EMERGENCY POD: Alex Bregman To The Chicago Cubs! | CHGO Cubs Podcast

Hey Chicago, what do you say it's an emergency edition of the CHTO Cubs podcast, unlock the possibilities

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And yes, boy, we're really making this whole true today, Cubs, over everything.

That's right.

It's all off season to make this massive move and they do it in the fourth quarter of

a Bears playoff game.

I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing.

It's a good thing because I'm depressed watching this game right now.

I get a text from Corey Freeman.

He's like Alex Breggman.

My brain just completely shuts down.

I black out.

I get up.

I can't even type on my keyboard if we're doing a show or not.

I can't believe it.

We have Alex Breggman, Nico Horner, Danzby Swanson, Pete Crow Armstrong.

We have a squad.

We have a squad for the next remaining five years to finish off this decade.

I am beyond ecstatic, Luke.

That is Brendan Miller, Cubs related podcast as well.

I'm Luke Stuckmeyer.

This is what we do.

And we say Cubs over everything.

That's because we're saying, listen, over everything.

And yes, we're not all the other stations out there.

Everybody's just sitting waiting for the end of the Bears game.

No, no, no, no, no.

This is a Cubs story.

We're doing Cubs.

And you can listen to it when you want to listen to it.

Listen, I have no hobbies.

All I do is wash baseball and the Cubs.

When the Cubs aren't playing, I just download every highlight from last year.

Like I just breathe the Chicago Cubs for better or for worse.

I got no life but the Chicago Cubs.

So this is what you get.

That's right.

And yes, you may see us looking up at the Bears game occasionally, but that's the deal.

So the deal is, Heyman had it first then pass and Alex Breggman, the guy they went

after last year, but didn't get.

He wanted to come here and we've been waiting to see him.

We always thought it was kind of weird that, you know, the Cubs obviously need a bat because

they're going to lose their right field, right?

So we knew they needed a bat, but Shaw was pretty good at points last year.

And so it was like, what are they going to do?

And we've heard these different rumors.

The deal is five years, $175 million for Alex Breggman.

He is a legit third baseman.

He is a legit bat in your lineup, middle of your lineup.

And according to Jesse Rogers, there is a no trade clause along with this deal.

You know, with trade them for five years, and let's see what's to go back somewhere

else.

Here's the interesting thing now.

We don't know.

We don't know where it goes from here, but Brendan, I said on our podcast the other day,

this was a week ago before they had done anything.

And I said, all right.

My New Year's resolution is this.

If if Jed can somehow pull off getting a top of the end rotation type guy, whether it's

trade or signing, and they can still get this bat, whoever that bat might be, I won't question

Jed Hoyer, the rest of 2026, I'll just let it play out.

I won't call any questions out about why did he do this?

Why didn't they do that?

I won't question it.

We know there's a budget on this thing.

He pulled it off in less than a week, like he bang, bang, he makes the trade for Cabrera

and now he goes and gets this guy, Braggman.

I say hats off.

I know there's a lot of people that believe in Sean.

It's not that I don't believe in Shaw.

There is more certainty in Alex Braggman.

And you have so many guys on this roster that are if they can do this this year, Braggman

will do what Braggman does.

The question is what happens to Matt Shaw?

You point out Matt Shaw, he was good last year in a second half.

He had a strong second half boom where the power came up.

In fact, he put a better offensive numbers than Alex Braggman in that second half.

So obviously our mind goes to what do you do with Matt Shaw?

I have the same question.

So Luke, I don't know if you saw this.

What I did is I downloaded every single projection from Fangraff's depth chart and I made

a simulation.

I said, hey.

Listen.

I need Matt Shaw to get 500 player appearances.

Can this work?

In my simulation said, oh, yeah, it can work.

In fact, if you optimize total number of projected wins, the number of player appearances

that Matt Shaw will get would be 522 on the dot.

So that means Alex Braggman can get a full slate of player appearances.

Danzby Swanson, Nico Horner, you dial back at that from voices by Stero's by about 80

player appearances.

You dial back at that from Michael Bush by about 50 and everyone gets their fair share

of play.

The reason is you use that DH spot.

You shift around Braggman from third days.

He can spell Nico.

Nico can spell Danzby at Shorestop.

And you get the insurance policy that if Danzby or Nico goes down, well, guess what?

You just slot in your other gold glove from second place to play gold glove Shorestop.

Or you slot in your former World Series champion, Alex Braggman to play second base or you're

booming gold glove third base and from last year of Matt Shaw.

It's a perfect scenario and it mitigates so much risk for this roster.

So your hope is that moving forward as they go here, that they won't trade Nico.

Obviously, I know you're thinking that because that would end you.

They won't trade Nico and they won't trade Shaw.

They'll keep everybody.

They'll use Shaw as this super utility guy.

Nico's on the last year of his deal.

We'll see what happens with that, right?

But this gives the Cubs a little flexibility there too if they want to.

Am I putting words in your mouth?

You're hoping that everybody stained and this doesn't.

Of course.

Certainly that somebody's getting traded.

Now, you never know what the front office is thinking.

The pessimism as well, the front office and ownership.

They have payroll restrictions.

Maybe this does loom large for a Nico trade.

I would be surprised if they did that because then if they were to sign

pregnant and immediately trade Nico, well, you negate the value you just brought up.

So I would be shocked if they trade Nico.

Now once 26 does end, you can't discount the possibility that Nico will treat himself

as a shortstop on the 27th re-Asian market.

And frankly, he should, given what short stops are paid and because he's in the prime

at the tail end of his prime athleticism, he could get more money as a shortstop.

So it does give the Cubs another option after this season.

But no, for 2026, I would be floored if they trade Nico.

And in fact, signing pregnant only adds value to this roster because Nico can also be included

in that positional debt that shortstop.

Do you think, before this happened, before tonight, before they interrupted the game,

and the bears are only down three now, before they interrupted our bears fandom, were you

more pregnant over Besht?

Yo, yeah.

So let me tell you over Besht.

Let me tell you the story of how this happened.

So the offseason stars, I'm looking at the pitching and I'm thinking, oh my god, you

know, Shoda just denied that two-year extension.

We have no pitching depth.

And all of a sudden, you get call in a ray.

You bring back Shoda on a qualifying offer and you start seeing a lot of the money spent

on, I believe, now five total bullpen arms.

And you're thinking, oh man, like, where's this money going to go?

You can't probably afford a starting pitcher or two.

Now I'm obsessed with Alex Brugman.

So I have not stopped thinking about Brugman for the past week.

I put out a tweet five days ago of thinking, you know what, I want Edward Cabrera in Alex

Brugman.

That's my ideal offseason.

That was your top ceiling move.

That was it as of a week ago.

And so of course, Jed Horier, he follows me and every single friend office exactly follows

me.

He's like, oh, this makes a lot of sense.

I put out this simulation for a war, of course, you know, they only make moves based on

what I want.

Next thing you know, 40 hours later, Alex Brugman's a Chicago cup.

Yeah.

So what grade do we give Jed Horier at this point?

I mean, look at what Jed Horier has done.

He's added like five bullpen guys.

He's basically rebuilt the bullpen.

He's kept Shoda.

He kept Colin Ray and he's added Cabrera in a trade trading away, Casey.

So really, I can't say that, I can't say that the farm system is depleted.

I will say that I believe now we can say almost officially that say is your full time

right, fielder and Biosteros will be your DH.

What do you think of that?

I think that's the likely outcome as the offseason stands right now.

The surprising aspect of this contract is the annual average value of 35 million before

he was signed, according to future tax projections, the Cubs were about 32 million underneath

that first tier.

So that's the case.

Then Sani Brugman puts them over that first tier right away and then he started thinking,

well, can they even sign another guy to iron out this outfield depth?

Are they going to lock and load with Tyler Austin and Kevin, I'm sorry, and those five

guys in the outfield?

I would imagine what you laid out with Biosteros getting that bet, probably around 300 unless

he starts to progress is a likely outcome.

And then you hope that you can get some production of Cabrera as your outfield of depth.

What about the idea that I'm kind of slinging out there of the Cubs from the very beginning

that strategy I wanted the Cubs to take was do something different.

Go out there and stockpile starters like nobody's doing.

Like nobody's doing.

Well, you know what, you got a year before this potential work stop, but you go out there

and throw out a six or seven man rotation, start piggybacking guys all season, right?

And then if you get to the point where you don't need guys, you can do anything you want

to the trade deadline.

Did you see what the price of pitching was last year?

Yeah.

If you get to the trade deadline and you're winning your division or you think you're

not going to need certain guys because your rotation looks healthy because steel is

come back into the picture because maybe Jackson Wiggins has come into the picture.

Then you can trade a shoulder or a tie on at the end and either rebuild your farm system

or go get what you really need for that stretch run, build a surplus and stock load your pitching

staff with starters, not just relievers, more starters and additional starters.

That would be a pipe dream.

If you're in a position where you're trading, let's say, Tyrone or show it at the deadline,

and then, you know, Kate Hortons, this, the true next coming of Jake area, that would

be a pipe dream.

I think Luke, like the realistic outcome is that of the current 11 starting pitchers,

you're going to fill what you need in your eyes for a full season.

So inevitably, someone's going to go down, whether it be Tyrone, half of them have injury

hit for you.

He's trying to have them go down, not kind of what exactly.

So that's the likely scenario.

And when I was gearing up for the off season, there was one phrase that stuck with me in

Jed Hoyer's end of season press conference.

And he was asked about why the moves at the deadline for pitching were, and this is

again, all paraphrasing, why were they so like muted?

Like why wasn't there maybe more of an effort to bolster that pitching beyond Siroka?

And the explanation he gave was that the market at last year's deadline was too hot.

That pitching value was valued higher than previous seasons, which then prohibited him

from going out and trading, for example, Cabrera and giving up mass shock and Owen Casey.

So the market was too hot.

It reminded me of the 2024 presser when he was talking about bullpen depth.

And now the bullpen depth wasn't up to standard.

Next thing you know, last off season, they're saying bullpen relievers might only contract

the bread color types left and right.

So I'm thinking, oh, what if they do something similar this off season?

And it's almost as if they took that bullpen strategy from 24 and free agency and the

off season market and they applied at the starting pitching side.

So now you have this huge depth in your bullpen.

You have this depth in your starting rotation.

And you may not even have to make a move at the trade deadline.

If the market is just as hot as it was last July.

Let me tell you the mood of Cubs Convention coming up a week from today.

They always do this.

Shoda?

I mean, it went from being people picketing outside Cubs Convention to they will get

a massive applause now for what they have done this off season.

I'm not going to give a grade for it because I don't know yet.

But they did, they did accomplish some things that if you would have told me midway through

the season.

And we didn't know what Tucker's outcome was.

Everybody thought it was all in for Tucker, right?

Like you have to sign Tucker, you have this great player.

And I don't even know where he's going to end up now.

Like I didn't want to really necessarily go down the Belinger road again, not that he's

a bad player.

I just, I like, I do like this route.

I think it's smart.

I think it's in field depth that with Nico up next year, give you some flexibility.

It allows me to do whatever you want with Shaw.

Exactly.

It creates more roads and more avenues to sustain your success.

Yes.

You brought up right there the Nico flexibility.

That's a positional flexibility as well.

You're distracted washing the miss a field goal right now.

I'm distracted washing the miss a field goal right now, what am I talking about?

I'm talking about the Cubs, right?

Cubs related, right?

But it gives the Cubs more flexibility to improve not just in 26, but beyond as well.

If like say Nico does go out and test the market as you should, where I fall back on my excitement

level is in addition to like the wins he provides and projections.

What I mean is I missed it.

The culture fit.

That's what I was saying.

He missed a field goal.

Mr.

field goal.

But I'm saying is the culture fit for Breggman and this team from my perspective, Luke.

Yeah.

I gravitate towards those personality types the most.

I've enjoyed washing Nico developed for the past eight years as a cub because he has

that intensity level.

And Jake Hirietta was coming out of his shell from 2013, 2014.

I loved his mound presence.

You loved Ryan Sandberg because he was the ultimate professional, the ultimate guy.

No nods as high intensity.

You get that with Alex Breggman.

So seeing Dan's B and Breggman and Nico share an infield and the intensity and the mentorship

he brings to pre-Crow Armstrong from an entertainment standpoint from a narrative standpoint.

It's compelling.

It's really interesting and really entertaining and it takes me back to a lot of the reasons

why last core was so fun because of the personality types.

It's not dry.

It's really compelling what this roster will look like next year.

You know, I think the biggest question about the Breggman stuff for a lot of fans that

are huge fans of Matt Shaw is, well, why?

You have this guy that's so cheap and under control.

And didn't you see his second half and his numbers were better than Breggman's in the

second half?

And I think the easy response is yes, did you also see his postseason, which is a short sample

size, but did you see it and did you see the first half?

And while I still believe greatly in Matt Shaw, as I was mentioning at the top of this,

there's still way more uncertainty with him than Alex Breggman.

I think the Cubs will, I think the Cubs will hang on to him.

I think they will use all of these players.

And when I look at the team now, I ask myself, is this a better mix right now than what

they had last year?

I think I think I mean, I don't see how you couldn't say that like because Tucker was,

if you had Tucker at his peak, then then you have a different story.

So I think you look at this time last year.

It's important to remember that while our ceiling expectations of Tucker were that of a

top five player, he had injuries and years past that, that dampened projections for him.

He was projected last year, Luke.

I know you're a big numbers guy, big war guy, you know, I love him.

He was a 4.7 more projection less.

I got no heat master year right now, but Tucker was a 4.7 war projection last year.

Breggman's 4.1, they're projected to provide similar value.

So when you say, oh, well, I feel better about this team this year than last year,

the response back to you is going to be, well, Tucker is the obvious bat because he has slug.

That's true, but Breggman's valuable in a similar fashion because of the positional flexibility

and the plate approach that he brings to combine with that positional flexibility.

So is this team better than last year?

Undeniably, yes.

You have now a built-in insurance policy for injuries with similar projected positional war

and now your depth in the starting rotation, bringing back Shota Imanaga, Colin Ray,

Kate Horton's projection, Justin Steele is still projected to be in above average picture,

and everyone 100 innings next year, you have more confidence in the value of your existing roster,

especially now with Matt Shaw's good and bad, where you know what that looks like,

and not p-cruirbs wrong having a full year under his belt.

All right. Here's what I say. There's two minutes left in this pairs game.

Yeah. How distracted are you right now?

I'm distracted. You're the ultimate provisional.

We're going to wrap this up in a second so people can listen to it probably after

after this game is over because there's a lot of distracted people.

But give me your good, better, best, never let it rest for the Cubs this off season so far.

Well, when your good gets better, yeah, and your better gets best.

I hope we're going to hear that tonight.

I hope so. Really hoping we're going to hear that tonight.

I believe when camp opens, you're going to see this really exciting mixture

of development from young players mixed in with veteran leadership, veteran intensity,

and you're going to see a lot of unexpected performances from minor league pitching signings.

You're going to see Shaw come look a little bit better.

I believe my optimistic side is that this is the ideal mix of veteran leadership, veteran

projected value, prospect ceiling, and depth.

If you were to mold a team relatively speaking underneath our perceived financial restraints,

this is my ideal roster from an entertainment perspective and a value perspective.

Defense all around intensity all around give me 20 pictures.

I got half of tread athletics in a minor leagues over there.

Pitchin every storyline that we will follow has a level of intrigue that I am not familiar

with from years past. Do they still need a left handed bat?

Another one. I don't think they do.

I think right now the positional value they project is sufficient.

I think the roster is for where to go into the season next year.

There's enough value enough confidence to start the season as is.

It doesn't mean they won't need to improve as the season progresses,

but I do believe right now they have what they need.

I also don't think they have to trade either of those guys.

I don't think they have to trade Nico.

All right, let's wrap this up.

Let everybody enjoy their bears finish.

Bears with a chance down three minutes to go.

Let's see if they do enjoy it, but yeah, this is it.

But Alex Braggman, the big story, Alex Braggman,

that Cubs interrupt the Bears game five years, 175 million,

a no trade clause, but the Cubs have their third basement and more.

For next season Cubs convention coming up.

We'll have more coming up on Braggman.

I'm sure throughout the weekend and also Monday Tuesday Wednesday all next week.

And then a coverage of the convention as well.

Brendan, thanks for jumping out with me so we can get something out there.

I just need a look.

Good to see you.

You're going to have some heat maps out there for us.

I don't have so many heat maps here.

I'm going to break your eyesight.

Oh, man, I can't wait for this.

We're going to be covering these skittles all around Luke.

Skittles all around tropical skittles.

I'm going in front of a fire and just watch heat maps on my computer.

That's my life.

Thanks for checking out the CHTO Cubs.

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Don't forget to follow us on Twitter as well and on social media.

For Brendan Miller, I'm Luke Stuckmar, Cubs get Braggman.

Until next time, thanks for watching and fly the W.