Imanaga Debut, Wicks Whiffs, Defense, Alzolay, Bart, Sasaki, Spending and Other Cubs Bullets

Apologies in advance that this personal, random, whatever introductory space is probably going to be replete with Back Content in the months ahead, but I suspect that’s just going to be such a heavy focus of my life (which ultimately touches on everything else) that I’ll be logging some of it here. First next step: appointment with the spine surgeon this afternoon, which will hopefully come with good news and a good plan.

Meanwhile, I’m not where I expected I would be this afternoon. For the first time in a very, very long time, I will not be at Wrigley Field for the Chicago Cubs’ home opener. I will admit to being so preoccupied in the big picture sense by the back injury stuff that I can’t let myself get too distraught about missing the game, but when I give myself a moment, yeah, I get pretty sad. Just perfectly terrible timing.

• Assuming the weather holds out, today will mark Shota Imanaga’s Major League Baseball debut. He is coming off a strong spring where he showed just how much swing-and-miss he’s got in his game, but also how there could be struggles if and when he can’t keep his four-seamer up in the zone. The cold conditions at Wrigley could help him on that front for the first couple months of the season while the fly balls aren’t flying quite as much, but over time, you’ll just want to see if he can keep the strikeout rates high enough to survive some solo homers. I tend to think the fly ball rate isn’t going to come down significantly in MLB, and we know, in turn, there will be some home runs. It’s just going to be part of his game, maybe even including today. But limit the walks, pump up the strikeouts, and it can still be a very valuable total package.

• As I always say (out loud, but it’s also always a reminder to myself when it comes time to react), this is just one start. One day. One first moment that will not dictate, good or bad, the entirety of what is to come for Shota Imanaga. He’s an extremely talented pitcher who has a chance to be successful in the big leagues. That’ll be as true tomorrow morning as it is right now.

• Speaking of lefties having success with four-seamers up in the zone …. We’ll have to dig in more on Jordan Wicks’ outing soon, because it was wildly impressive in surprising ways:

• No, you don’t like the three walks, and yes, you wish he could have magically covered up all the defensive problems behind him. But when you really step back and think about the context for him, for that lineup, and for the things he could or could not control, that was something. If he could consistently command a 93/94mph four-seamer up and in to righties, while also doing his normal changeup thing down and away, he’s going to be brutally tough for those guys.

• When thinking about the horrible defense we saw this weekend, a number of folks wondered whether the circumstances of the games had something to do with it: these Cubs were playing for the first time in a new stadium, coming from the extremely different conditions of outside play in Arizona, playing on turf, different lighting, etc., etc. I don’t want to turn it into an excuse, and I’m sure they wouldn’t either, but there might be something to it. We expected some rough moments from Christopher Morel (maybe not THAT rough), so that’s kind of its own thing. But the mistakes by the other guys? Maybe it was a total fluke. Guess we’ll find out more this week.

• I don’t know how you could have developed a worry about Adbert Alzolay based on one bad slider that wound up in a slappy hitter’s yank zone (that’s a phrase!), but he definitely looked like his usual self finishing off yesterday’s game. “I just feel like the first game I was a little frustrated because I was too quick with my front side and my slider was too sweepy than down,” Alzolay said after the game, per The Athletic. “Today I made that adjustment. Just seeing all the check swings and the way they were swinging, it told me, OK, you’re back to who you are. It feels great when you know you’re moving the way you’re supposed to move.”

• Ian Happ’s (record-setting! technically!) day at the plate yesterday was great all over, but that 9th inning, two-out, bases-loaded walk was deeply impressive. He fell behind, but he just stayed steady, stayed alive, and wouldn’t bite if the pitch wasn’t there. “In that situation, it’s really easy to try to do too much and try to hit a double or homer and put us in a position to take the lead and just for everybody to have good at-bats, it put us in a position not only to go ahead but to give Seiya a chance to drive in two — that’s a big deal,” Happ said, per the Tribune. “As we get more comfortable, the lineup you’ll see a lot more of those bats and I think we showed that today.”

• The Cubs saw the 10th largest percentage increase in actual (not luxury tax) payroll this offseason, an 18% increase from 2023 (FanGraphs). That’s interesting for a lot of reasons, including how much it didn’t feel like that, and also the fact that 9(!) teams bumped their payroll by more than 18% this offseason! Of course, some of that is a situation like the Reds bumping 19% from $87 million to $104 million, or the Pirates bumping 20% from $70 million to $84 million.

• Eight teams scouted Roki Sasaki’s first start of the year, with the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers, and Cardinals being named explicitly in reports. The 22-year-old uber-ace is very possibly going to be posted after this season – even in spite of being subject to bonus pool limitations – and the Dodgers are seen as the overwhelming favorite to land him. Virtually every team would try to get him, though, as he is seen as possibly better than Yoshinobu Yamamoto, just three years younger.

• The Giants finally decided they could no longer carry former top prospect Joey Bart, who has never established himself in the big leagues and is out of minor league options. So he’ll hit the waiver wire, and some rebuilding club will PROBABLY claim him and make him a back-up catcher for now. Change of scenery, prospect pedigree, etc. Because he is out of options, any team claiming him has to put him immediately on the 26-man roster (at which point they, too, could try to DFA/waive him and see if he clears, at which point he could be outrighted to Triple-A). I think that would rule out a team like the Cubs, who are unlikely to do some extreme 26/40-man maneuvering just for the chance they could then be the team to successfully outright him to Iowa and have a year to work with him (and they certainly aren’t going to bump Yan Gomes or Miguel Amaya to make room for him!). So, like I said, I think some rebuilding club with nothing to lose will grab him, maybe let him back up a few weeks, and then possibly try to get him through waivers after that. If he isn’t claimed, Bart will be outrighted by the Giants to Triple-A.

• The story has quieted down for now since the attempted mutiny was abandoned, but the MLBPA drama isn’t really going away:

• A new season, a new Eloy Jimenez injury:

• We’ll never know what that bat could’ve been if he’d been able to stay remotely healthy over the years, but it’s just been one thing after another. If the White Sox don’t pick up their team option after this season (or if they trade him at midseason and his new team lets him walk), his will be a fascinating free agency. He’ll only just have turned 28, and the offensive upside is substantial. Yet he cannot stay healthy simply doing the normal things a baseball player must do, even if you exclusively DH him.

• So, Juan Soto’s first series with the New York Yankees really couldn’t have gone much better:

• The Yankees-Mets bidding war for Soto this offseason is going to go off the rails.