Yamamoto and the Yankees, Front Office, McCutchen Sticking, Best Pitches, and Other Cubs Bullets

Holiday party day at the younger kiddos’ school, so that’ll make for a fun afternoon.

  • Another reason to root for the Yankees to land Yoshinobu Yamamoto – it sounds like the Dodgers, like the Mets, are reportedly not planning to otherwise target the top of the free agent pitching market if they miss out on Yamamoto. In other words, if the Yankees get Yamamoto, it *could* take three teams out of the top-end of the starting market in free agency (the Yankees, Mets, and Dodgers). That could, in theory, slightly elevate the Cubs’ chances of landing Shota Imanaga or Jordan Montgomery at a realistic price (I don’t see them going hard after Blake Snell, to whom they have not been attached in any rumors).
  • Much more here on the Cubs’ new VP of Baseball Operations, Meghan Jones, and the value an organization gets from thinking proactively about diversity:
  • The Cubs still haven’t named/hired a new Director of Pitching, by the way, and I wonder if they’ll just handle the role internally across multiple members of the staff for a year and re-assess at the end of the season.
  • Speaking of hirings, more on the Cubs’ new bullpen coach and catching coach here at North Side Baseball. Both hires have a substantial background with Craig Counsell, and should fit with what the Cubs are trying to do at those spots.
  • Andrew McCutchen is sticking with the Pirates for another year:
  • And he is awesome:
  • The now 37-year-old outfielder hit .256/.378/.397/115 wRC+ for the Pirates in 2023, his best in a few years. McCutchen’s career arc was an interesting one, with him having a monster peak in his mid-20s, and then falling hard – but not to some below-average guy, just kind of a solidly above-average, non-impact player for the next decade.
  • Eno Sarris with the gold, silver, and bronze best pitches of the year for each pitch type. No Cubs make an appearance. Had I to quickly pick some Cubs bests without looking at pitch data, they would be Justin Steele for the best fastball, Adbert Alzolay for the best slider, Luke Little for the best sweeper, Mark Leiter Jr. for the best changeup/splitter, and Drew Smyly for the best curveball.
  • This may not be my exact ballot, but (1) it is a very good ballot, and (2) Bobby Abreu deserves this vote:
  • Abreu was criminally underrated in his time, and remains so today. Maybe you can make an argument that he’s just shy of enshrinement, but the guy played 19 years and hit .291/.395/.475/129 wRC+, had almost 2500 hits, almost 300 homers, stole 400 bases, was worth 59.8 WAR, and walked almost as often as he struck out. He was just such a capable, quality hitter, year after year for such a long time. I think the knock is probably that he didn’t ever have that super-elite five+ year peak, but he did have a seven-year stretch where he totaled 41.5 WAR.
  • This never felt like noise, either – the lineup was simply so much better with Cody Bellinger in it:
  • The question, though, is not whether 2023 Cody Bellinger helped the Cubs’ offense – he did in so many ways. The question is to what extent he’ll replicate that success in 2024+, how much it will cost relative to the budget, and how the Cubs would otherwise try to generate that performance.
  • Mariano Rivera was more or less LITERALLY only his famous cutter, but Trevor Hoffman was pretty close with his changeup. It was the pitch that made him who he was. The thing just comes out and dies:
  • https://twitter.com/PitchingNinja/status/1737459163154764157

  • Random note on Hoffman: he notched almost half of his career saves after age 35. Pretty close to the same for Rivera. Super-elite closers: they can still be very good as they approach 40!
  • Good play:
  • why would jed do this:
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    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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