ourselves, I mean, miles behind the Mets and the Dodgers, arguably the Yankees, and long behind the Giants, arguably the Red Sox, Blue Jays, Braves, Phillies, Padres. You know, I'm not reading these off. This is just all of this is off the top of my head of just how far behind the Cubs are when it comes to cutting a check. You know. Which this is not at all how I like it. But again, we're being we're being realistic. We have to have these conversations. So that when we do go out to the winter meetings, we are making moves, we are making trades, we are improving the roster, we're all just in this good mindset, maybe not a good mindset, but at least an agreeable mindset that the easiest path, the one we want, the one that should be available to us, is not available to us right now. Right? Like it just as much as I would love to sit here and be like, can't wait to see the spring training roster roll around, you know, with Braggman. No, Pete Alonzo is gonna be our platoon guy, you know, in some fucking world. You know. So hone in on your trades here, boys. I think that's the big takeaway. You know, if we're gonna be free agent, it's gonna be creative in free agency for platoon, for righty power, for bullpen. You know, is there a trade there for Joe Adele who had like whatever 7,000 slug percentage against left-handed pitching last year? I think there is a left-handed pitching concern that our front office is solving. How do we hit left-handed pitching better if we're gonna put platoon Michael Bush? You know, that could be solved in free agency, but it's not gonna be a huge splash. It could be Salvia trade, it won't be a huge splash. You know, starting pitching, you're not gonna see you're you're just not gonna see a big check on that. What you would see is us giving up years of players. And I and I do think again, Joe Ryan has to be the number one name on that list for a whole host of reasons. You know, and if it is a Pablo Lopez, so be a I the Cabrera the guys from Miami don't love him. If you want to make that argument with me, go right ahead. I'm I'm all ears if people want to make an argument for the Edward Cabrera or Sandy Alcantara from the Marlins. I hate him. I if that's our move, if that's the move to improve ourselves for 2026 to go out and finally beat the Milwaukee Brewers, I just don't love that at all. I think Joe Ryan's a good move. And if it's not Joe Ryan, then maybe it's something else weird trade. The biggest splash this year. How about this for prediction? It's gonna be trade. But ultimately, the most important thing is gonna be the stuff we do. Ultimately, the most important metric when we measure the 2026 Cubs, we're gonna come back and look at what we did in free agency. I sincerely believe what did we do with the bullpen? Did we get a utility? Did we get platoon when you have all of these options in front of you? And I trust Chet Hoyer and I trust Carter Hawkins as much as I hate Carter Hawkins. I do think he's smart at the job, I think he's stupid when he opens his mouth. But ultimately, I like I like our front office. And if we just agree on some of the realistic stuff that I had said off the top and a lot of the theme of what we're trying to build here, and how do we be creative and how do we how do we improve the roster? How do we ultimately beat the Milwaukee Brewers and win the division? Um I mean that should be simple with our payroll. It should it should be simple with Craig Council, but it's become a significantly more complicated problem over the years, and I just there's the free agency stuff when we bring up some of these big names, I don't love them, and I'm sorry. I've spent so much of this show apologizing for what I hold to be, you know, would I go as far as to call them self-evident? That's self-evident, just look at what we've done. And maybe this is just too much of me being compressed into consuming Cubs content and seeing how much positivity in the meantime reading Patrick Mooney being like, it's not good. Yes. Follow the guys at the athletic, they're like, it's not, this is not good stuff at all. But there's pe online, go online. You know, and people are hopeful. This is it. You know, that this is the year. We gotta go spend some money. We have to, we gotta, we gotta get over the luxury tax. I'm sitting here looking at the Braves and the Blue Jays. And we're just as both of them are gladly going over the luxury tax. And we are throwing nickels around like manhole covers, which is an old quote about George Hallis, which reminds me the Chicago Bears are a 9-3. And if there's a place for optimism, it's behind Ben Johnson. So there's just let's close out on this for a second. Uh, obviously, thank you to everybody who's tuned into the Monday Morning Cub show. Just a friendly reminder, we do have Cyber Monday from Black Friday in the Cyber Monday sale going still for Sturt Family Farms. 35% off promo code Friday. If you just go to sturkfamilyfarms.com, it's my wife skincare company. Uh all natural. This is the time of year, guys. Hand cream, face cream, eye cream. Everything's 35% off. Go get yourself a white, go get your significant other, your wife, your girlfriend, your mom, somebody, the woman in your life you love most. Get her a nice gift for Christmas. Get her something thoughtful. You can tell her. I listen to this Cubs podcast. This guy talks about StirkfamilyFarms.com. It's his wife's skincare company. Then kills it. Beef tail, all natural. Wagyu eye cream. 35% off promo code Friday. Just last thing here, as far as Bears' expectations are concerned, we're nine and three. You want to let it fly, let it fly. Like we're nine and three. You know? You want to buy a hotel room for the Super Bowl, go right ahead. You want to make plans around the Bears being in the playoffs, go right ahead. Number one seed, by all means. Has Ben Johnson shown anybody anything less than being an amazing football coach? That's a mouthful. Has Ben Johnson give you any reason to doubt him at this point? Drop the first two games, nine of the next ten. We're fucking rolling, baby. And I don't even know if we're playing as well as we can. We don't have linebackers. You know, has Caleb Williams found his footing? No, will he? Yes. You know, we got received how many guys need to catch the ball? We have so many guys that can make a play. So doom and gloom on the Cub side. Because it's that time of year. And we have to be realistic about it. But on the bear side, I'll be realistic right now. 9-3 is 9-3. 9-3 is 9-3. So did a pipe burst last night? Well septic. Is this gonna be an expensive project? Did I just have the driveway paved, which is gonna completely fuck me when they go out to replace the pipes? Because now they gotta bore it instead of just dig it. Yeah, all this stuff happened to me. You know, didn't see it coming at all. Long holiday weekend, great time with the family. Wake up, just take just I mean, you can take it harder than finding out. Oh I feel like Tom Ricketts, biblical losses here. I can relate to Tom. But my point in saying this is we just have to move on. You know, we're gonna get the pipe fixed. We're gonna we're gonna add more guys to the bullpen. We are gonna continue, we're gonna improve the roster. And Ben Johnson's gonna continue to improve the Chicago Bears. I think the best is yet to come for everybody. And and as far as being realistic about the Cubs, again, I hate, I hate to be this negative Nancy doom and gloom guy, but channel your offseason energy more towards this trade atmosphere and improving the bullpen, improving starting pitching. Because I do think we have enough to be extremely competitive next year. And I think there's just a couple chips in play. They fall our way, they fall our way. That's where I stand right now, December 1st, 2025. This is the Monday Morning Cup Show. If you guys get a chance, throw a five star on Spotify or Apple. Check out Thirsty McCarrow, check out StirkfamilyFarms.com. Uh, in the meantime, I'll be back next week with more of a GM winter meeting, I should say, preview and some more substance of some of the trade stuff we've talked about. If you have a specific trade you'd like to see, or if you've got something you want me to evaluate, obviously just send it to me. Happy to talk about it. Uh until next time, obviously go cubs, and I love you guys.