There 17 minutes where we were all pretty certain that the Cubs were going to sign Anibal Sanchez to a 5 year, 75 million dollar contract. Those were some great times…
Obviously, we know what happened next (or at least have a pretty good idea). Sanchez’ agent took the deal back to the Tigers and played the Cubs up against them. The Tigers bit and gave Sanchez the extra year he’d been wanting and an extra 5 million, too.
At first blush, 16 AAV seems like a huge gamble on a player who has had significant injury concerns for a good amount of his career. On the other hand, there is an ever-dwindling market of pitchers that can play at the middle/front of a rotation, and Sanchez has certainly been that guy for the past 3 years.
Kind of sad, but this will give the Cubs at least payroll flexibility. Question is, what’s left that they can use that payroll ON?