Spiegel: Cubs don't yet have the look of a 90-win team

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00:00If this is the year where you have to make something happen, have they done enough?

00:05Are they doing enough to signal, yes, we feel a level of urgency about the 2025 season to

00:15try and win right now?

00:17No.

00:18I don't think they have.

00:19I don't think they have.

00:22They've done enough and shown some aggressiveness to look like they are trying to win their

00:28division, which is extremely winnable, but when your own manager says, we should be trying

00:33to build 90 win teams in the last week of the season, this is not yet a 90 win team

00:41on the books.

00:42And I haven't seen zips and Dakota and such, but whatever internal metrics they're using,

00:48I've seen 85 and a half, I've seen 86 and a half stuff like that.

00:53I don't think I've seen higher than that.

00:55And that's still hoping for some elevation from your prospects.

00:58I think they've built, I think there's been urgency to try and have a real good competitive

01:03team.

01:05And I think there's some urgency to try and arm Craig council with some things that he

01:09wants, but it's all within what have become some fairly obvious financial restraints at

01:17the top end of, of their tier.

01:20Like there are some restraints here and I think the restraints are largely based on

01:24the fact that that competitive bargaining agreement expires after 2026.

01:30And if they can sign Alex Bregman to a two and one, then I think they might look into

01:38it, but I don't think there was any chance in hell they were going to sign him to a four

01:41or a five or a six that extends off past that CBA.

01:46That's an example of the, of the kind of restraints that we're looking at here.

01:50And in this particular year, I think they want to stay under the tax after going over

01:55it last year because they don't want to develop the repeater.

01:58And I think that they'll probably be willing to go over the tax in 26, stay under in 25,

02:04go over in 26 and then the restart to get the restart.

02:08And then maybe the CBA blows up and they don't have to worry about not going over in 27 and

02:11it's a whole freaking different landscape anyway.

02:13But yeah, I think they're going to try and stay under the tax and not have too much money

02:17extending beyond 26.