Spring training has officially begun. Some players have been at the Cubs facilities in Arizona for a while already, but February 9 marks the formal beginning of spring training 2025. As the team workouts and games get going, here are a few things to keep an eye on:
Alex Bregman watch
Until he signs somewhere, this story isn’t going away. The Cubs, along with a couple of other teams, are still in a bit of a standoff with the third baseman. The most recent reports are that Bregman has a six-year offer on the table from a team that’s not the Astros, and that the Cubs’ offer was at four years, around $100 million with opt-outs built in.
Bregman reportedly still wants a deal of at least six years, so that would seem to bump the Cubs down the list. But as things stand, the Cubs haven’t been ruled out and are still a possible landing spot for Bregman. If he does choose Chicago, that will have a two-fold impact:
- Matt Shaw isn’t the guy at third base. At least for now. I am inclined to think the Cubs should still put him on the major league roster because the bench is not very deep, and he can still get plenty of at-bats. There’s a chance he gets assigned to Triple-A Iowa just to give him the opportunity to be in the lineup every day and can work on his defense at third, but if the Cubs don’t sign Bregman, Shaw is almost certainly your Opening Day starter.
- Nico Hoerner gets traded? This would be a move to help keep the Cubs under the luxury tax threshold, and if they go this route, it could open up room for Shaw at second base. Dealing Hoerner would save the Cubs just under $12 million in luxury tax dollars and would keep them under the first tier of the luxury tax.
Is Nico healthy?
Assuming Hoerner is still on the roster come Opening Day, the question still remains whether he’ll be healthy. Hoerner had flexor tendon surgery on his right forearm in October, and at the Cubs Convention in January, there were slightly conflicting reports regarding his recovery.
General manager Carter Hawkins was adamant that Hoerner was doing fine, but the second baseman himself was less confident at the time:
“All that to be said, just working backwards from Opening Day, you take playing as many games in the season as possible into consideration,” Hoerner said. “It’s obviously a huge source of motivation — both for myself and for the team — making sure that I’m in a place not only just to get back to being able to play, but actually being able to be myself. We’ll go from there. I don’t have an exact answer on that yet.”
Hoerner was spotted playing catch in Mesa a few days ago, so he appears to be moving in the right direction. He’s not likely to be ready to play in the games in Tokyo in mid-March, but Hoerner might indeed be ready to suit up when the Cubs open the season stateside against the Diamondbacks on March 27.
How does the bullpen look?
A year ago at this time, Adbert Alzolay seemed to have cemented himself as the Cubs’ closer of the future. Proving that bullpens are incredibly fickle, and closers perhaps most fickle of all, he is now with the Mets on a minor league deal, and the Cubs go into spring training with questions about who will be handling the high-leverage innings this year.
The most obvious answer might be newcomer Ryan Pressly. The Cubs swung a deal with Houston for him just a couple of weeks ago, and Pressly definitely has the resume for the job. Before Josh Hader came to the Astros in 2024, Pressly was the closer; he has 112 career saves, and 102 of those he earned from 2020-2023.
Otherwise, they added a considerable amount of veteran depth to the bullpen this offseason. When the lack of reliever depth cost the Cubs last year as injuries mounted, the need to shore up the bullpen was clear. They’ve brought in Collin Rea, Ryan Brasier, Eli Morgan, and Caleb Thielbar to supplement guys like Porter Hodge and Nate Pearson, both of whom emerged as potential high-leverage options late last season. Hodge, in particular, will be a guy to keep an eye on. He earned nine save in 2024; six of those were in September.
Kyle Tucker’s impact?
We won’t really know until regular season games begin, but you’ll get something of a preview of how Tucker will impact the rest of the lineup when the Cactus League schedule starts on February 20.
But it’s hard to imagine Tucker won’t make the rest of the lineup better. On his own, he is projected to have about a 4 WAR season, depending on where you look. And he is undoubtedly going to have a ripple effect on the rest of the batting order.
“When you look at lineups across the league, and you sit in pitchers’ meetings, there’s certain guys that always come up in those meetings, and Tucker is going to be one of those guys,” hitting coach Dustin Kelly said at the Cubs Convention in January.
Tucker is a “you can’t let this guy beat you” type of hitter, and it has felt for a few years like the Cubs have been missing that kind of batter. When a lineup has at least one hitter like that, everyone around him gets different looks. Based on manager Craig Counsell’s comments at the Cubs Convention last month, Tucker will bat second or third in the lineup, and you’ll likely see him getting looks in multiple spots in the order this spring.
There will be a defensive improvement, as well. Even before the trade for Tucker, Seiya Suzuki’s role as a regular right fielder was in question. Not for his bat, but because his glove wasn’t there. Tucker was worth 7 defensive runs saved last year and he’s been as high as 14 (in 2022). In his three seasons with the Cubs, Suzuki has been worth just one defensive run saved.
The 2025 projections for the Cubs are mostly positive, and if all goes according to plan, they win the division for the first time since 2017 and maybe even make a respectable playoff run. For now, all eyes are on Mesa, Arizona and the spring training storylines that will unfold.
