You're Being Very Un-Dude, The Solution Is Closer and Cheaper
We've got an it's-ok-don't-worry treatise on Connor Bedard and the Cubs offseason plans. Remember, all social media is now on Bluesky, @felsgate.
Sector 1901 - You've Being Very Un-Dude
It wouldn't be too hard to understand the mild panic that is occurring around Connor Bedard these days. There isn't much to watch on this Hawks team, even less that's important and/or indicative of the better days to come. Connor Bedard obviously is at the top of both of those lightly stocked categories. So when it feels like he isn't doing much, the Hawks are even more boring and it also might start to feel like the dull morass fans have been and will be subjected to yet isn't even going to be worth it.
Which is how we get stuff like this in The Athletic. Or this. Or this. It's enough to make you think there's a crisis on our hands.
I lean more and more into the idea that comparing different players' development curve is pretty futile and inaccurate. Every player is different, every situation they arrive in is different, and on and on we go. Which is how the Bears are going to ruin the most anticipated QB prospect of a generation, but THAT'S NOT WHY YOU CALLED.
Still, I haven't been able to resist pairing Bedard and Jack Hughes ever since Bedard's name came on the scene, well before the Hawks even drafted him. Both are undersized centers, both have gifted hands, and both (likely) are probably a half-tier below McDavid and MacKinnon. Both will be compared to them relentlessly, but McD and Mac K are probably in that Mahomes class where they're just unicorns and trying to find another is a fool's errand. They just kind of arrive. They can't be mined.
The problem with the Bedard-Hughes link is that Hughes is probably a slightly better skater and is certainly more shifty, both in hands and feet. That doesn't mean Hughes doesn't take his share of hits or get hurt because defenders just can't find him. After all, he's only completed one 82-game season where he hasn't missed a chunk of time. So if we were to link the two, Bedard missing some 20 games last year might just be the norm just as it's been for Hughes.
The good news is that Bedard isn't on any different path than Hughes was, and maybe even a better one.
It might get lost now, but Hughes's rookie year wasn't much to do a a dance about. 21 points in 61 games, and below water metrics. Bedard beat that pretty easily in his rookie year, even if we adjust that the league was a different scoring environment even five seasons ago.
Even more encouraging is that Bedard is the same dominant puck-carrier that Hughes was and is. The two of them are in their own class when it comes to entering the offensive zone with possession. Bedard carried the puck in 72.3 percent of his chances to do so last year, and this year that has jumped to 81.5 percent. Hughes is in a league by himself, at 88.5 percent last season, though that has calmed down to 80 percent this season, behind Bedard.
Bedard's entries leading to scoring chances per 60 is also elite, and puts him in a neighborhood with not only Hughes but the aforementioned MacKinnon and McDavid. Bedard already does this very important thing at a very elite level.
Bedard also gets chances for himself at a higher rate than Hughes did at the beginning of his career. Bedard's individual xG per 60 (basically a measure of the chances he's taking) was 0.85 last season and 1.09 this season. Whereas Hughes was at 0.75 and 0.79 in his first two seasons. In fact, that 1.09 figure for Bedard is higher than Hughes has ever produced. The caveat of course is that Hughes is more of a creator than Bedard, so the latter's chances and shots should be higher. Again, no comparison is perfect.
Still, while Bedard is improving, you'd like to see his chances and shots per game be among the league's best. Not there yet, as his 1.05 ixG/60 only ranks 36th in the league. And this is where Bedard can't really help it, because after that rookie season, Hughes got way more help than Bedard is getting now. Nico Hischier and Jesper Bratt were already on the team when Hughes broke in. Hughes got to play with Kyle Palmieri in his rookie season, who is probably better than anyone Bedard has gotten to play with (sorry Teuvo, but you'll top this list when it feels like you want to). Bratt would join Hughes's line in the latter's second season and basically never leave it. The Hawks don't have anything resembling a Jesper Bratt on the team, and maybe not even the system (Nikolaj Ehlers will be a free agent next summer alarm goes off). Ask yourself who in the Hawks organization is making this pass:
When you see the players like Auston Matthews or Jake Guentzel, players who get the most chances and shots in the league at evens, they generally have someone who helps them do that. Be it Mitch Marner for Matthews or Crosby or now Kucherov for Guentzel (Mitch Marner will be a free agent next summer alarm goes off), everyone needs a little help. There are do-it-all guys like MacKinnon and McDavid and Filip Forsberg (seriously he is), and it could be that Bedard will be that, and be that one day very soon. But even MacKinnon has Rantanen and McDavid Draisaitl or Hyman.
Bedard is kind of middle of the pack when it comes to shots off high-danger passes, because there really isn't anyone to make them for him. Taylor Hall ranked highly in that last year, but as we know he played a Handzus-level of games. Lukas Reichel ranks highly in that this year, but almost all of that has come on fourth-line duty and has looked overmatched on the top line. Hughes gets more shots off a cycle than Bedard, but he's also got wingers who might occasionally win a board-battle and can recycle the puck.
We'd all love to see Bedard have better numbers, and mistakes like Sunday night's are assuredly a sign that Bedard would like to have better numbers too and is pressing a bit. It would probably behoove Luke Richardson to pick a couple wingers for Bedard and just stick with them for a month, but when it's this rabble you can understand Luke's itch to experiment every week. But we're well short of any panic-level.
Hughes has had Hischier to take some attention away from his line. He's had a blue line full of players who could push the puck up the ice (Hamilton, Marino, Bahl, his brother). There isn't much that Bedard isn't doing or producing at the moment that won't be fixed when he can play with wingers who are anywhere near his level. Not a bunch of fucking amateurs.
Between G-man And Nisei - The Solution Is Closer And Cheaper
It's hard to know if the baseball Hot Stove ever gets going these days, given the paucity of teams that actually try to sign guys that matter in the offseason. And that will only get worse with half the league's RSNs going poof or being greatly altered. Prepare yourself for the owners trying to iron out this discrepancy in revenues between themselves by locking out the players in 2026.
The Cubs are being routinely connected to Max Fried, because they have no interest in the guy who would make a real difference (Juan Soto), or more to the point, have no interest in paying him. There aren't that many hitters below Soto that would make a difference, so they're going to try and amend the top of their rotation. It's not the worst pivot, but in a world that made sense they should be doing both considering the money they have to play with below the second luxury tax threshold.
Fried is a good pitcher, probably a really good one, but comes with some worry-points like any free agent pitcher would. One, he missed half the season in 2024 with arm troubles. Those don't tend to get better in a pitcher's 30s. Two, the Cubs might want to learn the lesson of chasing lustily after players Atlanta only half-heartedly try to keep. Sure, Liberty Media isn't exactly splashing the cash around either, but they pay those who they think are worth it and this is an organization that has been miles ahead of the Cubs for a while now. So their judgement should mean something. Third, Fried is in his 30s and even if he were to stay healthy for the most part that doesn't mean his stuff won't diminish.
Signing Fried would still make the Cubs better, but if it's a left-handed ace they want then there's one much closer to be had. In fact, he's across town.
Garret Crochet is five and a half years younger than Fried, strikes out way more hitters, walks slightly less, and isn't anywhere near free agency. Sure, he's only completed one full season as a starter, but Fried comes with longevity issues as well. Crochet also probably hasn't even peaked yet as a pitcher, given his age.
All Crochet would cost is prospects in a trade, and the Cubs and their cronies in the Cub-sphere love to wax poetic about the depth of the Cubs system. It is the soma to an underserved fanbase.
Well, all those Cubs prospects aren't going to fit on the MLB roster, not for a while yet. Not with PCA and Ian Happ occupying two of the three outfield spots for the next little while. Not with Dansby Swanson entrenched at short and Nico Hoerner cratering his trade value with offseason surgery. Hold Matt Shaw, maybe Cam Smith and one other, and make everyone else available. The supposed depth should still provide more than enough to offer in a Crochet trade. Whatever pitcher they'd have to toss overboard should be acceptable, because getting starters through the system and to consistent MLB production is the hardest thing to do and the Cubs have yet to prove they can do it anyway.
But it isn't just handing out big contracts that make Jed Hoyer piss down his leg. It's making a big trade, too. Hoyer is terrified of handing over a future star or two for a current one, and were he to do it he would lose his shield/blanky of promising a better future is on the way. Suddenly he would only be judged on the very visible present instead of a dreamed-of future. Which means the Cubs stay in stasis. But the solutions are right in front of his cowardly face.
