Full Transcript for Five free agents who would fit the Cubs’ group of position players

Free agent, same age as Jeffers or around the same age as Jeffers. The offense hasn't been as good as Jeffers has recently. But I would look at him as more an offense first. I don't like it. I don't have numbers on him defensively. I don't think of him as a great defensive catcher. Maybe I'm, Maybe I'm wrong on that, but Jeffers is definitely someone I'd look at as going to get a pretty solid contract. I'm not sure if the Cubs are looking to spend that type of money. You go pure defense, it's probably not going to break the bank. Austin Hedges makes a lot of sense if that's a direction they want to go. It's worked really well for Cleveland in the sense that they've just focused strictly on defense with their catching and it's worked out well. I mean, Patrick Bailey, they've, they've helped a ton offensively and he, and he's gotten an average above average in the post season. But, uh, uh, and Austin Hedges was actually average this year. 00:04:38 Speaker 2: Am I right? 00:04:38 Speaker 1: Like I'm looking at his numbers. He was average offensively this year, which I'm shocked to see. Uh, he's not, I don't think he's, no, he's never had an average season in his, in his career. Uh, so maybe he'll be a little bit more expensive, but I don't think he's young. Let me look at his age. 00:04:54 Speaker 2: He's 33. So, I mean, Those are guys that you probably. 00:04:59 Speaker 1: Want to keep on your radar just in one sense. I don't think Tyler– if I'm remembering correctly, Tyler Stevenson isn't a great defender. It's going to have to be someone that can definitely play the position well. Like you said, like you mentioned, like you could go offense first. I don't think they're looking to go offense first. Just like average, slightly above average on offense. You don't want a complete zero unless there's a philosophical shift with that. 00:05:28 Speaker 4: I mean, it's been a low key strength of this team. I felt like we were in a cycle there. We were writing a lot about how bad the Cubs production was and you stalking all these different executives at the GM meetings. 00:05:43 Speaker 3: Be like, Hey, you're going to trade a catcher. You want to try to catch her? How about trading catchers at the Cubs? 00:05:48 Speaker 4: And they were trying to exhaust all these different possibilities and they wound up in a really good place with Maya and Kelly to be guys who really treated it as a true partnership and handled all the responsibilities of the job very well. It's all-encompassing, and they responded extremely well. And we said this last week, if you have to almost rebuild your entire pitching staff or just huge patches of it, you want steady hands everywhere. behind the plate. And that is what Kelly and Amaya did. And even if let's say Kelly does get that two year deal and maybe you don't love the terms of the second one, um, we know how much he wants to be here, how much he enjoyed the Wrigleyville experience. He has, you know, kind of some family roots

in the Chicago area, um, going to play off two years in a row, uh, as a cub, uh, really, uh, adding to the culture within the clubhouse. Uh, I think all of those things will come into play here. And I would imagine the cups are going to be in on Kelly kind of until the end. That doesn't mean he's back, but I would imagine he's high on this priority list. 00:07:13 Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely. 00:07:14 Speaker 1: Uh, another guy that could return makes sense for returning, uh, There's a lot of talk about, and you know, we've talked about this. Will the Cubs just go into next season with Pedro Ramirez and Matt Shaw as their outfielders? I don't think it's out of the realm of possibility that those two will be getting a ton of playing time. I just don't think they're going to go in there and just say, you guys are starting 150 games each at left and right field. I think there's a huge difference in that, like saying like, We'd like them to get a ton of at-bats, and they're going to be getting a lot of playing time in right and left field is different than handing them starting jobs. I think what we may see is some part-time playing in left and right field, kind of mixing and matching. If someone emerges as an everyday guy, sure. But bring back Tyrone Taylor, who would also be able to back up in center field for Pete Crow Armstrong. 00:08:20 Speaker 2: I think it makes a lot of sense. 00:08:22 Speaker 1: Uh, he may be looking for an everyday job since he did do really well against, uh, against righties too. Uh, he was significantly better against lefties, but, uh, I believe he was about average against righties. 00:08:38 Speaker 2: So maybe he wants a regular job. 00:08:40 Speaker 1: He could also come into the season thinking he has a regular job and, and, you know, playing backup center field and everyday left field. And, uh, Sean Ramirez are kind of sharing right field and DH or something like that. So I think he makes sense in a lot of different ways. 00:09:02 Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they need. 00:09:03 Speaker 4: Way more coverage in the outfield because obviously if Dansby hurts his oblique again, or if Alex Bregman gets hit by a pitch or foul ball, whatever it is that you need, Pedro Ramirez on the infield, I thought, it was pretty clear what Craig council thought of Pedro Ramirez and where he fell on the depth chart. I, ahead of Matt Shaw, I think that was pretty clear. Um, and so you need insurance policies and multiple positions. 00:09:32 Speaker 3: Those guys can give it to you. 00:09:33 Speaker 4: I definitely think there's value there and maybe they get to 450, 500 bats. You just don't know exactly which positions those will come kind of going back to the beginning of, uh, Joe Maddon's time in Chicago, as he was able to rearrange those things. 00:09:52 Speaker 3: But Taylor is a Craig Council. 00:09:55 Speaker 4: I don't know if favorite is too strong a word, but definitely reassuring. 00:10:00 Speaker 3: Respected by Craig Council. 00:10:03 Speaker 4: He wanted a player like that to shift some of the responsibilities off of Ian Happ's plate. 00:10:13 Speaker 3: I'm with you. I think Taylor, given the. 00:10:17 Speaker 4: State of this free agent market, I think Taylor will try to see where he can maximize his playing time. But the way council described it was, this is a no panic player. That is a high compliment from the manager. And I think they could probably put together a pretty compelling case of like why. 00:10:42 Speaker 3: You fit here and how you would be used next season. 00:10:47 Speaker 1: Yeah. It, I think it makes a lot of sense for multiple different reasons. Let's take a quick break and talk a little bit more about getting outfield help. 00:10:59 Speaker 3: Hey, everybody. 00:11:00 Speaker 5: It's the best time of the year for sports right now. You got the NFL. You got the NBA about to start. You got college football. You got hockey going on here. And the best part of all? You got the MLB playoffs. So if you want great seats to the LCS and then the World Series, wherever that is, go to SeatGeek. I've used SeatGeek many times for college football tickets, concert tickets. I don't really need it for baseball. I got that gold card. But for you out there, use SeatGeek for any playoff needs that you might have. 00:11:29 Speaker 2: Yeah, AJ, the best deals are on SeatGeek. 00:11:31 Speaker 6: With over 35 million downloads, SeatGeek is the number one rated ticketing app. And with SeatGeek being MLB's official ticket marketplace... 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Uh, One name that I just picked out looking for left fielders, someone that may not break the bank, but can, when I say maybe not left fielders, I mean left-handed bats. 00:12:47 Speaker 2: He does play left field a lot. Not well. 00:12:51 Speaker 1: You'd be sacrificing defense. Again, it's left field. You can probably get away with that. 00:12:57 Speaker 2: But J.J. 00:12:57 Speaker 1: Bleday makes some sense. It depends on the type of profile, I guess, you're looking for. Tyrone Taylor, right-handed, obviously

he's going to make a lot more contact. His power was way up this past season. I'm not sure if that's like a new reality for him. Like age 32, suddenly coming into a ton more power. Maybe that comes down. JJ Bladay's more power. You expect power, uh, crushes, uh, shouldn't say crushes does really well against righties. He's a productive bat, uh, against righties, uh, you'd want him to be a part-time player. I think that would be his best role. Maybe there's more in there. 00:13:39 Speaker 2: He's 29, 30, around there. 00:13:41 Speaker 1: But I think he's gotten enough chances to kind of say, like, hey, let's put him on a winning team in a part-time role. I think it could be a good move in the sense that it won't be something where you need to just completely overspend to get a guy coming off a crazy great year or something like that. 00:14:05 Speaker 2: Oh, wait, you're muted. 00:14:06 Speaker 4: I think, um, we're looking at this from a purely kind of free agent perspective, but I think it's probably important to note too, that. 00:14:18 Speaker 3: Maybe there are trades out there. Um, like if you're in midway through. 00:14:21 Speaker 4: This episode and being like, really, this is the list, like part, part-time players, like who knows if they traded, uh, and brought in pitching just as a hypothetical example. Maybe some of these position players look differently, but in the moment, I think it is all about these role players, a Milwaukee-style system. What the Padres did well, I think that was a big difference we saw. 00:14:50 Speaker 3: In talking to people around the Padres, just having a. 00:14:54 Speaker 4: Roster that just fit together better in part with these situational players. I think Michael Conforto did a great job for the Cubs. I just don't know how much of a raise he'll be expecting or how much more opportunities might be out there for him elsewhere. To me, it felt kind of like a perfect storm type of year, and I think bringing him back to expect that all over again, I mean, maybe it's possible. He certainly seemed to enjoy his teammates' success the experience, all of those things. 00:15:30 Speaker 3: So I guess I wouldn't rule that out. 00:15:33 Speaker 4: But I don't think you can kind of just run back the entire position player group and just subtract Seah. So that's kind of why we're looking at these role players here. 00:15:49 Speaker 1: I think one name that you should look at, look, I don't think the Cubs are going to spend on him. He's going to be $ 30, 000. I believe soon, uh, no 31, uh, Jake Bowers just had a monster season for the Brewers. 00:16:05 Speaker 2: I knew he was good. 00:16:06 Speaker 1: I don't think I realized it fully that he had a one 43 way to run square to plus. I mean, that's, uh, breakout season for Jake Bowers, uh, solid power above average power, uh, just kind of does everything well gets on base a ton. Uh, he's not a great defender obviously, but, uh, I think he's solid at first base. 00:16:31 Speaker 2: He's a lefty. 00:16:32 Speaker 1: So he's not gonna like, you can't really platoon him with Michael Bush, but you can, you know, it would be like DH and corner out like, you know, average to below average defense in the corner outfield spots, uh, I think could make sense. I, I just want to mention him because I think the reason I want to mention Jake Bowers is because of this. Uh, I'm not sure if he's a perfect fit because he's probably going to cost so much coming off the great season. This reminds me of when the Cubs signed Brandon Morrow and like the message after. 00:17:10 Speaker 2: That, after, you know, he was really good. 00:17:12 Speaker 3: Good call, good call. 00:17:13 Speaker 2: You know, like it's like they need to. 00:17:15 Speaker 1: Look for the year before. They need to look for the next Jake Bowers, right? Someone that's going to hit left-handed. that's going to play. He played a full season. Like Jake Bowers was a regular, but not even like, they don't even need that fully. They just need someone that isn't going to break the bank that, uh, can crush righties, uh, that, you know, that fits in, can play different positions, can handle DH corner outfield spots, maybe platoon a little bit, uh, uh, at another position like first base. But again, a lefty isn't going to platoon with Michael Bush. But I think Bowers is a good representation of the type of player. Nobody had him having that type of season. Milwaukee seems to maximize these guys really well. The Cubs aren't terrible at it with position players. The Cubs aren't bad at that. They're pretty good at it. In fact, they had a great bench this year, especially after they traded for Tyrone Taylor. you know, maybe a full season of Ian Happ and Tyrone Taylor platooning would have been, you know, would feel a lot. I don't think people would complain as much about like they have too many everyday players. 00:18:32 Speaker 2: They do. They did platoon. 00:18:33 Speaker 1: Well, I thought they did mix and match. Well, now it's going to be a different mix. So how do you make that happen? Who is the like Jake Bowers type? Who's this lefty that can come off the bench or, or platoon with, a Tyrone Taylor type, whatever it is with Matt Shaw, whatever in left field. I think, I think you need to look for that. Maybe it's JJ Bladet, like I mentioned before, but, or maybe it's someone that we're, that is off our radar. 00:19:00 Speaker 2: Maybe it's a small trade and you don't even notice. Cause I think that's how they acquired Jake Bowers too. 00:19:04 Speaker 1: The Brewers are probably like a, a trade that nobody noticed with the Yankees. They traded with the Yankees and I'm sure it wasn't like this trade that we were all breaking down at the time. 00:19:17 Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a great point because if you're a baseball fan who loves the hot stove coverage, like look at this list of free agents and you can understand of like, you're going to have to get creative.

You're going to have to see kind of around the corner of which players might pop. We know the Cubs are going to pour a ton of money into the pitching side. That's where all the resource, almost all the resources have to go. um and I do think you sometimes run into an issue of like you have to make your case to the free agent too like you could like the player but they have to see what the fit is and I bring that up because Paul Goldschmidt was a name the Cubs discussed last year uh they did not make an offer to my knowledge. And, but part of it was, if you bring in Paul Goldschmidt, you have to give him a certain role or a certain level of responsibility. And the Cubs wanted to see what they had in Michael Bush, who is still a very good player. It's hard to find almost like a better value deal or like way to upgrade the given all these other holes on the roster. He's a nice two-way player, did not take that step forward. He did not repeat his 2025 performance. He was one of, if not the most dangerous Cubs hitter during last year's playoffs. 00:20:57 Speaker 3: It was kind of a quiet year for him. He was productive. 00:21:02 Speaker 4: So it just makes me wonder if, you do look for more of a platoon partner. And yes, Goldschmidt is 39, but he's a right-handed hitter who hit 18 home runs in 380 plate appearances with the Yankees last year. He came out and said he's not planning to retire. 00:21:29 Speaker 3: He's a big name. 00:21:31 Speaker 4: His role would be somewhat different limited, but I think that's another way to think about how they could, uh, reconstruct this position player group. 00:21:41 Speaker 3: Yeah. 00:21:41 Speaker 1: I mean, it's, it was a weird year for Michael Bush as well. He actually did better against lefties than righties, but I, you know, like he was so like, he was above average against both. Um, but his power was just way down against righties. Uh, just like incredibly down. He slugged three 82 against, uh, Or against, what did I say? Lefties against righties. Yeah, I mean, again, like this, like, I think Goldschmidt makes sense in the sense that, like, you platoon him with Bush and give him some DH at bats. Ty France would be, like, a more expensive version of that, probably, coming off a breakout year, kind of like Jake Bowers, in a sense. Some names that we didn't really bring up, like Randy Rosarena, that's not going to be, like, The Cubs aren't shopping in that area for position players. 00:22:37 Speaker 2: They're just not. 00:22:38 Speaker 1: I think like you mentioned, if they make a big trade, if they acquire pitching by a trade, maybe then they spend on a bat. But that's why we're not talking about a Seiya Suzuki reunion. 00:22:50 Speaker 2: A Rosarena would be a nice fit, but. 00:22:53 Speaker 1: He's 32 and going to be one of the top bats. along with, say, Suzuki in this market. I just don't see the Cubs shopping at the top of the position player market. They do need to add. I don't think this is like just ignore position players. They need to be creative. They need to build that bench again with the idea that our bench is playing pretty regularly. I don't think, like I said earlier, they're not going into next season. They shouldn't go into next season saying, 155 starts for Matt Shaw, 155 starts for Pedro Ramirez. Those are our corner outfielders. That's incredibly risky. You can go into next season saying, like, 120 starts for those guys. Even then, I'd like a veteran, Tyrone Taylor, like we mentioned. It just makes more sense. Like, bring guys in that have had some sort of experience. Have them, like... These guys do these things well. We have a manager that knows how to maximize that. He's going to play against these types of pitchers, blah, blah, blah. I think those are the types of guys you're looking to bring in. These are not break the bank guys. They need to spend a majority of their resources on pitching. And I think that's why. So these names aren't sexy. These names aren't like the biggest names on the market. I think that's the direction they kind of have to go. I just don't think it makes any sense to be going after these really big names offensively. Unless they completely change their spending philosophy, which would be kind of weird right before a lockout and a potential complete change of the financial system. 00:24:34 Speaker 2: So I don't think that's happening. 00:24:38 Speaker 4: And even those position player side names are not relatively large in the grand scheme of things. 00:24:46 Speaker 2: They just aren't. 00:24:47 Speaker 4: And that's why we think Say is going to get paid and why we think Ian Happ is going to wind up with a pretty nice market as an everyday player, a gold glove defender. 00:25:00 Speaker 3: There aren't that many players out there. 00:25:02 Speaker 4: In general, and this is not a good offseason to be shopping for position players. 00:25:07 Speaker 2: Absolutely. 00:25:07 Speaker 3: All right. 00:25:08 Speaker 1: That's it for this episode. Thanks so much for listening. This is Northside Territory. Make sure to rate, review, subscribe. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and subscribe to The Athletic where Patrick and I are on top of all things Cubs. 00:25:20 Speaker 2: Thanks for listening and watching, everyone. Take care.