6:04pm: The Cubs have formally announced the signing.
Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times tweets that he can earn the following incentives: $50K for reaching 200 plate appearances, $75K at 250 PAs, $125K at 300 PAs, $150K at 350 PAs and $200K for reaching each of 400, 450 and 500 PAs. Souza will also earn $200K for every 30th day on the active 26-man roster — up through 150 days.
3:50pm: The Cubs have finalized their one-year, Major League contract with free agent outfielder Steven Souza Jr., per MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand (Twitter link). The two sides were first reported to be nearing an agreement on Friday. Souza, who is represented by ACES, will receive a $1MM base salary and can earn another $2MM via incentives, Jordan Bastian of MLB.com tweets. The team has yet to formally announce the signing.
It’s sure to be a low-cost deal for the Cubs, as Souza missed the entire 2019 season due to a devastating knee injury and hasn’t enjoyed a full, healthy year since a terrific 2017 campaign with the Rays. That year saw Souza turn in a .239/.351/.459 slash with career-highs in home runs (30), doubles (21), stolen bases (16) and plate appearances (617). Souza was traded to the Diamondbacks that offseason and immediately hit by injuries — namely a pectoral tear that wiped out more than half of his season and limited him to a .220/.309/.369 slash when on the field.
Bringing Souza into the fray gives the Cubs another option in what already looked like a somewhat crowded outfield mix. Kyle Schwarber, Albert Almora Jr., Jason Heyward and Ian Happ are already lined up to share playing time as is. Third baseman Kris Bryant, too, has seen work in the outfield corners in each of the past five seasons. There are already plenty of question marks surrounding a potential trade involving Bryant — first and foremost centering around an ongoing service time grievance — and bringing another corner outfielder onto the roster will only spark some further speculation about other dealings.
The Souza pickup is the latest in a string of budget-friendly acquisitions from a Cubs front office that has been handcuffed both by the uncertainty surrounding Bryant’s status and by payroll constraints set forth by the Ricketts family ownership group. Chicago reportedly agreed to a tiny $850K deal with reliever Jeremy Jeffress earlier today and has otherwise made a string of minor league signings or non-guaranteed MLB deals (Dan Winkler, Ryan Tepera).
Hits 30 Hr’s, somehow keeps an mlb job even though he can’t do anything else
His fielding is above average but no idea how that knee will hold up.
Apparently bravesfan really loves batting average. Looking beyond it to evaluate players can be mentally challenging for some but oh is it rewarding
Yea I mention HR’s and you conclude I only look at batting avg. however if you look at all his stats, he’s pretty awful… but that’s ok… apparently I just look at batting avg. lol. OBP… not great, slg not good…. he’s not a good baseball player. Sure, we developed some metric to evaluate a players defense, but I just don’t know if I can justify a player is worse a mlb roster spot strictly because his defense is slightly above league avg. especially in the OF. He’s just one of those players where 1 good year apparently justifies a ton. Not to mention he had that brutal knee injury which typically doesn’t add to good things… look… defend him, back it up and I’ll tip my hat. But attacking my claim with worthy irrelevant incoherent information is a waste of everyone’s time. I use hr as my initial metric and yet you correlate that to avg…. Makes sense….
Btw, I do thing avg is a worthy enough stat to gauge a player to SOME extent. I like to look at ranges. Example: .200-.230 eh he prob sucks, .240-.270 it depends on other metrics, .270-300 guy might be worth something, .300 and above … prob a good ball player. Kinda an initial baseline …. but by no means tells us how good the player is. A basic guideline at best
.270-.300 baa and you say he might be worth something… The league average baa this year was in the .240s…
If you’re talking about 2017…his OBP and SLG were both good. Any ballplayer with an 800 OPS with decent defense is definitely not “not a good ballplayer “, as you said. If he can replicate the numbers from his last healthy season, this will be a very nice addition for the Cubs. If not, it’s a minimal loss
If you’re talking about 2017…his OBP and SLG were both good. Any ballplayer with an 800 OPS with decent defense is definitely not “not a good ballplayer “, as you said. If he can replicate the numbers from his last healthy season, this will be a very nice addition for the Cubs. If not, it’s a minimal loss
League avg was .252. That’s league avg on avg. In other words, that’s a baseline. Based on my generic BA guidelines which have no science behind it what so ever, if I say .270 – .300 might be worth something, my statement holds true as that stat line suggest he is in fact better than the avg player. The .252 stat league avg falls into the “depends on other metric category. So in other words, he’s at least avg, so what other stats prove he provided value to the team. In other words, you try to trash me by proving my point somewhat right. It’s no exact science, I admit that. And I general demand higher BA #’s if I’m gonna use that stat to determine some sense of worth. Hence why the scale is off a tad.
Hey I agree on avg. even with all these new fancy stats the main two I still always look at avg and rbi
. Sometimes they tell you all you need to know about a hitter.
Laughable signing!
Oh, please. Not every signing has to be Manny Machado. It’s a low risk, low cost lottery ticket.
I swear that an key element of being a Sox fan for some has to be feeling inferior. How else can you explain why so many of them obsess about the Cubs while Cubs fans barely care that the Sox exist?
That’s because most Cub fans think Wrigley is an outdoor beer garden.
Hahahaha
Cubs could have made 2 signings and looked pretty good ,at least like they gave a dam could have signed Avi Garcia for right field put Heyward in center and signed Yolmer Sanchez for infield sub Not a lot of money and much better than scrap heap their picking through now
Somewhat crowded outfield? It’s somewhat terrible.
How dare you say that. You’ll get salty cubs fans crying here any time about how they are going to win 100 games this year. At least until they nosedive in September for a 3rd year in a row.
I dont see too many Cubs fans saying that. Even less with ones I talk to day to day. Maybe in the past few seasons. I guess if you make the narritive is thrown out there its true?
I’m guessing you haven’t read many of the cubs fans comments on this site then…
You’re probably one of them, BrewCrew
Salty brewers fans will hop on cubs signing comment boards and talk about salty cubs fans, brewers have won a lot of World Series lately
Joparx it took 15 minutes to get a comment like that. I’m a little disappointed. It only takes cubs fans less than a minute to comment on brewers signings
All I see is Brewers, cardinals and white Sox fans troll every single post about the cubs. The fact is brewers, cardinals and cubs are all worse on paper going into next year. Central will be a crap shoot.
There are brewers fans here?
Winning the offseason does does mean regular season wins will follow. But the Reds look and feel like their poised to take this sinking division because of their good deals.
This Cubs signing is another piece of evidence that management is giving up on contending more during this window. Expect a Bryant trade as soon as possible. Also expect a Dozier signing to be a deck hand on the sinking ship.
Theo is the man for building a champ. But he is not the man for sustaining a long run of competitive baseball.
iml12: What’s your point?
They do. You’ll find both of them messaging on every thread about another team in the NL central. ‘Moose sucked glad we got rid of him.’ ‘Ryan Braun is better now than Jim Edmonds ever was.’ ‘Hey, anyone have a starting pitcher we could borrow?’ ‘Hey guys, I live in Wisconsin, we consider ourselves southern Canadians.’ Comments like these will give you strong indication you are dealing with Brewers fan.
I’m sorry did I miss something? When did the Brewers finally show up in the playoffs and get a ring? This coming from a legion of Brewer fans who still let Cub fans fill up their home park anytime we play them.
And the last two years the brewers have been the better team and it’s been very enjoyable to watch
Not crowded at all. Heyward and Happ can’t hit LHP. Souza is league average against lefties and will take those ABs from Heyward. Not a huge improvement, but Heyward’s L/R splits might be the most lopsided in baseball.
I’d say the cubs outfield is interesting. Going as far to say terrible is showing your bias
Steven de Souza got robbed for Best Director for Street Fighter
I hope you don’t get robbed for Best Comment, because you absolutely deserve it. Nice job pulling off that reference!
Happ will probably be playing more 2B than OF anyway.
too bad it’s not with another franchise
Real good player, wish you well Steven!
Really? …. A .233 lifetime hitter. In his best year he sucked.
Just stop posting.
Just a platoon signing. He will never get most of the incentives So far I see no comments about Jeffress. Another Strop type. Maybe he will have good year Souza is just to play right field a few times a week. If he can’t cut it he will be sent packing like the rest of the cripples Theo signs Jeffress had a good season in 18. Souza might fare a little better in the smaller park.
A little confused by this. He has reverse splits in this two most productive seasons and his defense numbers are not that great. He has decent numbers for RISP and 2-men out. That might be worth it alone since we know how much they struggled in the clutch the last couple years.
He’s played in 72 games total over the past 2 seasons. Good luck Cubs.
Dont get me wrong. He is a useful player. But to call that stat line terrific is to lower the standard.
His 2017 stat line is pretty good. Batting average doesn’t tell the whole story.
I think his issue was with the .810 OPS. It’s good but terrific is definitely a huge stretch.
A walk has the same value, actually more if you consider pitches per AB, as an empty bases single. Trade 20 bases empty singles for walks and he’s hitting .267 with the same OBP and a higher slugging.
That line looks better, but is it more valuable?
Totally agree. A lot of sabremetricians downplay the importance of BA, but as a former player, coach, manager, and umpire – a .239 BA sucks in any league.
That just goes to show that you can be all of those things and clueless!
There are literally two important features of a successful at bat: not making an out, and ending up in a farther-along base base. Everything else is distantly less important than those two things.
Batting average only does an incomplete job at best of capturing these phenomena.
Don’t forget advancing runners, and don’t forget the possibility for errors on any given batted ball.
Correct title “Cubs are now 2020 WS favs”
Now if cubs can land Scooter, look the **** out NL
Trade for Nick Senzel. Sign Yasiel Puig. Trade for Mike Clevinger.
And trade who to get Senzel and Clevinger? Lol
Shouldn’t be tough to pull those off.
Bote and Descalso for Senzel.
Marquez, Heyward, and $40 million for Clevinger.
– Cubs fans
Nobody in their right mind woulds want Puig.
you have got to be kidding me
Question for anyone with the answer. Do GMs have access to the terms of the contracts of all MLB players? For example if I am the GM of the Dodgers and I want to trade for a player on another team is there an official MLB database I can access to show the details of that players contract? Or do I have to contact that other team and ask for the info? I know there are unofficial websites that have players info but I am curious if there is an official place to go.
Baseball Reference cites “Joint Exhibit 1” which seems like an official document all teams should be able to access. But other than that, I guess players and agents are probably just as keen to disclose the economic value of contracts, its conditions and other details to any other people or organization as you are.
reds say who?
Surprised Souza passed the physical. Wish him well, seems like a nice guy, but it’ll be a miracle if he gets through the season healthy on that knee, and it will be a surprise if he makes it through ST healthy.
Looks like Theo is shopping at dollar General again. Cubs suck!
Welcome to the Rickets comedy club.
If you’re going to troll, please have enough courtesy to spell the name correctly.
Don’t mind misty, he has syphilis of the brain
“Dumpster divin’ Theo”! Ha!
I guess the Cubs feel Rizzo, Bryant, Contreras, Baez & Schwarber are enough as the rest of the offense is questionable at best. Not a bad 5 though. Pretty Good.
Anybody that watches Bryant and doesn’t buy the INCORRECT media hype knows he is a lousy third baseman, NOT a clutch hitter and no where near as good as Castellanos. Bryant had 15 errors to lead the Cubs and if Rizzo hadn’t scooped up all his bad throws he would have had 30. Now he cannot wait to get out of Chicago, good! riddance
Tiddlywinks is a game played on a flat felt mat with sets of small discs called “winks”, a pot, which is the target, and a collection of squidgers, which are also discs.
Please stop. You’re embarrassing yourself.
The sentence about Kris Bryant is awkwardly written.
Did Boras buy the Bryant Arbitrator a beach house on the California coast ?
Cubs are the team to beat, and all those other NL Central teams know it.
NO WC coming from NL Central….three teams in NL East are heading to the playoffs.
A scrub is a guy that can’t get no love from me.
Should be easy to beat the cubs pitching staff, terrible bullpen, and bats that make foreigners cold as ice a billboard hit in 2020.
The best they can afford right now. Upside hitter
Tight wad ricketts is gonna be calling the dugout telling them to bench Souza.
Ha! Then Grampa Rossy can tell Mr. Ricketts to kiss his ass!
World Series bound cubbies.
I thought Mariners would actually get him. Surely he gets his AB’s in LF/RF against LHP.
Won’t be getting too much playing time, although enough to make an impact. I don’t get how people could hate on virtually any contract move in the comment section instead of being real on other possibilities. Weird.
Lmao trash, cubs are trash.
I’m pretty sure that trash has one of the best win % in MLB over the past five seasons.
Also, could you point to a time when the all time cumulative win% of the Cubs was below .500?
What does the last 5 years have to with the cubs this year? They failed to reach the playoffs last year and have lost several players without replacing them with any real talent. Cubs will trade away a core player at least by the trade deadline. Wouldn’t shock me if Bryant and Contreras both were traded for prospects.
I’d like to point out that this trash team has made the playoffs in 41% of their past 17 seasons, has one of the best records in MLB over the past five years, and is a franchise that has never had an all time cumulative win % under .500.
Do you want a ribbon?
Here’s a random question to fellow baseball lovers from a diehard cubs fan, just pre ordered the Show 20, this means 8 straight years of doing so, should I feel guilty for this? lol
Nah A cubs franchise mode could still be interesting for 2020 no doubt. I usually choose a different team each year to keep it fun. May i suggest crosstown WhiteSox?
As a die-hard Cubs fan I want this to be a low-cost a big reward.
I would have probably put out a league minimum plus incentives offer.
I’m a long time Cub fan of I’ve fifty years. I expect Bryant to be traded per owners request to get under the salary penalty! That’s what he wants so that’s what has to happen! With or with out a Bryant trade I think this team is built to be a .500 team! Just get on with it!
Cubs just won grievance as we all knew they would . Be interesting if they trade him for a haul of young arms . Or try extension again
Not a bad signing.
Not a bad signing.
Yaaaaaaaaay. /s