Welcome to 2025 and welcome to your late night indie coffee house where we specialize in coffee, tea and any number of alcoholic libations that you may welcome on a cold winter’s night. Josh left us a spectacular setting for banter, music and vibes, do both of us a favor and be sure to bus your tables on the way out so we don’t leave a mess for the waitstaff.

That’s right, 2025 is here. It’s less than 40 days until pitchers and catchers will begin to report to Spring Training. Before you know it we’ll be chatting about whether Matt Shaw is as fierce an option at third base as he appeared during the Premier 12 Tournament, or whether Matthew Boyd can actually stick in the Cubs rotation. But for now, we’re still deep in the heart of hot stove season and there are still a number of intriguing players available.

Before we get into the specific players the Chicago Cubs should be considering to round out their roster, however, let’s dive into some tunes.

Whether you stayed up until the ball dropped on New Year’s Eve (in your own time zone or an earlier one) or went to bed early, we all rang in the New Year earlier this week. It had me thinking of songs that leaned into the New Year’s vibe. One of my favorites that my parents played a lot during my childhood is Same Auld Lang Syne by Dan Fogelberg:

This one pre-dates the music video era, so while there are some music videos pieced together out there, the above is the official video on the official Dan Fogelberg YouTube channel.

Met my old lover in the grocery store
The snow was falling Christmas Eve
I stole behind her in the frozen foods
And I touched her on the sleeve

She didn’t recognize the face at first
But then her eyes flew open wide
She went to hug me, and she spilled her purse
And we laughed until we cried

I fell in love with Fogelberg’s music the same way I fell in love with dozens of other musical artists: sitting around a campfire, listening to my father and his friends play those songs on their guitars, a few years before I would try to learn them on the piano. Same Auld Lang Syne is one of the simpler songs on the piano, so I’ve been playing it since soon after I started taking lessons. It’s also just a beautiful holiday story:

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

She said she’d married her an architect
Who kept her warm and safe and dry
She would’ve liked to say she loved the man
But she didn’t like to lie

Fogelberg passed away far too young in 2007 at 56-years old after a battle with prostate cancer. With the resurgence of “yacht rock” his songs are getting a new, and much deserved ear. He was a brilliant lyricist, with a knack for tunes that dipped into a minor key.

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to now
And tried to reach beyond the emptiness
But neither one knew how

We drank a toast to innocence
We drank a toast to time
Reliving in our eloquence
Another auld lang syne

Meanwhile, with Cubs Convention slated to kick off in 15 days there’s a lot to look forward to on the Northside of Chicago. The Cubs are still alive in the Roki Sasaki sweepstakes, they pulled off one of the biggest moves in the offseason trading for an elite corner outfielder in Kyle Tucker and the Cubs have announced that Sammy Sosa will finally be welcomed back in the Cubs fold at this year’s convention.

But there are still some holes in the roster, and approximately three or four (depending on how you look at it) too many utility infielder types on the 40-man. I’ve made the case a time or two (or twenty) that an elite reliever to back up current presumed closer Porter Hodge could go a long way towards fortifying the Cubs hopes of winning the NL Central in 2025. After all, the team blew 26 saves last season en route to another 83-win campaign that saw them on the outside of the playoffs yet again. One or two more reliable arms in Craig Counsell’s bullpen was one of the big differences between the Cubs playing meaningful baseball in October and not.

As luck would have it, there are three free agents who cost nothing more than money, out there who all fit this bill. None of them have a qualifying offer attached to them, and all of them have high leverage experience including at least part of one season in the playoffs.

To take a closer look at Tanner Scott, Jeff Hoffman and Carlos Estévez I pulled their standard dashboard stats from FanGraphs. In order to compensate for the small sample size that is the life of relief pitcher I pulled numbers from 2022-2024. You can see that table below:

A couple of notes. First, Estévez gets unfairly dinged here by being a member of the Colorado Rockies prior to his time with the Los Angeles Angels. I know what I said about small samples above, and honestly, I think it’s more fair to look at the smaller sample of Estévez’s work in Anaheim and Philadelphia than holding him to the beast that is Coors Field for pitchers. He’s still a titch below the other two, by most advanced metrics, but he also has more actual closer experience in that time, with more than 50 saves in the last two seasons.

Second, as I was writing this MLB Trade Rumors reported that Jeff Hoffman is rumored to want a deal similar to what Clay Holmes got from the Mets. That’s notable both because Holmes received a 3-year $38 million contract from the Mets, but also because the Mets want to use Holmes as a starter. It’s an interesting idea, and one a handful of pitchers have been quite successful at over the last couple of years including Michael King and Reynaldo López. Hoffman features a four-pitch mix that could work for starting if he were stretched out.

Speaking of MLB Trade Rumors, below are their contract estimates for the three relievers I identified above:

• Tanner Scott MLB Trade Rumors estimate 4-years $56 million
• Jeff Hoffman MLB Trade Rumors estimate 4-years $44 million
• Carlos Estévez MLB Trade Rumors estimate 3-years $27 million

So, night owls and early risers, I put it to you: Should the Cubs sign one of the top remaining relievers and if so, which one?