*****Official Cubs 2019 thread*****
- Thread starter QChawks
- Start date
Kyle Hendricks became the first of seven arbitraiton-eligible Cubs players to sign, agreeing to a one-year, $7.405 million deal, a $3.4 million raise from 2018.
Today is the deadline to submit salary numbers for arbitration.
The other six are Kris Bryant, who signed a record $12.4 million deal last year for first-year eligible players, and Javier Baez, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber, Mike Montgomery and Carl Edwards Jr.
The Sox have four eligible players: Jose Abreu, Carlos Rodon, Alex Colome and Yolmer Sanchez.
Check back for more updates.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/spor...-cubs-kyle-hendricks-deal-20190111-story.html
Today is the deadline to submit salary numbers for arbitration.
The other six are Kris Bryant, who signed a record $12.4 million deal last year for first-year eligible players, and Javier Baez, Addison Russell, Kyle Schwarber, Mike Montgomery and Carl Edwards Jr.
The Sox have four eligible players: Jose Abreu, Carlos Rodon, Alex Colome and Yolmer Sanchez.
Check back for more updates.
https://www.chicagotribune.com/spor...-cubs-kyle-hendricks-deal-20190111-story.html
The Chicago Cubs are counting on their current roster
to be healthy in 2019. Kris Bryant is a vital part of the
offense and needs to hit 35 home runs and have 120
RBI's. Darvish needs to start earning his paycheck and
give the Cubs at least 15 wins.
to be healthy in 2019. Kris Bryant is a vital part of the
offense and needs to hit 35 home runs and have 120
RBI's. Darvish needs to start earning his paycheck and
give the Cubs at least 15 wins.
Schwarber agreed to $3.4 million, and Montgomery to $2.4. An amazing bargain.
I'm shocked that Montgomery only got $2.4M. I thought he'd be $5M.
I haven't heard a lot of Cubs talk lately. I do think most of the plan for 2019 is to get KB back healthy and hopefully get something from Darvish. If they stand pat right now, the roster looks like this:
SP: Lester, Hendricks, Quintana, Darvish, Hamels, Montgomery, Chatwood
RP: Strop, Morrow, Cishek, Edwards, Graveman, Kintzler, Mills, Rosario, Duensing
C: Contreras, Caratini
IF: Rizzo, Baez, KB, Descalso, Russell (suspended), Bote
OF: Schwarber, Heyward, Almora, Happ, Zobrist
That's 29 guys. A couple of the relievers will just get on the DSM-Chicago shuttle and some could get cut in favor of someone like Maples or others who might also get on the DSM-Chicago shuttle. I could see Chatwood starting the year at Iowa. Montgomery probably goes back to his swing role if Darvish is healthy to start the year.
On the one hand, that's basically last year's roster....but at the same time, if KB and Darvish are healthy, it's still a stout bunch. I'm curious to see if Javy can pick up where he left off and whether any of the other kids take steps forward.
Per Spotrac, Cubs are sitting at $179.9M in payroll today (they don't have Montgomery yet, so they're really at $182M). If KB gets $15M, Javy maybe $9M, Edwards maybe $1.5M and then the rest get their pre-arb $700k mostly, the payroll probably sits around $210M. If the Cubs do anything other than work in the margins from here, we're probably looking at some trade activity either as the move or as a move to free up cash for a move.
Indeed. I am not one to delve into the calculus that is arbitration numbers, but MM is getting screwed, and for some reason KS is coming out ahead even though he missed a full season.
It shouldn't be. He was a 3.2 WAR player last year on the Fangraphs scale. His wRC+ (weighted runs created metric where 100 is league average) was 115 and he's projected for similar in 2019. He may never become Babe Ruth, but he is a valuable power bat. Last year, his 3.2 WAR put him 92nd in baseball.
There's a common belief that 1 WAR is worth roughly $8M. That sort of works on the macro looking across the whole league, but that also includes some massive contracts pumping up the bottom-line number. Still, even if you assume half that, if Schwarber was able to go hit the open market right now where teams could bid, he'd probably settle somewhere in the $6-10M range.
The last 5 players above him were: Francisco Cervelli, JA Happ, Johan Camargo, Paul DeJong and Jose Berrios.
The first 5 players below him were: Charlie Morton, Justin Upton, Chris Taylor, Jesus Aguilar and Nick Castellanos
Four of those guys have not hit arbitration years yet and don't make much of anything. The other 6 make a combined $73.8M, which is an average of $12.3M. It's skewed a bit by Upton's huge contract and a couple starting pitchers who get valued differently, but Schwarber is still a relative bargain. That's one of the reasons why the Cubs continue to get trade interest for him.
I think KS is actually about right (see my last post). I will agree, however, that MM is getting absolutely hosed, especially in a baseball world where pitchers contracts are generally somewhat inflated. I fully expected him to get at last twice what he got.
Possibly, but I tend to use WAR a lot and FanGraphs has always been the site I know the best, so I use it all the time so as not to cherry pick. I think BP underrates his D just a touch, but that's just my opinion.
We can quibble about which WAR calculation is best, but most offensive metrics have him as an above-average producer at the plate. His 115 wRC+ was 66th in baseball last year. He's not an elite producer, but he's not making elite money. $3.4M for his skillset and age is pretty fair, IMHO.
The Cubs have agreed to a $12.9MM contract with star third baseman Kris Bryant, ESPNChicago.com’s Jesse Rogers tweets. Also agreeing to terms, at $5.2MM, was star infielder Javier Baez, as Jon Heyman of Fancred was first to tweet.
Rather more controversially, the club also has reached a salary with suspended shortstop Addison Russell, per Bob Nightengale of USA Today (via Twitter). The Cubs have stuck with Russell even as immensely troubling allegations have emerged regarding his alleged abuse of his former wife. His reported deal includes a $3.4MM salary and up to $600K in potential incentive pay tied to the number of days Russell spends on the active roster.
Bryant checks in right near his projected amount of $12.4MM. Baez, however, came in well shy of the number that the MLBTR/Matt Swartz projection system had suggested ($7.1MM).
Russell, meanwhile, had projected at $4.3MM, but his situation was certainly not typical. After ending the 2018 season on the restricted list due to a suspension for violation of the league’s domestic violence policy, he’ll remain sidelined for about the first month of the season to come. Russell will not be paid during that time.
Earlier today, the Cubs agreed to terms with their three other arb-eligible players.
If KB is KB and Darvish is even 80% of what he's capable of being, the Cubs are going to be really tough. Even with Lester being on the decline, he's still a guy who knows how to pitch. Hendricks has continued to be consistent.
That's a good deal on Javy, I thought he had a chance to get $9M.
I know this isn't really how it works, but the Cubs should have told Russell $1 million, 40 games of which he'll miss anyway, and you only come to the majors if/when we think you've done something to better yourself. The only reason I say $1 million is he's got three kids to support.
Going down in late February. I'm dawdling on getting some tickets. We may try to see them at one of the away games, even though that will be a lot of guys on the 70s-90s playing.
We'll, he got $3.4M, but he's missing 30 games of that, which is roughly 1/5, so the Cubs will only pay him $2.8m unless he hits his bonuses.
I just read some details on BCB that are troubling to say the least. Russell will recoup all the missed salary with a series of easily attainable incentives. Basically if he stays on the roster all season he makes up the money from his suspension.
It's certainly a risk, but since they haven't cut ties with him, I hope they hold him to a hard standard. I'd like him have to earn his way up from AAA and then anything else as a negative character hit costs him severely.
If they hold him to a tough standard and he stays eligible, hopefully that's the best thing for him and the Cubs long term.
A few comments on previous posts:
-Bleacher Nation is projecting the Cubs payroll for luxury tax purposes at $222M following the arbitration agreements. That's just below the $226M second tier "penalty" zone. The third tier - which it appears no team has interest in exceeding due to luxury tax penalties - is $246M.
-Many on Cubs Twitter are calling the Ricketts cheap even though they will likely have a top 3 payroll in MLB.
-If any one of the pitchers that Theo/Hoyer/McLeod had drafted since 2012 could have grown into a serviceable #5 starter, they would have been able to fish in the Harper waters, as opposed to paying Darvish/Hamels/Chatwood a combined $53M to manage the 4/5 spots in the rotation.
-Anybody who thinks Schwarber is overpaid is clueless. Schwarber is likely not the superstar hitter the Cuban thought they were getting when they reached for him at #4 in the draft, but he is a very solid player, and completely not tradeable since they need his low salary on their roster.
-There is going to be a work stoppage when the current CBA expires. The Players Union is clearly unhappy with the drop in payroll as a percentage of overall revenue. It is clearly their fault, and the fault of Tony Clark for agreeing to a CBA that greatly limits player earnings during their peak years. Take Kris Bryant for instance. He did not reach the bigs until he was 23, and he will play his first game under his FA deal at the age of 30. So, Kris Bryant should be making $30M per year right now but by the time he is eligible to do so (unless he accepts a pre-arb extension) teams will be paying for past-prime yeas.
-Bleacher Nation is projecting the Cubs payroll for luxury tax purposes at $222M following the arbitration agreements. That's just below the $226M second tier "penalty" zone. The third tier - which it appears no team has interest in exceeding due to luxury tax penalties - is $246M.
-Many on Cubs Twitter are calling the Ricketts cheap even though they will likely have a top 3 payroll in MLB.
-If any one of the pitchers that Theo/Hoyer/McLeod had drafted since 2012 could have grown into a serviceable #5 starter, they would have been able to fish in the Harper waters, as opposed to paying Darvish/Hamels/Chatwood a combined $53M to manage the 4/5 spots in the rotation.
-Anybody who thinks Schwarber is overpaid is clueless. Schwarber is likely not the superstar hitter the Cuban thought they were getting when they reached for him at #4 in the draft, but he is a very solid player, and completely not tradeable since they need his low salary on their roster.
-There is going to be a work stoppage when the current CBA expires. The Players Union is clearly unhappy with the drop in payroll as a percentage of overall revenue. It is clearly their fault, and the fault of Tony Clark for agreeing to a CBA that greatly limits player earnings during their peak years. Take Kris Bryant for instance. He did not reach the bigs until he was 23, and he will play his first game under his FA deal at the age of 30. So, Kris Bryant should be making $30M per year right now but by the time he is eligible to do so (unless he accepts a pre-arb extension) teams will be paying for past-prime yeas.
I agree with this. There's a guy I've gotten to know in Charlotte baseball circles who used to pitch in the Nats organization before blowing out his shoulder. He's pretty young and knows a lot of younger major leaguers, minor leaguers and pending draft picks. I was talking to him yesterday while he was working with my oldest and we talked about the option years. I asked him what he thought was fair.
Having recently been a player, I was curious what his opinion would be. He actually cited Bryant (and Arrieta and Mookie Betts) in his argument....elite college player/very high draft pick. Quick path to big leagues, early massive success. He now plays at an MVP level when he's healthy, but gets paid something well below what his market rate would be. He acknowledged there's a window when the team should be able to reap the benefits of having drafted/signed/acquired him, but that the current window is too long. Some of his ideas:
- Keep 7-year clock, but it starts the day you first sign. Minor leaguers will start getting arb deals and if it takes a guy 4 years to get to the bigs, the the team only controls him for 3 more years.
- Keep the clock based on ML service time like it is now, but team control for only 4 years. Depending on how you count the start of service time, KB would be looking at free agency after this season or next and Harper would have gone a couple years ago.
- Another option he mentioned would be to pay players much more out of the draft, but we didn't go far down this rabbit hole. That impacts the top picks, but not sure how that would look across the eleventy billion rounds of the MLB draft.
We hear all the arguments about "I'd never go X years on a player" and that it's not efficient use of resources to pay a lot of money for a guy's mid-30s or later.....which incentivizes teams to do more and more with young, cost-controlled guys. The Cubs rode Arrieta HARD up to his FA period, for example. These guys simply don't get the chance to fully cash in when their skills are at their peak unless you're someone like Harper who didn't go the college route and was good enough to make a big splash in the bigs at 19-20.
Unless the two sides work out some big concessions in the next couple of years, I definitely think we're heading for another work stoppage. Players got fleeced last time.
To be fair, they agreed to it
And when they did it was the method in place for years and 35 year olds were still getting paid. But, in the last five years, what've you seen is basically every front office now made up of guys of the same four ivy league schools and same line of thinking.
Oh, they totally agreed to it. I've made bad deals in the past. I fully owned my responsibility for saying "yes", but it just made me more focused on not getting rolled the next time.
Your post, and the former player, came off a bit too much "Woe is the player" for me. They did agree to the system.
There are three things to blame for the current set up
1) Same thinking in all front offices
2) More kids playing college ball/college development has improved
3) Luxury tax.
In fairness, I asked him about it specifically for the player perspective and that's what I was trying to communicate. Of course the association agreed to it.
What's really clear is that every system will create efficiencies and inefficiencies and the front offices have done really, really well to take advantage of the efficiencies this creates.
The players will eventually face the "spoiled athletes" arguments, but what's important to remember is that there are billions of dollars in revenues. Revenues that don't go to players simply stays with the teams. It's going to be really interesting to see where this goes.
The next CBA is going to be very rocky, indeed. I'm not pro ownership, or pro player. I just love baseball. I think the players are learning a hard lesson the last few years that the game is evolving. Fat contracts for older guys are disappearing. My general opinion is maybe some more signing money up front, but the game is still built partially upon lower level picks, and foreign players who work their way through the system over a 4-6 year time span. Ownership pays for that. They pay for the facilities that the players love to train in year round, or in the Spring. If you are a AA player who injures a shoulder ownership is footing the bill. It isn't all about high round picks who are surefire locks to make the majors.
If the players are serious about more money earlier, they are going to have to live with less money and fewer years later. Hell, maybe get rid of guaranteed contracts at the FA level. Leverage for a signing bonus, but if you suck the team cuts you. I guess I am just saying the players seem to be saying they want it all, and aren't recognizing the role ownership plays, and also that in America it isn't evil for a team to turn a profit.
If the players are serious about more money earlier, they are going to have to live with less money and fewer years later. Hell, maybe get rid of guaranteed contracts at the FA level. Leverage for a signing bonus, but if you suck the team cuts you. I guess I am just saying the players seem to be saying they want it all, and aren't recognizing the role ownership plays, and also that in America it isn't evil for a team to turn a profit.
I agree with your perspectives and am fine with the position of both parties to this debate.
Players have a right to be upset that their proportion of the revenue pie seems to be shrinking.
On the flip side, I believe owners have every right to act in their own best interests. Just because a team is getting a bargain on their cost controlled, young stars does not mean that they have a moral imperative to give Jake Arrieta a 6-7 year deal (last year) commencing in his age 32 season.
Totally agreed. I've seen the "collusion" word tossed around, but this isn't 1985. It's about value. I hope they can find some middle ground. Lucas is right...the owners provide a lot and carry the risk, so they should have rights to the players for a while, but I do think the current system is extreme. I wonder if we'll start seeing more shorter deals for more money per.
I think I'd believe anything at this point. free-agency looks much like last year. There will be guys available right up to spring training.
