The Yankees are acquiring first baseman/outfielder Cody Bellinger from the Cubs, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. The Cubs also send cash to the Yanks and receive right-hander Cody Poteet. Per Jack Curry of YES Network, it’s $5MM going to the Yankees. Per Jesse Rogers of ESPN, that’ll be $2.5MM this year and $2.5MM next year. The second $2.5MM will go towards either his buyout or his 2026 salary, depending on his opt-out decision, per Passan. Bob Nightengale of USA Today reports that Bellinger has been told he’ll be playing center field for the Yanks.
Given the acquisition of Tucker and the need to bat Seiya Suzuki (and probably let him play RF) every now and then, not to mention the glut of outfielders in the system, this trade was probably inevitable, but the nearly full-scale salary dump is a bit surprising. Nevertheless, that’s about $25MM the Cubs get to repurpose for bullpen, more infielders, a starting pitcher or two, etc. if they so choose. The Cubs are certainly not done yet as they have payroll space even if they might dial back the total payroll a tad, and they also have a bit more trade capital to play with.
Mostly to get a new thread, but yeah (pending official word). Jed Hoyer did a thing where he got a star, and the 2025 Cubs season is looking more promising. With Kyle Tucker in the fold, and Isaac Paredes out, that opens up third base for someone else (possibly in-house, or another fun move), reduces the need to move Nico Hoerner, and we’re still waiting on a Cody Bellinger trade. What a day.
In news that surprised very few people, first broken by Jon Heyman after his little tiff on the radio (his anger was probably justified to be honest) and confirmed by Jeff Passan, the New York Mets have reportedly signed Juan Soto. This was probably always going to happen, as there was little reason for Soto to leave New York even with the Red Sox and Blue Jays rumored to have thrown armored trucks full of cash into his yard. There was also little surprise that Steve Cohen would be Mr. Moneybags and outbid the Yankees at some point.
Per early reports, the number is 15 years for $765 million, no deferrals. That means Soto will be paid more than Shohei Ohtani in both actual value and the big shiny number at first report. It would seem that the market can open up now and we will see if the Yankees or others will overcompensate and trade someone to the Cubs for Cody Bellinger.
The BBWAA announced the writers ballot today, which will give another pool of candidates assuming the Veterans Committee actually elects somebody this cycle. Here is the link and I’ll list my preferred candidates below:
Should be near unanimous: Ichiro Suzuki
Will probably get in first ballot: CC Sabathia
Holdover guys I’d vote for: Bobby Abreu, Carlos Beltrán, Andruw Jones, Manny Ramírez, Alex Rodriguez, Chase Utley, Billy Wagner
Wagner happens to be on his last ballot so he should be able to eke out enough votes after barely missing last year. That leaves a final vote that I would either throw at Andy Pettitte or Dustin Pedroia.
Given how loaded this ballot is, it would be a crime to not go max ballot, but I’m sure some writers will do mental gymnastics to explain why they didn’t check ten boxes. We’ll find out who gets in (if at all) in January, but seriously at least Ichiro should get in easily, right?
Today is a pretty important day, whether you want to help preserve whatever this democracy is now or you want to try to burn down Parliament (don’t do that last one, didn’t work out so well for the last guy). I already did my civic duty but since it’ll be a while before we know what happens, I thought I’d look at the free agent list and do my best to set up the game we talked about a while back. Keep in mind that this is more unscientific and a lot of it is based on “feel” but I’ll try to put a 2024 fWAR number next to each name as we group them into bins. As mentioned previously, the Cubs have about $60MM to spend before hitting the first luxury tax threshold at $241MM, then the tougher penalties trigger at $261MM. So it would seem that if the Cubs wanted to go crazy, their AAV for this offseason has to be around $80MM or less, and probably closer to that $60MM number unless Juan Soto suddenly decides he couldn’t care less about New York.
For reference, MLBTR’s top 50 (including a few players from the Asian leagues) is here, and the full list (apparently updated regularly as guys sign) is here. Let’s set a hard $80MM limit (you don’t have to spend everything) and then here are the tiers, with some rounding to keep it relatively simple (* = QO’d but just kind of assume the Cubs don’t care if they actually sign these guys)…
$50MM
Juan Soto*…and that’s it really. FanGraphs says he accumulated 8.1 fWAR in 2024.
$30MM
Corbin Burnes* (3.7 fWAR)
Alex Bregman* (4.1 fWAR)
Blake Snell (3.1 fWAR)
Willy Adames* (4.8 fWAR)
$20MM
Max Fried* (3.4 fWAR)
Pete Alonso* (2.1 fWAR)
Jack Flaherty (3.2 fWAR)
Anthony Santander* (3.3 fWAR)
Sean Manaea* (2.8 fWAR)
Teoscar Hernandez* (3.5 fWAR)
Yusei Kikuchi (3.5 fWAR)
Christian Walker* (3.0 fWAR)
Nick Pivetta* (2.0 fWAR, the going thought is that he accepts the QO)
Nick Martinez* (3.5 fWAR, probably accepts QO)
$15MM
Tanner Scott (1.6 fWAR, reliever)
Luis Severino* (2.1 fWAR)
Jurickson Profar (4.3 fWAR)
Nathan Eovaldi (2.7 fWAR)
Tyler O’Neill (2.5 fWAR)
Gleyber Torres (1.7 fWAR, slumped a bit in his walk year eh)
Max Scherzer (0.6 fWAR, partly injured this season)
Justin Verlander (0.7 fWAR)
Paul Goldschmidt (1.1 fWAR)
Walker Buehler (-0.2 fWAR, but he did just get the save in the World Series clincher)
Kirby Yates (1.9 fWAR, reliever)
$10MM
Jeff Hoffman (2.0 fWAR, reliever)
Clay Holmes (1.2 fWAR, reliever)
Carlos Estevez (1.2 fWAR, reliever)
Matthew Boyd (0.9 fWAR, swingman when not injured)
Joc Pederson (3.0 fWAR)
Andrew Heaney (2.2 fWAR)
Frankie Montas (1.4 fWAR)
Danny Jansen (0.5 fWAR, surprising since he’s so coveted as a hitting catcher so defense must suck)
Jose Quintana (1.0 fWAR, you wanna take a chance?)
Michael Conforto (1.3 fWAR)
A J Minter (-0.1 fWAR, must have had a few blowups)
Kyle Higashioka (1.6 fWAR)
Michael Soroka (0.4 fWAR, swingman)
Andrew Kittredge (0.3 fWAR, reliever)
Kyle Gibson (1.5 fWAR)
Tommy Kahnle (0.1 fWAR, reliever who does throw non-changeups)
Ha-Seong Kim (2.6 fWAR, more if he hadn’t gotten hurt)
Shane Bieber (0.8 fWAR, probably needs a pillow contract due to the injury issues and TJS)
David Robertson (1.9 fWAR, reliever)
Travis D’Arnaud (1.8 fWAR, probably shorting him a bit but ATL didn’t want him)
The Dodgers overcame their bajillion injuries thanks to the talent they amassed with a very enviable and ludicrous payroll. We can’t even poo poo that because it’s kind of what we wish the Cubs would do, and while the Cubs aren’t the Pirates or the A’s, there is a gulf between their payroll and those at the top. Granted, a few of those teams up top may want to trim payroll, but that isn’t the only reason why they made the playoffs and the Cubs did not. It probably isn’t what Tom Ricketts wants, but the Cubs payroll has exceeded the $230MM threshold (that’s the entire 40-man roster considerations) the past two seasons, and they did it in 2019 too before the “biblical losses” and that whole pandemic thing that really sucked. So while the team probably isn’t ever going to spend at what the New York teams do for reasons, to say they won’t spend is inaccurate. The issue is that the money spent needs to be translated into MLB wins, so that’s what Jed Hoyer and friends have to figure out in their final year under contract (or at least Jed’s, I don’t know how long the other nerds are signed for).
This is going to be a lot of surface level math but we can ballpark what the Cubs can do and let the front office army of accounting interns figure out the actual numbers themselves, hopefully they do it without “accidentally” triggering the competitive balance tax, but rather they should do it intentionally. HOwever, that’s not in my control so I just hope whatever they do actually works. Cots contracts suggests that the Cubs are projected for about $189MM in guarantees without any more additions but taking into account the arbitration raises if everyone arbitration eligible was tendered. This is also now including Cody Bellinger, who opted in to the 2025 portion of his contract. The first CBT threshold in 2025 is $241MM, giving them about $51MM to play with before they trigger the tax again. Based on the way the contracts were set up, the guaranteed payroll will drop significantly over the next few years coinciding with the negotiations for the next collective bargaining agreement, which will help them get back under the CBT and reset if they intend to blow past this coming season and next to supplement what is a solid team.
I don’t think all the guys on the arbitration eligible list will be retained, and a couple have moved on to new teams from the last time MLBTR looked at this, so you can probably add a few extra million to the piggy bank the Cubs get to crack open for this offseason. As indicated last time, we probably find out who’s going to get tossed off the 40-man roster to make room for Rule 5 and the offseason additions by Monday. Then we find out who’s going to cost the Cubs a draft pick or two if they do sign them in free agency as that’s also when qualifying offers are extended. It will be a pretty busy time for front offices to figure out where they stand before Thanksgiving.
What I decided to do with my napkin math was to consider how the Cubs are set up now. It really depends on your confidence level, but there was enough to convince me that there is in fact talent on this team as currently constructed, and also that running it all back isn’t enough. I imagine that a lame duck front office isn’t going to just sit on their hands, but there’s evidence that this team should be better than their 83-win 2024. The Pythagorean record based on run differential suggested the Cubs were extremely unlucky, winning five fewer than their expected 88 wins. Looking at the team overall, it was a surprise (though not really since he was still an elite defender) to see Dansby Swanson racking up 4.3 wins above replacement, then an oft-hurt Nico Hoerner at 3.9, Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki both at 3.6, and even Pete Crow-Armstrong almost reached the mythical 3 WAR mark despite not having been with the team the whole year. Bellinger had a slumpy year by his standards (probably why he opted in) but still played well enough to hit above average and accumulate 2.2 WAR. The pitchers were also quite solid, although of course they could have used more help in the bullpen at many times throughout the season.
With my napkin math and the FanGraphs stats, assuming a replacement level team wins 48 games, the Cubs position player group had 22.5 WAR and the pitchers had 14.0 WAR, so that is about where they ended up at the 83-win mark (depending on how generously you decide to round), so I guess the 2024 squad did about what should have been expected given their WAR. The Cubs were middle of the pack in both offense (ranked by wRC+) and pitching (ranked by ERA-) so again that is about right for where they ended up record-wise. What we can hope for going forward is that, given the good group of 3+ WAR players, some guys who have track records suggesting they can be that and better, and eliminating a few guys who won’t be useful going forward, not to mention the eight top-100 prospects, many of whom are in Iowa now, that is enough to at least maintain that baseline of 83 wins if not exceed it. With Craig Counsell already in the front office’s ear about new coaches (and hopefully a new training staff that can help the players stay healthy), they just need to find a way to score seven more runs than 2024 to virtually guarantee a postseason berth, since the final wild cards had 89 wins in a strangely loaded National League field.
If it were me, I’d try to do the following:
At least one top starter (maybe two?) to push Shota Imanaga, Justin Steele, and Jameson Taillon (if he’s not traded) down the line. I loved what Shota did and Steele was fine when he was healthy, but the rotation gets even better if they’re not the de facto aces.
Upgrade catcher so Miguel Amaya doesn’t feel any pressure and there’s no urgency to rely on Moises Ballesteros to both hit and catch at the MLB level.
At least one good bat regardless of handedness who can theoretically also stand at a defensive position and not embarrass himself.
Probably two established relievers to bolster the bullpen now that they’re parting ways with former Cubs legend Drew Smyly.
Any one of those bullets by themselves might be able to snag an extra couple wins, but all of them together would potentially make up that seven-win gulf and then some to get the Cubs back to the playoffs in 2025. This is dependent on a lot of things, including whether Ricketts wants to significantly exceed the CBT to supplement a solid core, but with that core, about $60MM to spend, and a few teams already saying they’re going to retool or ratchet back spending, the Cubs might be in the driver seat for most deals not involving Juan Soto. They just have to make it happen.
The World Series is over, unfortunately a bit sooner than I’d like since one team showed up and the other one kept tripping over themselves. Then again, it appears that full on free agency will begin on Monday, which happens to be five days after the Dodgers clinched. They already have a parade set up for Friday, which is a very quick turnaround. Meanwhile we see at least one new managerial hire other than Terry Francona (welcome to hell, Will Venable!) and a few option decisions, trades can start up again, and we’re a few weeks from the qualifying offer and non-tender decisions.
November 4 @ 5 PM Eastern — Free agents can now sign with any team
Also on November 4 — option decisions must be made, and qualifying offers are extended
November 19 @ 4 PM Eastern (why two weeks though?) — QO guys need to accept or decline
November 22 — nontender deadline
December 11 — Rule 5 Draft
I know in the last Dreamcast we talked about a game to fix up the Cubs this offseason but since I’m still unemployed and it’s depressing I haven’t set it up. In the meantime, we can check out the free agent list and the top trade candidates provided by MLBTR. I expect we will have more clarity on who’s available come Monday.
I feel like the term “pennant chase” is used kind of to describe the race to the postseason during the regular season, but you don’t actually get to win a pennant until you are the last team standing in the league championship series. I guess you also don’t get a pennant once you win the World Series because the prize is a hunk of metal with a bunch of pokey things that can take your eye out.
Anyway, before we get to the World Series, the final four teams will vie for their respective league’s pennant. Between the Dodgers and Mets trading beatdowns and the Yankees taking advantage of some dumbness from Cleveland in their initial game of the ALCS, I can see both series going the distance, especially when nobody can run out a full rotation anymore and have to resort to bullpen games by design or by necessity. We could see another Subway Series (great for New York, not so great for the rest of us), a New York vs LA thing, or a true underdog story of sorts. I think MLB would like the first two, but Cleveland fans wouldn’t mind another shot at not blowing a 3-1 lead?
I did notice that the World Series is doing the Friday-Saturday thing, avoiding football on Thursday and Sunday. The full schedule of remaining games is here, and I’d be curious to see who comes out on top, and we can make our best guesses in the comments.
Hey kids! Tom Ricketts sent us an email! Let’s have fun with it!
Oct 11, 2024
Cubs Fans,
There is no way to sugarcoat it – this is not where we planned to finish the season. Like our fans, we had high expectations for our team this year and early victories delivered hope for postseason baseball. But inconsistent play and injuries upended that promise, leading us into a hole too deep to recover from despite another second half surge. Bottom line, we did not play a complete season of competitive baseball. As a result, we have again missed the most exciting and exhilarating month of the season – October.
I think we’ve all lamented the injuries that derailed the season, but the almost two months of slumping was way worse than any of us could have imagined. Given how fun the postseason has been so far, hell yeah we would have loved to see the Cubs in it even if they probably get bounced in the wild card anyway. Or maybe they would’ve caught lightning in a bottle, who knows? But we certainly won’t find out this year.
The work is underway to close the gap to make the Cubs a perennial playoff team. Our baseball operations staff is redoubling its efforts to build a team that consistently plays in the postseason and delivers the promise of sustained success to Cubs fans.
There were statements from various Cubs, Craig Counsell, and Jed Hoyer that at least suggest they will do SOMETHING. That is TBD, we will find out more once the World Series ends, free agency begins, and the qualifying offer stuff shakes out.
Though we fell short this season, we have strong foundations to build on.
Jed, Carter and our team of coaches, analysts, scouts and strategists have created one of the top player development groups in the game today – with eight prospects on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 list – the most of any team in Major League Baseball. After this summer’s draft, the Cubs boast a top-flight player development system in most independent rankings, including #2 in USA TODAY’s latest evaluation.
The challenge, as always, is to translate that raw talent into major league wins, but the task is generally easier when your minor league talent has a high floor and (at this point) near-limitless ceiling.
Under the leadership of manager Craig Counsell, we continued to see players develop on the major league level. Rookie pitcher Shota Imanaga, who signed as a free agent last offseason, had one of the best seasons as a rookie pitcher in Cubs history, leading the team with 15 wins, a 2.91 ERA, 174 strikeouts and only 28 walks. He steered the way on a memorable September night at Wrigley Field where his seven hitless innings kicked off a combined no-hitter that was closed out by Nate Pearson and Porter Hodge. Rookie Michael Busch secured a starting role at first base and slugged 21 homers with a .775 OPS. Fellow rookie Pete Crow-Armstrong brought excitement to the basepaths with six triples and a 93-percent stolen base rate. PCA also kept runs off the board with his electrifying defense. Additionally, veteran Ian Happ had a career year with personal bests in home runs (25) and RBIs (86) and continues to be a clubhouse leader.
We see a list of all the really cool performances we all enjoyed this past season, and I like the last part where Tom reminds us that despite all the fan hate, Ian Happ really isn’t that bad.
Before we turn the page on this season, I also want to thank you for helping us recognize Ryne Sandberg this year. For many of us, Ryno’s play defined an era, and his statue unveiling was a once-in-a-lifetime tribute to a true Cubs legend. Ryne and Margaret are forever a part of our Cubs family, and it was important for us to stand in support of his fight against cancer by hosting Cubs for a Cure this year, which helped raise $1 million to battle this terrible disease.
We also remain committed to making a positive impact in the community through Cubs Charities. This year, more than 17,000 students participated in our youth sports and academic programs in neighborhoods across Chicago.
It is these special moments and activities on and off the field that bring the players and fans together to remind us of what we all love about Cubs baseball.
It was really cool to see Ryne Sandberg make good progress against his cancer, seems he is going to be just fine. Naturally the Cubs continue to support the community, and I found out this summer that the softball fields I used to play in were upgraded very nicely by a generous grant from the organization. I think Jason Heyward still supports the community through his charitable work as well despite no longer being a Cub. Your mileage may vary as to how much more the Cubs (and other very wealthy people) can do, but it’s better than nothing.
It is more than a game – it is a tradition that spans decades, with our fans at its heart and soul. You bring an excitement to the ballpark that is as time-honored as the ivy-lined walls and historic scoreboard. I want to personally express my sincere gratitude for your continued loyalty to our team.
Now, it is time for us to get to work to bring championship caliber baseball back to Wrigley Field.
Sincerely,
Tom Ricketts
I think the Cubs had a pretty solid attendance number this year, though they are expected to raise ticket prices because reasons. I’m sure people will continue to pay to justify those increases, much to our chagrin (for those of us who are peasants like me), but it is pretty inevitable. We will wait and see what they actually do, but for now it’s a good time to peruse the free agent list while exploring fake trades in our fantasies. However, the Cubs are in the fortunate position where they’re in charge of their own television rights and revenues, and aren’t selling the team like some folks, so at least there’s some stability that will allow them to make some moves should they choose to do so.
So we were talking about the way the MLB playoff system is set up in the previous post, and given how three of the road teams just advanced this past week, two of them relatively easily, I guess part of the calculus is trying to figure out a way to ensure the home team has a greater advantage. Then, once they advance out of the wild card rounds, how do you ensure the bye teams can get more of an advantage than they’ve shown since the three division winner/three wild card system was instituted? There’s an interesting article about that on MLB dot com, but given the lack of sample, it’s mostly kneejerk reactions based on recency bias right now, so perhaps everything’s fine the way it is. Especially when you figure that baseball is inherently chaotic, and nobody is going to do a best-of-75 or whatever number you need to make sure the “upsets” don’t happen as often (assuming arms don’t start falling off in the clinching game 69). I generally agree that the teams, despite getting into the postseason, have flaws that got exposed on the highest stage, but that won’t stop us from trying to figure out ways to make life easier for the better seeds, who built teams that either earned their 90+ wins or just lucked into it, but the wins are wins.
We can start by assuming that MLB will never ever reduce the number of teams making the postseason after having expanded it, because postseason = more money. We will further assume that once the A’s actually move to Vegas and Tampa Bay gets their new stadium built that MLB will expand to 32 and likely adopt the NFL’s 1 (bye) + 6 (division winners + wild cards) system per league. AC doesn’t like deliberately tiring out pitching staffs, but that’s basically what the pitch clock may be doing anyway (plus the icky injury bug that’s cropped up lately that bears investigation), and that’s part of the appeal behind getting that bye, right? And per the article I shared before, it makes sense to get the bye than not, because at least you get the rest and the ability to set the rotation prior to the games that count.
Regardless, we are far from the system where you had to win the league, or there was only one division winner getting to the NLCS and that was it. There is also a better system than a wild card getting equal footing against the top overall league seed, or a one-and-done game. Perhaps the grousing at this time is just because people are making excuses for their team, or sour grapes from the players who lost, but given the unlikely prospect of shortening the season and the reluctance to extend the postseason deeper into November (eww), I am thinking this is the best possible system at this time.
Maybe just try to get the bye, and hope that when you play games that count, that you don’t suck at it. This is also a message to teams like the Cubs to not assume that 84-87 wins will get you in, because that certainly was not the case this year. I get that trying to build a team projected for 95+ wins is hard, but that confers the best possible advantage, and then you just have to try to fight past the chaos regardless of your seed in the postseason. I guess that’s the appeal of the NCAA basketball tournament anyway, everyone appreciates the underdog, but a team that plows through the playoffs can rightfully be crowned a legend.
