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What we’re hearing: Kyle Tucker’s decision and the futures of Nico Hoerner and Matt Shaw · North Side Territory: A Chicago Cubs Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Welcome into Northside Territory. Foul Territory Networks comes podcast IPSA
0:09
Speaker 1: Dave Scharma with my partner Patrick Mooney. We are your
0:11
Speaker 1: Cubs beat writers over at the Athletic Patrick. Same week
0:17
Speaker 1: that comes Snag Alex Fregman. We see Kyle Tucker leaving
0:23
Speaker 1: and heading to La the rich get richer. When I
0:29
Speaker 1: saw the number, my jaw dropped a little bit because
0:33
Speaker 1: I had to like do the math, and I was like,
0:36
Speaker 1: am I doing this math right? Is that sixty million
0:39
Speaker 1: per year four to forty? You know there's deferrals, opt
0:44
Speaker 1: outs after year two and three, but just an insane number,
0:50
Speaker 1: and I think it for Kyle Tucker, it makes sense.
0:56
Speaker 1: I understand Cubs fans maybe. I'm sure there's different camps
1:00
Speaker 1: of Cubs fans. I don't want to lump them all together,
1:02
Speaker 1: but there's probably some that are frustrated by his second
1:06
Speaker 1: half and that's coloring the entire tenure. But Kyle Tucker
1:10
Speaker 1: is an incredibly impressive performer on the field. You cannot
1:15
Speaker 1: deny that. When he's healthy, he is one of the
1:18
Speaker 1: best players in baseball. He just he can carry an offense.
1:24
Speaker 1: And now he goes to the two time defending world
1:28
Speaker 1: champs on a massive deal. It's not massive in terms
1:33
Speaker 1: of years, but certainly in terms of aav and I think.
1:36
Speaker 2: That's what makes Yeah, I think this worked out pretty
1:42
Speaker 2: well for him, or at least this is a good
1:46
Speaker 2: landing spot for him where he can sort of just
1:49
Speaker 2: be one of the guys, sort of blend into the
1:52
Speaker 2: background and just hit.
1:56
Speaker 3: I think that is what the industry sort of told
2:01
Speaker 3: him implicitly of like, this is not a guy. Maybe
2:04
Speaker 3: the Blue Jays were willing to go ten years or whatever,
2:08
Speaker 3: but the numbers and years that seemed possible after Sodo signed,
2:14
Speaker 3: after Vlad Junior did his extension, while Tucker was having
2:19
Speaker 3: that MVP calver first half, like that just was not
2:22
Speaker 3: realistic in this marketplace after a disappointing second half, and
2:28
Speaker 3: we're always looking at the Cubs angles here, and it
2:31
Speaker 3: was sort of odd, like covering the team that's losing
2:37
Speaker 3: the number one free agent and having no sort of
2:40
Speaker 3: sense that, like the Cubs are in on this or
2:43
Speaker 3: want to be involved, and that even if his market cratered,
2:48
Speaker 3: you got no sort of sense of like where it
2:50
Speaker 3: would make sense either the Cub's blowing a team away
2:55
Speaker 3: on a high dollar short term deal or Tucker to
3:00
Speaker 3: using Wrigley Field as the place where he wanted to
3:03
Speaker 3: kind of restore his numbers as a hitter. And so, look,
3:10
Speaker 3: the Alex Reregman timing really is good for the Cubs,
3:13
Speaker 3: not just mentioned but also Kyle Tucker. Like I was
3:18
Speaker 3: not scanning social media super hard last night, but it
3:21
Speaker 3: did not seem like a whole lot of uh, you know,
3:25
Speaker 3: outrage from Cubs Twitter as more just like, yeah, this
3:27
Speaker 3: is kind of what people expected.
3:30
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, you know, I and it does. It feels
3:34
Speaker 1: a little weird to feel that way. Yeah, I was
3:38
Speaker 1: thinking about it. I was like, this just doesn't move
3:41
Speaker 1: me in the sense like, oh, man, Cubs fans are
3:44
Speaker 1: going to be really angry. How do we how do
3:46
Speaker 1: we cover this? In my mind, I feel like eight
3:52
Speaker 1: we've been preparing Cubs fans for Kyle Tucker's departure since
3:56
Speaker 1: he was traded for and then once things up and
4:00
Speaker 1: down the stretch the way they did, it was almost like, oh,
4:05
Speaker 1: like I think the tone of that departure changed as well.
4:10
Speaker 1: It was like this isn't you know. We always felt
4:12
Speaker 1: like he was gone, but it felt like it was
4:15
Speaker 1: going to be devastating for the fan base. This guy
4:19
Speaker 1: carried us for a year, brought us to the playoffs,
4:22
Speaker 1: and was like the stalwart of our offense, of our lineup.
4:27
Speaker 1: That just wasn't the case after the second half that
4:30
Speaker 1: he had. You know, you can zoom in on one
4:34
Speaker 1: moment and his final at bat with the Cubs was
4:37
Speaker 1: arguably one of the most high leverage at bats of
4:40
Speaker 1: the season, and he couldn't come through. It's not fair
4:43
Speaker 1: to put, you know, everything on one at bat and
4:46
Speaker 1: on him, but that is a moment that you want
4:50
Speaker 1: your superstar to step up in and he didn't. So
4:53
Speaker 1: like there's a lot of little things that added up,
4:56
Speaker 1: a little end big things that added up that I
4:58
Speaker 1: think just made this departure very anti climactic and like,
5:02
Speaker 1: you know, you can't deny how good Kyle Tucker is.
5:05
Speaker 1: I was I was looking at because I didn't want
5:08
Speaker 1: to go all the way back pre like pre pandemic stuff.
5:15
Speaker 1: I was looking at twenty twenty two on just value
5:19
Speaker 1: by war and fangrafts and something I wrote about with Bregman,
5:24
Speaker 1: He's tied with Nico Horner. Bregman is for eighteenth in
5:27
Speaker 1: war since twenty twenty two, and there's Kyle Tucker at fourteenth.
5:33
Speaker 1: You know, he is a top fifteen player, top ten
5:38
Speaker 1: at times, you know, just a damn good ballplayer. And
5:44
Speaker 1: it does feel very weird that it just doesn't feel
5:48
Speaker 1: like this devastating loss. You know, you're right, the timing
5:52
Speaker 1: works out with Bregman. But even if Bregman hadn't signed,
5:55
Speaker 1: I think there would have been a segment of the
5:57
Speaker 1: fan base that that would have been like, okay, go
6:01
Speaker 1: find someone else, go, you know, as long as it
6:04
Speaker 1: does matter that Bregmant's here, that they replaced that in
6:07
Speaker 1: a fashion. Now Bregman is probably like a slight you know,
6:11
Speaker 1: a tier below Tucker offensively all around, I think they're
6:15
Speaker 1: you know, can come close to value all around. But
6:20
Speaker 1: it's a it's a fascinating It's just I find the
6:25
Speaker 1: feelings of this move fascinating. Just that we're just like eugh,
6:30
Speaker 1: dragging our shoulders. Yeah, I mean that.
6:34
Speaker 3: I think it's clear the Cubs should have paired Bregman
6:39
Speaker 3: and Tucker last year to maximize his final year before
6:45
Speaker 3: free agency, but also that it's also clear that the
6:52
Speaker 3: Cubs chose I don't even know if they even chose
6:56
Speaker 3: Bregman over Tucker I don't even know if Tucker was
6:58
Speaker 3: really even on the table, but in essence, they just
7:03
Speaker 3: chose Bregman, period. And it was very easy to sort
7:08
Speaker 3: of draw the contrast when you listen to how they
7:11
Speaker 3: talked about Bregman just as this kind of unicorn, a
7:18
Speaker 3: baseball Jim Ratt, a leader who is almost without peer
7:24
Speaker 3: in that department. I mean him, Kyle Tucker. There's obviously
7:28
Speaker 3: other guys out there, but what Bregman brings as just
7:33
Speaker 3: something different. And Tucker may wind up having a monster season,
7:39
Speaker 3: might have multiple monster seasons at Dodgers' stadium. He may
7:43
Speaker 3: be in a World Series parade before Bregman again. But
7:50
Speaker 3: the timing, the momentum, everything was drawing the Cubs back
7:55
Speaker 3: to Bregman and sort of just not even pushing Tucker away.
7:59
Speaker 3: It was just this that night in Milwaukee when the
8:03
Speaker 3: season ended, wishing everyone the best of luck. It just
8:08
Speaker 3: kind of this is this was the likeliest outcome, Like
8:13
Speaker 3: you said, from the moment they traded for him, that
8:15
Speaker 3: he was going somewhere else, and the Dodgers are always
8:19
Speaker 3: in the hunt for the biggest free agents.
8:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a fascinating move. There will be a lot
8:26
Speaker 1: of talk about baseball, the CBA, the Dodgers being bad
8:30
Speaker 1: for baseball. I think we can. We're going to have
8:33
Speaker 1: to explore that over the next year because the CBA
8:37
Speaker 1: is going. It's going to be an issue. We've been
8:39
Speaker 1: talking about it for a while. It will be an
8:41
Speaker 1: issue whether the Dodgers are good for baseball, bad for
8:44
Speaker 1: baseball or not. You know, I think we're heading towards
8:49
Speaker 1: a lockout, and that's just the reality that we've based. So,
8:54
Speaker 1: you know, Tucker's gone. I think the question more Cubs
9:00
Speaker 1: fans are more concerned with our Nico Horner and Matt
9:05
Speaker 1: Shaw sticking around.
9:06
Speaker 3: That would be the way to kill this.
9:08
Speaker 4: You know, the yeah and the vibes are good, and
9:12
Speaker 4: if you want to talk about a way to absolutely
9:15
Speaker 4: destroy the vibes is to trade Nico Horner.
9:18
Speaker 1: I wrote it, and it's you know, they're like, that's
9:24
Speaker 1: not just like I feel like, in baseball wise, it's
9:28
Speaker 1: a bad decision. I get it. He's a he's an
9:33
Speaker 1: impending free agent. You need to try and keep windows open,
9:38
Speaker 1: extend windows. I think that's Cleveland thinking, that's Tampa Bay,
9:42
Speaker 1: thinking that's Milwaukee thinking, you know, Milwaukee's dangling Freddy Peralta
9:46
Speaker 1: out there. They do this every year, guys in depending
9:48
Speaker 1: that's how you have to survive. If you're the Milwaukee Brewers,
9:51
Speaker 1: the cub should be looking at extending Nico Horner. The
9:53
Speaker 1: Cubs are the Cubs there, they should act. Look that
9:56
Speaker 1: we we have talked about this a ton patrick. We
9:59
Speaker 1: know they're not gonna spend like the Dodgers or the Mets.
10:01
Speaker 5: Okay, we cannot, we can't expect that, but they they spent.
10:05
Speaker 5: They finally spent in a big way. It's been a while,
10:08
Speaker 5: and they got their guy in Bregman.
10:12
Speaker 1: Don't take that step back and say, well, this guy's
10:15
Speaker 1: an impending free agent. Well we're dangling around the luxury tax,
10:18
Speaker 1: whatever the reasoning is, unless you're getting like bowled over
10:22
Speaker 1: by some insane offer. It just feels like a terrible
10:27
Speaker 1: decision to trade Niko Horner. Whether it's baseball wise or
10:32
Speaker 1: the heart and soul of that clubhouse. We know guys
10:36
Speaker 1: would be furious about it. So but it's out there,
10:40
Speaker 1: and we know at least we have three teams that
10:43
Speaker 1: we've we've heard, not just I can't say we've confirmed
10:48
Speaker 1: them individually, but we've heard we've seen three teams named
10:51
Speaker 1: out there in the in the social media world, Yankees,
10:58
Speaker 1: Red Sox, and the Giants have all been teams that
11:02
Speaker 1: have been mentioned as possible possibly showing interest at Nico Horner.
11:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you you got the assist yesterday. You asked
11:12
Speaker 3: Bregman about Nico to help me out while I was
11:15
Speaker 3: doing another interview or trying to track someone down at
11:21
Speaker 3: the Wrigley headquarters yesterday. And just the Bregman knows Nico's rep.
11:28
Speaker 3: I mean, they've exchanged text messages. This is someone he's
11:31
Speaker 3: looking forward to playing with who sort of mirrors Nico
11:39
Speaker 3: in terms of personality, Like their games are are very
11:43
Speaker 3: similar in some ways and you know, different offensively in others.
11:49
Speaker 3: But this works, This could work so well. I think
11:56
Speaker 3: that's that was one of the biggest takeaways from this week,
12:00
Speaker 3: of how strong this team looks up the middle, how
12:06
Speaker 3: solid their culture is just I think Council used the
12:14
Speaker 3: term last year of just like athletic instinctual experience, and
12:18
Speaker 3: that this is a team that loved studying the details
12:21
Speaker 3: within the game, working on their craft, absorbing information, putting
12:28
Speaker 3: together game plans. I go back to Councils quote to
12:32
Speaker 3: you at the Winter meetings off your question about how
12:35
Speaker 3: Niko is someone who does every single rep the same way,
12:41
Speaker 3: the way it should be done, and I think that
12:45
Speaker 3: is certainly Bregman's reputation throughout the game. So they comes, No,
12:53
Speaker 3: they probably won't be as healthy as they were last year.
12:56
Speaker 3: They need some insurance policies. And like having said all that,
13:04
Speaker 3: we're not quite sure what's going to happen with Matt Shaw.
13:08
Speaker 3: I think the way these things usually work, like you
13:11
Speaker 3: probably bet against the trade right, like it's hard to
13:13
Speaker 3: get these things to the finish line. But we did
13:17
Speaker 3: not hear Jed shut down any of this trade speculation.
13:23
Speaker 3: Did not say Nico Horner is our guy. I think
13:26
Speaker 3: he said we love having him as a cub. You know,
13:28
Speaker 3: he's been here a long time. We've extended him before.
13:30
Speaker 3: Like that is another option too, of going at him
13:33
Speaker 3: with a real contract extension push. But I don't know
13:40
Speaker 3: until they make a definitive statement like the Diamondbacks did
13:44
Speaker 3: with Kettle Marte, like we're shutting this down. He's part
13:46
Speaker 3: of our team. I think it's going to be out
13:50
Speaker 3: there until they report to spring training yet.
13:54
Speaker 1: And just a little behind the scenes stuff real quickly,
13:58
Speaker 1: we are recording out of pride, and news just broke.
14:01
Speaker 1: Our colleague, Will Samon just broke news that Boba Schet's
14:06
Speaker 1: going to the Mets. So Boba Schet going to the
14:09
Speaker 1: Mets means the Red Sox are still looking for an infielder,
14:14
Speaker 1: looking for a bat, whether that's interested in Niko Horner
14:19
Speaker 1: or whether that's interest in Matt Shaw. The Red Sox
14:23
Speaker 1: have a lot of talent in their system, young talent,
14:26
Speaker 1: and I still think that we cannot downgrade Matt Shaw
14:35
Speaker 1: after one season. In fact, I thought the season was
14:38
Speaker 1: really good. It was a rookie season on a team
14:41
Speaker 1: that's winning, a lot of pressure, had to make a
14:44
Speaker 1: lot of changes. He was a top thirty is prospect
14:48
Speaker 1: coming into the season. Proved that he can not only
14:53
Speaker 1: handle third correct me? Was he a Goldblaf finalists? Is
14:57
Speaker 1: that am I remembering?
14:58
Speaker 5: Right?
14:59
Speaker 1: Okay? He was a goal Glob finalist, so not just
15:04
Speaker 1: handled third goal glob finalist. And you and I watched
15:06
Speaker 1: him every day. He was legit and I think the
15:10
Speaker 1: metrics were Yeah, the metrics were mixed. One metric, one
15:13
Speaker 1: defensive metric loved him, one not so hot on him. Whatever.
15:17
Speaker 1: I saw him every day. He can at minimum he's
15:21
Speaker 1: average there. I think he's above average, and he had
15:23
Speaker 1: a red hot second half. I think the playoffs colored
15:26
Speaker 1: some people struggled in the playoffs colored some opinions, I
15:30
Speaker 1: should say, and and I just think like he's an
15:36
Speaker 1: incredibly valuable player. He's got five years of control left,
15:39
Speaker 1: could play all over the infield. He's an incredible valuable player,
15:43
Speaker 1: whether it's on the trade market or whether it's on
15:45
Speaker 1: the cups like I, whether he's playing every day, filling
15:49
Speaker 1: in in different spots, whatever it may be. Like you said,
15:53
Speaker 1: you always need depth injuries or one, you know, one
15:56
Speaker 1: weird tweak, one weird swing away from happening. But the
16:03
Speaker 1: Red Sox could be motivated, and I just don't like
16:06
Speaker 1: I like that system a lot. You know, they have
16:09
Speaker 1: interesting pieces. I don't know what they'd be willing to
16:11
Speaker 1: This would be pure speculation on all that right now,
16:15
Speaker 1: but I do think there's there's something we should just
16:18
Speaker 1: keep an eye on the Red Sox because they are
16:21
Speaker 1: in win now mode. They've missed out on multiple guys
16:24
Speaker 1: that they want, and maybe trades are just the route
16:27
Speaker 1: that they're gonna have to take all winter logs to
16:29
Speaker 1: get what they want. And there are other infielders. Brandon
16:33
Speaker 1: Baunoman is out there on the Cardinals and they're full cell.
16:37
Speaker 1: So so we can't assume that, you know, the comes
16:39
Speaker 1: a corner the market here and have a leverage. But
16:43
Speaker 1: the Red Sox are are a team that I would
16:45
Speaker 1: watch and I would at least be interested in Giants Yankees.
16:49
Speaker 1: I don't know, nobody blows me away there, but hey,
16:53
Speaker 1: you just have to keep an eye on these things.
16:55
Speaker 1: And you're right, Jed Hoyer did not shut it down,
16:58
Speaker 1: and he could have very easily could have his.
17:01
Speaker 3: Counter argument and one that I think is very persuasive
17:07
Speaker 3: is look at the twenty sixteen World Series team. They're
17:11
Speaker 3: reuniting in Chicago this weekend. I believe Thursday night it
17:19
Speaker 3: saw some photos of them getting together via social media,
17:23
Speaker 3: and you look at that group. I mean, a couple
17:27
Speaker 3: games into the season, Kyle Schwarber destroys his knee, they
17:32
Speaker 3: keep going. Chris Bryant has an MVP season that was
17:37
Speaker 3: defined by his versatility. You had Ben Zoebers, the World
17:41
Speaker 3: Series MVP sort of you know, pioneered or kind of
17:48
Speaker 3: took that super utility role to the next level. Jave
17:52
Speaker 3: Bayas got exactly four hundred and fifty played appearances during
17:56
Speaker 3: the season and then just had a breakout performance during
18:00
Speaker 3: the playoffs. This is sort of separate, but like they
18:04
Speaker 3: had two really good catchers, very capable catchers and Dave
18:07
Speaker 3: Ross Miguel Monterro. You add Wilson cacheris for bolt of
18:12
Speaker 3: energy in the middle of the season. Like the best
18:15
Speaker 3: teams have so many answers, and I think you're asking
18:21
Speaker 3: for trouble if you sort of get rid of an
18:24
Speaker 3: everyday position player and think you can kind of you
18:31
Speaker 3: you just kind of don't get too cute, don't overthink it.
18:34
Speaker 3: Like Shaw in particular, is someone that Jed said could
18:40
Speaker 3: absolutely handle the outfield. He has no questions about his
18:45
Speaker 3: ability to learn quickly, and I think that's what we
18:48
Speaker 3: saw last year. I mean, essentially after Bregman picked the
18:51
Speaker 3: Red Sox of just someone who went to work got better.
18:57
Speaker 3: And you're right, the eye test on Matt defensively he
19:02
Speaker 3: passed with flying colors. I think some of his offensive
19:06
Speaker 3: numbers at the end of the year I think didn't
19:08
Speaker 3: really I think those questions are legit. I think he
19:13
Speaker 3: can get there eventually. Like all of his sort of
19:20
Speaker 3: everything about his pedigree, his background suggests that he should
19:23
Speaker 3: be a good major league hider for a long time.
19:27
Speaker 3: It's just that if you're a team trying to win
19:30
Speaker 3: right now, if you had to trade someone, I think
19:35
Speaker 3: you trade Show, but you don't have to. We have
19:38
Speaker 3: not heard anything like, oh, they have to shed x
19:42
Speaker 3: million in salary to make it work this year. Maybe
19:48
Speaker 3: we're asking the wrong questions. Maybe they've sort of disappointed
19:52
Speaker 3: fans before in this regard, But our understanding at the
19:55
Speaker 3: moment is that you're this close to the CBT, you're
19:58
Speaker 3: probably going to go over and you just kind of
20:00
Speaker 3: let things play out.
20:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree. I think it's just something we can
20:05
Speaker 1: we'll keep an eye on. We're going to, you know,
20:08
Speaker 1: have to pay attention to it more. You know. I
20:12
Speaker 1: think we've explained why, but I'm going to keep an
20:15
Speaker 1: eye more on Shaw than Nico. I just I think
20:17
Speaker 1: it'd be a terrible move and like a step back
20:20
Speaker 1: after a really nice offseason and you've kind of won
20:24
Speaker 1: backup fan base that was wondering what was going on
20:29
Speaker 1: as far as their ability to act like a big
20:31
Speaker 1: market club. But it's something that we have to pay
20:35
Speaker 1: attention to and monitor because it's the reality of baseball,
20:38
Speaker 1: and if someone comes and just bolds you over with
20:40
Speaker 1: an offer, you have to listen. I am, I am fascinated.
20:45
Speaker 1: I had to go back and look at where Hobby
20:47
Speaker 1: Bay has played that year because I couldn't fully remember it.
20:51
Speaker 1: He did play all over. He got two innings in
20:54
Speaker 1: the outfield, I believe. My guess is it was a
20:57
Speaker 1: late inning, late game. Just go out in the left
21:00
Speaker 1: field and stand for a little bit. Uh. I want
21:04
Speaker 1: to see how Craig Counsel works. Is if this is
21:06
Speaker 1: the if this is the roster he's working with, I
21:09
Speaker 1: really want to see it, because these are guys that
21:11
Speaker 1: don't want to take time off too. Bregman said it
21:14
Speaker 1: at the presser. We know how Dansby Swanson fields, if
21:16
Speaker 1: Eco Horner similar mindset. But Craig Counsel is the guy
21:20
Speaker 1: that decides these things and he'll get through to these guys.
21:23
Speaker 1: So if Matt Shrub's gonna somehow get four hundred and
21:26
Speaker 1: fifty played appearances, I think that's that'll be interesting to
21:29
Speaker 1: watch unfold if he can make that happen, and I
21:32
Speaker 1: do think there's he can be a really valuable extra
21:37
Speaker 1: guy that you move all over the place. I I
21:39
Speaker 1: think so. I think he's got a really high upside
21:42
Speaker 1: and it could be a good bat. That second half
21:45
Speaker 1: was impressive. He has to he's got a ways to
21:48
Speaker 1: go and he's got to improve, but he's shown he's
21:51
Speaker 1: shown he can. So uh something watched something that we'll
21:54
Speaker 1: be keeping our eyes on. Cubs Convention is going on,
21:58
Speaker 1: so we'll make sure to keep you guys update to
22:00
Speaker 1: make sure to check out The Side, Make sure to
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Speaker 1: of all things Cubs. Thanks so much for listening. Everyone,
22:13
Speaker 1: Take care