CHGO Cubs Related: Does Difference Between 1st Half & 2nd Half Cubs Matter in 2026?

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Chicago Cubs President Jed Hoyer suggested that the first half and second half differences are not an anomaly. Corey and Brendan contrast those differences — and why the Cubs front office may be think this way on today’s CHGO Cubs Related Podcast.

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On tonight’s edition of the CHGO Cubs related podcast, we are about 24 hours from the World Series beginning, but for the Cubs, we enter into the off season. Talk about a tale of two halves in 2025 and the implications for 2026 on tonight’s edition of the CHDO Cubs related podcast. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Heat. Heat. This is the DHGO Cubs related podcast driven by Toyota. Let’s go places. Hello everyone. My name is Corey. I am joined as always by Brendan. We are coming to you on Thursday. It is October 23rd and as I alluded to in our opening here, we are just a day away from the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays beginning the 2025 World Series. Of course, uh Brendan, unless the rules have changed, that means it doesn’t include the Chicago Cubs. So, we are in offseason mode. We are waiting to finish the World Series so that the Cubs can make some moves and we can really dive into how Jed Hoyer and company construct the 2026 Chicago Cubs. I will say at first, Brendan, I I think across sports, you have to consider this a good day for the Chicago Cubs as nobody with the organization was arrested by the FBI uh for gambling today. So, that’s a good start. I mean, as far as we know, we’ll see what happens tomorrow. The night is young. Yeah, the night is young. Crazy crazy day, Gordy. The the night is young. Yes. Uh, but plenty to talk about here. Uh, if you looked at our title, I think the outline for today’s show is as we head into the off season, the 2025 season for the Chicago Cubs was certainly marked by a a tale of two halves. a a first half that saw a an explosive offense, some major major performances from certain guys, and while the second half was not necessarily bad, the Cubs were a few games over 500, uh, a big disparity in in the two teams that we saw, we’ll talk about what are the reasons for that. And I think more particularly, as Jed Hoyer alluded to in his end of season press conference, what do we make of that? Does it matter? Does it affect how we go into 2026? Is it the makeup of some of these players? Is it the roster construction? Is it the randomness of baseball? We’ll get into some of that. Uh I’ll start though, Brendan, before we dive in to all of that uh with the Chicago Cubs. I feel like this goes without saying, but it’s a you know, normal topic that people on baseball podcast talk about. I’m assuming you’re pulling for the Toronto Blue Jays come tomorrow. Is there a World Series going on? The baseball season ended for me two weeks ago. I’m done. But to answer your question, yes, I Yeah, I’m pulling for Toronto. But I’m already looking at the AFL. I’m looking at Ethan Conrad taking batting practice. Swing looks pretty good. Really good swing. I’m already thinking GM meetings in three weeks. Like the World Series will be fun. I have moved on. 2025 is a thing of the past. Uh yeah, and I, you know, I think one of the things we talk about each year, uh, when the World Series comes around, when the Cubs haven’t been in it, I I think I usually ask you, do you think is there anything for us to take from the two teams that are actually in it? And I I don’t think so. I mean, what I what I what I remember is what’s behind me. Every time I see the World Series logo, I’m like, “Oh, yeah, we won one of those nine years ago.” You know, the years keep adding up. But truthfully, I look at teams like Seattle, I mean, crushing loss. I feel genuinely bad for their fans. I look at Cleveland over the years, San Diego, spending all that money. They’re not winning World Series, right? Yeah. The windows always seem longer than they are, and they close suddenly and abruptly for many teams. But you know what we did, Corey? We got that World Series ring. We got the one. I will be saying that till the day I we live through the one. Now that doesn’t mean that we’re we can’t complain about the roster and these other things. 55 minutes or four. But for now, for now, I feel pretty good. No, I think that was a more interesting question perhaps a few years ago, like when Arizona made the World Series. And I think it was relevant to at least discuss how do GMs approach this? Do they feel, you know, as some speculate like just go for that mid80s thing and hope you can sneak in? But Toronto is a team that spends money. Uh certainly was willing to spend more money as as we saw from some of those free agent reports. Uh and obviously the Dodgers are the standard. The way the Dodgers are doing it this year is very different than last World Series run. I mean their entire starting. Pishy step is healthy. Yamamoto Glass now Snell Show they’re all starting. I mean quite frankly four of the best starting pitchers from a stuff perspective we’ve seen in decades right last World Series run was more of a bullpen game Jack Flity getting guys who did not produce during the year in a point of pitching productive benions very different shapes if you will which is you know to tie it full circle what Jre Hoyer was talking about this past week on the shape of seasons and teams and whether it’s random or Not. Yeah. I also finishing on some, you know, World Series thoughts, although this is an ALS thought, I I’m quite confident that if you put the Cubs in that exact situation, it’s Brad Keller pitching to George Springer and we are not sitting here with I think it was Joe Davis asking like, “Why is the closer in the bullpen? Why is it not the closer now? This is the moment. This is the game.” I I think that was a good example. Not that Craig Council is the first to do it, but we talked so much throughout the season of like who’s the closer and like doesn’t really matter. What matters is who’s the guy you go to when the fire is on and who’s the guy you’re looking to like hey this is the game and I feel reasonably confident we would not be sitting here saying what were they doing like why was this guy just sitting in the bullpen so not tobody feel better but no I mean poor Seattle right have to talk about that the entire offseason I mean Cal rallies crying in the dugout or in the clubhouse yeah Brian well and I mean that’s a brutal way to go down for a team that’s never been um you know to feel like you had it. And I mean, especially they were up 20 in Seattle, winning that game, game three, two to nothing, and it they did not end up in Well, I feel bad for Seattle Mariner, Nicoer, too. You know, he lost as well, right? After the great season, who who was that? Uh, Castillo or Brian Woo were going to have for the Cubs. It was Brian Woo. That’s right. And we’ll see if those rumors start again, though. I would hope after the season that Nicoer had, uh, they do not. So, what Yeah. Yeah, I mean what we wanted to get into, I think there’s going to be plenty of time in this off season and these shows and I know Luke and Joey and the guys are going to talk about this too uh on CHGO Cubs, but you know, we can look into should they sign Alex Bregman, should they sign Pete Alonzo, should they resign Kyle Tucker, stuff like that, but there’s plenty of time for that. I I I don’t know that we need to get into that now. Uh we talked about it a little bit last week and some of this conversation will veer into that. But I think until the World Series is over, you start to get arbitration figures, non-tenders and and real conversation about these free agents, I don’t want to have the same conversation five weeks in a row where we just well Pete Alonzo would look great, but what are they going to do with Matt Shaw? So what we wanted to do in this episode was talk about that specific topic. Um, and appreciate I see Daniel in our YouTube chat offering his thoughts. If you have thoughts on this, we we appreciate it. We are reading them. Um, two halves for the Cubs. So, looking at we’ll look at some of the the bigger offensive numbers, I think, is where that disparity really shows out. But, as most of you know, first half for the Chicago Cubs, they were 57 and 39. They had a run differential. They scored 512 runs and gave up 393 runs in the second half. Both of those differentials shrink. They were 35 and 31 and they scored 281 runs and gave up 256. So, uh, a big disparity in those things. Um, we could look at the pitching as well, but I think initially the focus here on the offense. So, as Jed Hoyer was talking about, like what did that mean? Why did that happen? Is it something that they can predict for the future? And I think especially Brendan, the the key to me about this conversation is, as we’ve talked about, unless Jed and company really, you know, look to move some guys, trade some guys, or maybe sign a free agent that pushes someone like Matt Shaw into more of a super utility 2016 Javier Bayz kind of role. You have a lot of guys kind of locked into roles based on their contract, their performance. Uh, so without some trades, there’s not a ton of space to just, it’s different than other off seasonasons where you have big openings at positions. Well, like, hey, let’s sign a free agent catcher and a free agent shortstop and a free agent center fielder. Like, this Cubs team has a lot of guys sort of locked in. So I think the key to this question is how do we look at how they performed in 2025 and some of the extreme peaks and valleys and what do we make of that as we look ahead to 2026. Yeah. And Jed Hoyer po poured cold water over the topic of is there meaningful signal in the first half and second half. It appeared as if he chocked it up to randomness and he talked about other teams, Yankees, Dodgers. You look at the, you know, quoteunquote juggernauts this year and over the years, you do have that month-to-month variance teamwide of offensive production. I will say I think that’s too zoomed out. I agree with you. I I disagree that there isn’t signal there. The signal is going to be projected in the 2026 numbers. Sea Suzuki’s 340 weight on base average average second half is going to be projected by a dip in his overall projection and not dip in terms of previous years dip in what you and I the fan thought he was achieving in 2025. So there is signal there. the signal is that the first half we saw some of those booming emergences from PCA from Seiya, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t as good as you and I thought it could be. And so I think if you look at it from that perspective, then you start thinking, okay, well then the projection is going to be the same entering 2025 from the front offic’s perspective and our perspective and by all these different outlets perspective. If that’s the case, you’re losing Kyle Tucker. And I know there’s a lot of annoyance with Tucker second half and the injuries, but you’re losing five wins above replacement. You’re not buying that in one player on the market unless you bring Tucker back. How are you going to bring in five wins in right field or a different position? And there’s no obvious guy on the market like you talked about. So, I do think as we sit here now, expecting this team to be better next season relies on younger players taking those next steps. I imagine that could happen. I’m not comfortable with that. You know how I am as a fan. I want confidence and right now you are not going to get confidence in the 26 projections unless you make moves outside the organization. Yeah, I I I do think it’s, you know, it’s somewhere in the middle. I think waving it off as completely meaningless doesn’t necessarily work for me. Um it’s, you know, it it there there is a randomness to it, right? Like baseball has a lot of randomness to it. um who you’re facing stretches where you face really good pitching travel and just you know we’ve seen this like certain guys Ian Hap is a great example of this like a guy who’s overall numbers at the end of the year usually are very consistent very solid for his position the money he’s making all those things but if you only looked at that you would be missing somewhat of like how does that actually come about in the season and and we did see this from this team like this offense was not consistent and often, you know, struggled a bit in in the grand scheme of things in that second half. We also saw some of these guys, you know, with really drastic differences in those and that’s why they won 92 games, which again, it’s a lot of wins, but it’s the reason they’re not winning 95 plus. My comfort level is 95 plus. So when they’re not winning 95, those valleys you talk you’re talking about it doesn’t sit well with me. There is a time there in the end of May, early June that I’m thinking those valleys are not going to be real for us that we’re going to be extended beyond that. And I think some of the middle ground comes from too Brendan like some of it when I say randomness like some of it is just the way things line up. We talk about sequencing within the game, but in the grand scheme of a season, it also works in a similar fashion. Like sometimes injuries just pile up at the wrong time, or you have guys with extreme hot stretches at the same time and extreme cold stretches at the same time. Part of which is baked into who they are as players and the way you may project them. But ultimately like it’s not it’s not it’s unlikely that it’s something where you can attribute a great reason as to why some of the guys are struggling at the same time and we ask those questions like man what happened to these guys all you know in in this second half in this year I think in particular it was like Bush and Seiya and PCA kind of struggled right around that like all-star break time coming out of the all-star break all at the same time like I don’t think there’s grand reason for that like, oh, you know, there was a a bug going around the clubhouse or they they were all working on a mechanical change that was bad. It unfortunately just happens at the same time. So, some of it is part of this like overall just big picture like baseball randomness, but I I at the same time I I don’t think you can write it off as not something you have to take a look at when you’re figuring out the identity of this team and trying to get better going into next year. Some of it you’re going to be able to control. Some of it you won’t. But we’ll keep diving in. We’re going to hit our first ad break here and then we’ll continue talking about 2025 and how Jed can build for 2026. Whatever the moment, it’s never ordinary at bet365. And right now, new customers get $200 in bonus bets when you bet just $5. Win or lose, just sign up. Use code ch365. Deposit $10. Place a $5 bet to unlock $200 in bonus bets. You can use them on spreads, totals, player props, futures, and more. Plus, check out these offers. You can plug depending what you’re looking at. You want to bet basketball, you want to bet football, you want to bet baseball World Series, you can win early. If your team, let’s say you bet the Blue Jays, your team goes ahead by five runs. You can bet straight parlays in those lux. So whether it’s football, baseball, or building a wild parlay, bet 365 makes every moment bigger. In breaking news, it’s playoff season again. 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Go to all CHGO.com for the latest information on how you can join the thousands of CHGO dieards in our community. We cannot wait to connect with you on an even greater level. All right, Brendon. I I think one of the key disparities that we can look at from the first half and the second half uh are two of the hottest hitters. They kind of carry the offense a bit in that first half, especially early April, May, March, I guess, to Kyle Tucker and Carson Kelly. So, Kyle Tucker in the first half uh as defined by fan graphs. You can obviously change these samples however you want. uh 145 W wrc plus 375 weighted on base average. Carson Kelly 151 WRC plus 385 weighted on base average. Those numbers in the second half 115 and 333 for Kyle Tucker. Carson Kelly much lower 69 and 265 for Carson Kelly. So, I think that that was, you know, certainly something uh where you got those big performances and they really carried things. And I I think in particular with Tucker, that’s one of the areas that I think some of the fan base that has kind of moved on from him completely. Uh based on how kind of the the season finished with the injuries and, you know, rolling over to first all the time and the numbers going down. Like part of the reason that they had that cushion and could kind of stomach some of the stuff that happened in the second half was because of that big performance in the first half, especially by these two guys, not just these two guys alone. Um, but that is certainly something and uh Daniel in our YouTube chat raised a good point. Now this is obviously very difficult to uh quantify or you know really confirm or deny but it is fair I think to wonder what effect those guys being redot especially like those early months where you know Kyle Tucker was hovering around a thousand ops. We were comparing Carson Kelly to Barry Bonds for a number of reasons mostly satirical but some of which were legitimate in terms of his swing changes. Um, but it is, you know, it’s it’s reasonable, I think, for us as fans to wonder like, did that help some of the other guys in the lineup? Was a hot PCA start improved or at least affected by the fact that you had two guys at least at the top of this order that, you know, it was if as if we were playing uh, you know, NBA hangtime or whatever, like their shoes were on fire. Like these guys were absolutely on fire. Did that kind of set things up for some of these other guys through the lineup? Again, very difficult to figure out. We’d have to know how they were pitching some of these guys and if it was affected by that, but certainly when you have a couple guys that look as though you cannot get them out, right? Like did that affect the deeper part of the lineup? that when those guys struggle in the second half, Kyle Tucker really just coming down to like a normal good hitter versus his kind of superstar first half. Carson Kelly not great in that second half. Um, you know, so you do and and I think the Kelly thing in particular, Brendan, really we saw that effect. Uh, and apologies for my like wild train of thought here, but Kelly in particular, I think one of the big things that played into the second half conversation once he cooled down and didn’t look like the Barry Bonds we were talking about. That’s when we started to really get the daily, well, this guy shouldn’t be hitting fifth. Who should be hitting fifth? He can’t hit fifth. Danby can’t hit fifth. you gotta get Carson Kelly out of the four spot, you gotta get Carson Kelly out of the five spot. That’s when we really started to see kind of the like, oh, okay, is this lineup as deep as it kind of seemed for those first few months? And these are, you know, questions that they have to answer as they’re building the team next year where right now you don’t have Kyle Tucker at all. And those first half booming performances you’re talking about Carson Kelly, Kyle Tucker, Suzuki, it did allow for the iteration process of of Matt Shaw. Shaw was one of the worst offensive contributors in the first half, but in the second half on the team, he was one of the most valuable bats in that lineup. So in the second half, only Ian Hap had a higher WRC plus than Matt Shaw. Shaw in the second half his WRC plus was 130 weight on base average 354. Ian Hab was nearly 370 for his WBA and 140 for his WRC plus. So when we’re talking over the years about allowing guys to develop and having the space to develop. I think for you you’ve mentioned about the pressure right having guys may not succumb to pressure because they’re batting fourth, fifth or sixth while developing. For me, the way I interpreted that was, well, you allow these guys to adjust because you’re topheavy producing value due to superstars. Kyle Tucker as the example, say Suzuki as one of the examples in the first half. And because you produce so many runs, that lower end failing iteration process allowed Shaw to find what eventually did work for him because of that failure. When those bats are not available, we’re not producing runs obviously in the first half, but it makes those glaring developmental timelines even more glaring. It stands out more. And once you can mirror it together where you have let’s say second half Kyle Tucker or second half say Suzuki matching what you saw in the first half then Matt Shaw’s boom is even more glaringly good. Ian Hap’s performance in the second half stands out more and you become that 95 plus win team. The fear is that we’re not going to have that next year unless you get Carson Kelly 2.0 Barry Bonds in the first half. It’s difficult to imagine without a Kyle Tucker how you can confidently get one of those uh guys to come out of their uh you know shell. Moes baseros Casey and so on. Yeah, I think they’re going to continue banking on some of that regardless. I mean, every team is to some degree, but we’ve heard Jed specifically talk about internal improvements, uh, you know, growth from that perspective and especially again, you know, just with the way that they’ve spent money, whether we like it or not, and the lack of, you know, a lot of space to just throw, you know, three free agent bats or something like that into this lineup. You’re going to be banking on some of that, right? you’re going to be banking on Matt Shaw to maybe not necessarily take that same leap that we saw from PCA in the first half, but to be much more like the second half version that had what, a 130 WRC plus uh and who had a better second half than Alex Bregman that everybody’s talking about. But you need him Alex Bregman’s on the team next year. Listen, I’m I liked it last off season. I still like it now. Uh I think there’s I don’t know, right? I mean, it’s gonna set up a longer discussion throughout the offseason. That that one honest maybe depends on the contract, but yeah, I mean, they’re they’re gonna have to inject reliable offense into this if they don’t I feel like when we’re talking about the offense and I get some of the frustration with Tucker, I do, but I’m I’m not satisfied with the alternative right now. if Tucker’s not coming back, we’re always, you know, criticizing the front office for not buying more like certainty. And then at the same time, I’m doing this too. It’s like, all right, well, at least I don’t have to deal with Tucker’s injury. Like, at least I don’t have to worry about Tucker’s age decline. But what I don’t put in the forefront of my head is how are you going to replace five wins? like that is so important and I I I don’t see how right now this team enters next season as an obvious improved offensive team. I don’t see that path forward without creativity and it gives me a lot of concern and I feel as if we’re pushing aside the Tucker situation a little bit too much and I don’t really think we should be doing that. I I mean I’m not I’m still quite interested in him. I think a lot of the pushing aside is related to just one I think you know there’s like I said a lot of people are just particularly frustrated with how that played out and I think two a lot of people are just like resigning themselves to that they’re not going to do it and I think they’ve given up on that exercise even if it’s not even if it’s not Tucker it’s like oh well who’s who’s coming in play right field like who’s going to be hitting 280 say he’s playing right field well who’s going to be DH Right. Right now Casey and you just hope and pray to God that everything comes together. No. Like that’s what’s I don’t I don’t want them to do this, but you you and I joked about this like you can hear Jed saying it, can’t you? Like of course you can. So there there’s two there’s two thinking sides to this. One is which I understand and I’m guilty of it too. It’s like all right well Tucker’s not coming back. The injuries whatever it could be a good thing. The second side and the to me when you really think about this the most pertinent side is well who is replacing Tucker and Vangrass proje projections last year for the Cubs were 83 it wasn’t that high pota was 91 okay but going from 83 to plus 90 without Tucker in that projection is not going to happen. you take Tucker out of this, you’re looking at an upper 80s win projection. And that’s just unacceptable in in in my fans point of view. And right now, it seems that’s the likely outcome unless you get super creative. And I hope they do get super creative. Yeah. Uh before we hit another ad break here, and I a couple things I want to note on the offense, too. Uh I see our guy uh Jansen in the YouTube chat. I think he’s waiting for the Blackhawks podcast, which our Blackhawks crew does an excellent job. Uh, but also ask, who do you have winning the World Series? I I would expect the Dodgers to win. Uh, I’d prefer Toronto win. Um, Brendan and I are not fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers for a variety of reasons. Uh, but I think to I think Toronto can hang with them. Your boy Kevin Gosman. Um, I I I think they have a shot. I think they have a better shot um, you know, than other teams that were in this field. But until somebody dethrones them, I think you kind of have to just default. It’s it’s the easier thing to say to try to end up looking correct, right? Like I don’t know why I would be bold and predict otherwise, but it’d be cool be cool to see. Um, one thing I did want to note on the offense as we continue to talk about this, like the conversation is about how different the two halves were and what it means as they look to project this team for 2026, how they attack this off seasonason, whatever. I also though like don’t want it to sound like this offense sucked in the second half. They were in the middle of the pack. They had a middle of the road OPS. Now, that’s not necessarily what you want and like for a team in this market and you know, we’re a few years removed from the retool, not rebuild, right? Like you want to be making that progress and not be in the middle of the pack. But they were fourth in overall OPS in the first half. They were 16th in the second half. That’s not good enough. Like that, trust me, that’s not what I’m sitting here saying. But the overall picture, this was a a pretty good offense for a good stretch of this season. and they were one of the better offenses in the league. Now, if you lose Kyle Tucker and you ask these questions about consistency and there’s a lot of fair questions, right? Do you get second half Matt Shaw? Do you get first half Matt Shaw? Do you get somewhere in the middle? Do you get first half PCA? Do you get second half PCA? Do you get something closer to the middle? Do you get the kind of lost September sea Suzuki or do you get the Seya Suzuki that we saw for like two straight years before that where he was a top 15 hitter in baseball? These are big questions. Same with Carson Kelly. Do you get anything close to what you saw in those first couple months? Or do you get more of like a, hey, this is fine enough from a 32year-old catcher who’s calling good games, throwing runners out, like this is fine, right? These are big questions and it’s why you’re speaking to Brendan like that’s not a particularly comfortable place to be necessarily when you are a market of this size and trying to continue getting over these humps. Cubs got over a lot of humps in this season. They made the playoffs again. They won more than 83 games like they had past two seasons. They won a playoff series. They won several playoff games in this field. But we got to keep pressing forward, right? Not going backward, not regressing and things like that. And so I think that’s the exercise here. And it does get a lot more complicated if you lose Kyle Tucker. Uh people can argue about is he worth what the price is going to be? You know, how will they age? You know, given some of the injuries we saw and how it affected his play. That’s fine. He’s still a really good player and his overall year was still extremely productive and important to this team. Um, I don’t think it’s as as a lot of people seem very quick to wash their hands of it, and I wouldn’t be, but I also don’t expect them to enter into the deeper pool. Uh, you know, that they’re going to have to to make that happen. So, maybe it’s all a mood point. 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For more information, visit racecr 12 in Fox Lake or online at racecdr.com. They’ve been serving the community since 1963. So, here’s a question for you, Brandon, as we kind of think about this. listening to Jed’s press conference, he didn’t necessarily say that this is what they’re going to do, but how they their spending habits and and just some of the way that they’ve built this team. He alluded to their defense and their pitching being somewhat of like cornerstones of how this team was built to win games. He talked about the defense a lot and Dansby, Nico, PCA, etc., and how that played into their ability to win games. As we think about the offense for this front office, not for the fan base, right? Do you think the exercise is how do we keep and create an offense that is simply good enough to score enough just enough runs and we continue investing more in defense and pitching and not necessarily running a complete like run prevention system, but the exercise is less in like how do we build this juggernaut of an offense to go back to the ever famous quote about blowing teams out and it’s more an exercise in like looking at this group and saying this is our best path to win. Again, I’m not saying that my goal as a fan is for them to score four runs a game and prevent, you know, less than four and that’s just the way they do it. But when you look at this group and we look at their spending habits, do you think that’s how this front office is maybe approaching this particular group as their best way forward? I don’t think there’s a formula. I don’t think there’s I think the the puzzle is wins however they come. So, if they’re going to come in the form of hitting home runs, then that’s the opportunity they’ll take. If it’s a form of coming from pitching, then they’ll take the opportunity as well. I don’t think they look at the defense and they think, okay, well, we have the best defense in the league. Let’s just layer on to that because they have the best defense. It’s more like, okay, here’s the projected wins from that defense. If I can add in three more wins because of adding two guys in the outfield with depth, then I’m gonna go ahead and do that, right? It’s about just projecting value. Now, to the actual question, what if you go out and get pitching to match with that defense and you kind of take a step back offensively? Okay. Right. It’s all about just what the r the the range and variance in that projected value is. If they go the pitching route, they use some of the money that they would save from Tucker, they get three, four, five more pitchers, then there’s still volatility in some of those profiles. It depends who it is. If they get that money spent on Dylan CE, right? You just subtract Tucker’s contract, give it to Dylan CE, well, you’re going to see how that’s projected in 26 once Pakakota comes out. It’s not going to be what you like because you have just huge range of potential outcomes. I think it’s not as simple as just adding on to defense. I think it’s more how you just create more wins no matter where it comes from. And that’s where I get a little bit of concern because I don’t see that in the open market right now without having Kyle Tucker back. It has to come through some type of trade or unfortunately internal development that will not be reflected in those projections. Yeah. Yeah. Uh and I look I have a strong belief in some of these guys. Um I I agree with our guy Daniel in the chat. Like I think PCA uh you know he he obviously struggled mightily at times in that second half, but I think he’s he’s much closer to the first half in terms of his overall production or at least a nice healthy medium. And when you look at his overall year for a guy that is the one of one of if not the best defensive player in the game, a threat on the bases and slugging to the tune of 30 home runs. Excellent player. excellent value even if he just repeated that exact same line. But I think for someone so young and we have seen him make such drastic adjustments in the different stretches in his career like maybe he doesn’t get back to a consistent level of that like top top offensive production that we saw. The question would be would you be comfortable slotting him in in the middle of the order knowing what the floor and ceiling is? the ceiling was an MVP pace and the floor was a below league average replacement offensive. Yeah. Would you be comfortable with him in the middle of the order? It’s shaky, right? Like for again for me betting on it. I mean look like that’s that’s what the money is supposed to do is you shouldn’t have to bet on some of this stuff, right? Yeah. And and that’s the value of having guys like Chris Bryant and Rizzo over the years and Tucker and I thought we were giving that with Seiya, but even Seiya is not that guy. And that that’s to the first point when we’re talking about the shapes of two halves. It wasn’t random because Seiya has done that before and that’s why his overall value ends up being even though he’s top 15 like you said it ends up being not top eight, not top seven, not top six that you would want from a juggernaut offense. Well, so I think then the question turn because look like I think whether they build the what I was joking about before was it seems extremely easy to envision right a Jed Hoyer or Tom Ricketts press conference or quote from someone that gets put out where it’s like well you know we we didn’t make the big splash in free agency but we really believe in our guys like Bisteros and Owen Casey to take that next step and really take us like you can just you can hear it right now like you as Kyle Tucker goes to the Yankees and Schwarbs goes back to Philly and Cody Bellinger goes somewhere not even necessarily that I want some of these guys or you know whatever but you can just hear it but do you remember like I was thinking about this for the past week and tell me if I’m crazy or not but remember when Jed Hoyer was talking about the previous core Albert Elmora that that group of guys. Yeah. That he hung on too long. He hung on too long. And like, you know, I’m looking at how they maneuvered Jorge Soler for Wade Davis. And like I know we’re talking about Baseros and Owen Casey being a contributor and I think you should think like that unless you’re told otherwise. But there’s also a part of me that’s curious like all right, are you going to wait too long again? I mean, I think I, you know, I I I still wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they swing a trade for higher tier pitching. I I still I think they were clearly interested in that. They were interested Joe Ryan is perhaps going to be traded from Minnesota. Well, I mean, they they we heard those rumors in the off season, you know, that maybe they didn’t like Lousardo’s medicals. We know they were interested at the deadline, but even Jed openly admitted like the prices were too high. they just didn’t and those guys didn’t end up moving because those prices were too high. I I still wouldn’t be surprised if they continue to revisit that. And that and that does pair somewhat with my question to you about not necessarily selling out for pitching and defense, but looking as at that as the angle of like this is the best way to improve this team. Because I think the larger question, Brendan, and what I did want to add before I say the larger question, uh, not that I don’t believe in Owen Casey, but I I really do believe that Bayisteros can be a contributor on the offensive level. Do I want to like commit a position to him and just forego reliable free agents or guys via trade? Not necessarily. But I I do believe in him as someone that can contribute in this offense. And he is one of those guys where like I I I think you got to give it a shot or Yeah. I just don’t like I just don’t like believing. Like I I don’t I don’t like having a sense of belief because it means there’s discussion about that not coming to fruition. Sure. Right. And so I like the formula that we saw play out in the first half. My expectation is guys like Baseros will struggle. Owen Casey will struggle because we’ve seen it with every single Cubs prospect dating back to 2014. I mean, hell, even Rizzo and San Diego in 2012 and 2013, right? Yeah. So, I need to build in a reserve for that. And I look at the team right now and I’m like, all right. Well, you got Seiya who kind of does the whole volatility thing, right? So, and so on. I think I think how I would look at this and kind of tying back into our overall prompt for the evening is all guys, right, go through splits. They they are excellent for one week, maybe not great the next week. Like you can boil down anybody and find a poor stretch, etc. But we do know that like there are guys on this team that are particularly prone to it and they stand out. They’re they’re kind of extreme in how they come about. Ian Hap, as I said, very consistent overall player, but he definitely has periods where it stands out that he’s just not as locked in. He’s a he’s a consistent top 25th percentile bet, which is valuable in why he’s being paid $60 million and not $200 million. Dansby obviously not a guy that is key for his offense, but he still also has those stretches where he’s just dreadful for that’s why he’s not making $350 million like Trey. If he did with his glove, right, he would you hope that as guys like PCA or Matt Shaw grow that inconsistency diminishes a little bit, but there there’s it’s hard to tell. Seiya, as we’ve talked about, is a guy who looks great six of seven months of the year, but that seventh month is wretched. Like, and that’s just something we’ve sort of seen from him over time. So, Michael Bush was more consistent. Uh, but he also around, you know, I think around that all-star break time struggled a bit, looked a bit lost, but then he kicked it back into gear. Overall, I think he was solidly above league average in the second half. vary in the first half. So maybe he’s not as streaky as some of these other guys, but he’s also a big platoon split guy. So he’s not doing it usually against both sides of pitchers. So I think the reason I point all that out is you can’t that’s not going to go away. If this is a bulk of who your team is, some of that inconsistency is not going to go away. Like do they even have a choice, you know? Well, do they have a choice? But that’s where I get back into like the the key for next year. And we’ll when we come back from one final ad break, we’ll talk about options to maybe mitigate this if it’s out there. But you just kind of to a degree you have to just kind of hope Brendan that it just doesn’t happen at the same time. That’s like one of the things. And there may not be a way around that. Maybe with different guys on your bench and subbing guys in based on matchups and things like that, you can kind of try to cut it off as it’s happening. But what we saw in 2025 was you just had a handful of key contributors experiencing this at the same time. And that’s when you saw the offense start to take a tick. And we started playing those games. We saw every night, Brendan, where it was 2:1 or 3:2. And every single night it was, well, help Matthew Boyd is perfect tonight cuz they’re not going to score any more runs. Hopefully, when they turn it over to Kitridge and Palencia and Keller, they don’t give up any runs because it’s two to one now. And that two is going to stay. They have to keep the other one at one. All right, let’s hit our final ad break here. finish up this discussion. College football is back. Tailgates, rivalries, marching bands. Nothing beats being in the stadium with thousands of fans losing their minds with you. But getting tickets, that’s the part that always ruins the hype. You’re stuck in cues, clicking through endless login and right before checkout, boom, there you go. Prices jump out of nowhere. 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You’re not in big trouble. I I do think it should be up to our wonderful YouTube viewers or our podcast listeners. You guys decide. Brendan is talking trash on trash. Now, hold on. My alma mater, but he’s using his grad school institution. I’ve been at many. I don’t think that’s fair. I don’t have one. I didn’t go to grad school. Well, that’s and I think you should have to wear and own Arizona State a bit more than you take credit for USC. Only when convenient for you. That’s my opinion. I mean, the PHNX guys and you know, we can get along as well. Put me in a studio. I can talk Sunundevil football. All right. Anyway, um, Cubs related, right? Yeah. Yes. Back to it. Um, I can spin that. Is Jordan Wou still in the system? We can get back to the Cubs quickly from Michigan baseball. Um, but yeah, centering back on the offense. So, I I guess the question then becomes, Brendan, when you look at this off season, outside of resigning Kyle Tucker, do you find avenues that would mitigate some of what we’ve discussed? Is it just a necessary bakedin risk to the group that they have and a group that they’ve committed to in large part, right, for better or worse at a lot of these positions? Um, how do they go about it? And I asked you this last week, too, cuz I remember it coming up, somebody said it at at the press conference. They asked Jed like, “Should you just go and get more Nicoers?” Right? Firstly, like wishful thinking, they don’t grow on trees. Um, but even even putting that in in more literal terms, does this team need more higher average but conceding lower slug guys? Cuz that seems to be what that suggestion. I I don’t know the reporter that asked that to Jed and I think Jed gave one of his usual PR like workaround kind of answers to that. Um, I I’ll I’ll start just by noting like not that they’re all of that caliber, but I I think if you want to see the risk of building an offense that relies more on like Nicoer types, it’s what happened to the Brewers in the NLCS. Like, it’s very hard when you’re facing good pitching. Now, a lot of those hitters are not as good as Nicoer in terms of their contact ability, their ability to hit for average, pitch selection, etc. But that team succeeded a lot on contact, making contact, putting the ball in play, getting softer hits, forcing the defense, things like that. The problem is when you don’t slug, if the ball finds gloves and you’re facing Blake Snell and Tyler Glass now and Yamamoto and Show Otani and Roki Sasaki, not as anyone have a chance. Not as No, but not as easy to dip those 75 mph line drives into left field, right? and like hope that a bleeder to third base turns into an extra base hit like we saw somewhat throughout and that’s you know whatever on the Brewers. I’m not trying to diminish them, but I’m just saying like I is that the answer is do they need to sign Pete Alonzo? Do they need to bring back Tucker? Like what what helps mitigate this? or as I said before we hit our second or our third ad break like is it just like you need some of these guys to not get cold at the same time and then the horses that are driving the cart like Kyle Tucker you can’t have them get hurt and their production diminish by 30 40% and expect the offense to just pick up the pieces we talk about teams on a year-to-year basis right we’re talking about the 2026 Cubs because that’s what’s in front of our face right now Jed Hor’s front office is extended for the next 5 years They’re looking at, okay, you have 26 and you have 27, you have 28. You have this large puzzle that needs to be pieced together. So 26 on paper may not be as projectable as 27. 26 may end up taking a step back and projections because you are losing Tucker. So you may still shoot for the upper 80s. You may shoot for low 90s if you’re being ambitious for this front office. But ultimately it comes back to the point you talked about with Byisteros and Casey and PCA and seeing okay what exactly is that range of outcomes. Is it as narrow as we hope it is in the positive direction or is it so volatile that by 27 once we have all this money off the books maybe we end up shrinking that down and maybe let’s give 26 this the last look. Let’s go spend a lot on pitching. Let’s shore up the depth that way. Let’s get a little bit better with the positional side. No more John Birdies, no more Justin Turners, no more Willie Castros with negative value. And let’s shrink down the margins with depth. And the way I talk about that that doesn’t that seem likely at this point because you do have just Seiya, Ian, Neo expiring contracts, Tyion expiring contract. like this is the team they built and they probably will have to see it through. Yeah, I I I do continue to think ultimately the emphasis is going to be on pitching. I just think that’s the direction this off season goes. Whether it’s free agency, whether it is trading some of those highle prospects for pitching, kind of finally pulling the trigger, trying to find a costcontrolled ace, uh someone who you can slot in to go along with this rotation. But I think we talked about this last week too, like the pitching has enough questions on its own. You’re losing a lot of those bullpen guys that were on shorter term contracts. You have some questions um in the rotation just in terms of, you know, what do they do with the show Ianaga option decision? What does he look like if he comes back and rehabs from that injury? When does Justin Steel get on the mound? What does he look like? What’s his durability as that goes out? Does Matthew Boyd recover from this full season? A lot of innings, a lot of pitches on that arm. Um, Kate Horton, how does he come back from that latest injury? How does he look in his first full season? And now, granted, I’m not I’m not worried about a lot of those things, but they are reasonable questions. It’s not like we’re sitting here and we can just look at those four or five guys, Tyion included, and just say, “Yeah, they’ll all pitch 200 innings and make 32 starts and that’s the plan, unless something crazy happens.” It’s like, no, there’s some legitimate questions of exactly how you’re going to do that. But we’ve seen this team succeed in terms of putting together a pitching staff and figuring out how to make those starts and get the most out of so many guys. And I think that’s the exciting part of the pitching development when you see what they’re able to do with guys like Drew Pomeran’s and Brad Keller, guys that other teams like just weren’t able to figure out and they come here and they have great great success and are guys that are being relied on. uh relatively deep into a playoff run and I just think they’re going to continue to hammer that. I think that’s going to be the emphasis off this off season. I if they lose Tucker, even Jed talked about needing to replace that and at least add something back in clean up for your Chicago Cubs right fielder Cody Bellinger. Well, and and what’s funny about that too is like you want to talk about like volatility in a tale of halves. Like, let me introduce you to Cody Bellinger. Do you going to get the 2023 version, the 24 version, the Yankees version? Even that was very different in in those two. Same contract, two opt outs, 28 mil annual average value. Yeah. So, I I expect them to add something there and if Tucker leaves to probably not adequately replace it, but try to, as you said, maybe in the form of multiple players that kind of improve your depth and what you’re able to do in different pitching matchups and stuff like that. But I I would expect that the emphasis on pitching, you keep the emphasis on defense as you have. And you know, you again, you hope that those guys make those internal improvements and that Matt Shaw is not as extreme and maybe he doesn’t finish with a 130 WRC plus like he did in the second half, but that where he finds himself is is more consistent than the first half extreme. PCA, same thing. Maybe you throw biasos in there and he gives you some production etc etc and you put the emphasis on the pitching and that’s where you spend the money and that’s where you try to improve because ultimately like we saw some of that run out of gas and it’s not I don’t think why they got knocked out of the playoffs but when you look at this offense in the playoffs is hard. It’s going to be hard. And the one thing that you can at least try to control a little better than they ended up in this season was not having your starters run out of gas and not having, you know, your relievers in a position where you’re feeling like, man, if we don’t roll Brad Keller and Daniel Palencia back out there again, like I don’t know what we’re going to do. And I So I think that’s the area that they key in on more than the offense. You got two minutes here. Just a quick quick thought then you can sign off. Would you be surprised if they trade Matt Shaw and then you go they traded him? Yeah. Think of So Bregman trade Shaw for pitching 20 seconds. Yeah. 20 seconds. The re the re the reason for that is you talked about what was the price for pitching in July? It was Matt Shaw, right? You talk about having a high offensive floor. It’s Alex Buggman. talk about projecting value. Well, Buggman’s profile is what the Cubs had just recently signed. Is is it like the wrong answer that my my gut instinct on that is less like what I think about that and more just like is I don’t want to say does Jed have the stones for that, but like that’s where my head goes first. It’s like crazy to think of them doing. I would not be I mean I guess you know what I I take that back. That’s crazy. I I I do take that. I do take that back. Jed Jed traded like a big-time prospect for Kyle Tucker. I I shouldn’t say that about because he have the stones to do it. Yeah. Um I would not be surprised you’re talking all on the table. Yeah. And like and we know they like Bregman. It doesn’t have to be specifically Bregman. Like there may be other options. I know some guys getting, you know, get maybe maybe not getting posted from Japan, etc., etc. My brain is turning right now. But we know they like Breman. No, I mean I don’t think anything is crazy. Look, like they Makes sense. They they were overall a good offense in the second half, closer to the middle of the pack. And there’s only so many spots where this team can easily improve, right? And and that are open and not a no trade clause or a big contract to move or something like that. And third base is those spots. So, do they decide to do it? I don’t know. It’s interesting to think about. Either way, we’re gonna get out of here. Um, a lot of this, like, you know, it’s not a rhetorical question, but it’s not it’s not stuff you’re going to immediately come to the answer to. We’ll see how the offseason plays out. We’ll see what Jed Hoyer does and how they attack things. Uh, but I think they’re interesting questions to think about as we get ready for this off season and how they’re going to approach things. uh rather than looking at everything and just saying, “Well, just sign Bregman and Alonzo and Dylan CE and Shane Bieber and bring Kyle Tucker back.” Boom. Problem solved. That’s not gonna happen. So, I think better exercise to kind of try to navigate it uh with, you know, a little more. We got the entire four months to do this. Yeah. So, Brennan and I will be back with you next Thursday. Uh, I didn’t look at the schedule, but maybe possible we have a World Series winner if the Dodgers just dispose of of Toronto as they have everybody else. Um, but we appreciate your support. We’ll keep an eye on the offseason. CHO Cubs team will have you covered once the World Series is over and of course before that, but once stuff starts happening, moves are made, uh, money starts getting thrown around, the CHO Cubs team will have you covered uh, every day with live shows uh, and taking you through the offseason here. So, we’ll see what Jed Hoyer has in store for us. We appreciate your support and as always, go Cubs. [Music] [Applause] [Music]