Left-hander Drew Smyly exercised his player option to return to the Cubs, tweets Jesse Rogers of ESPN. He’ll make an $8.5MM salary next season and is guaranteed a $2.5MM buyout on a mutual option for 2025.
There wasn’t much suspense with the decision. Smyly wasn’t going to beat $11MM in guarantees on the open market. The veteran southpaw had a tough 2023 campaign, allowing five earned runs per nine across 142 1/3 innings. The Cubs moved him to the bullpen in mid-August as his struggles mounted. Smyly fared well in relief, working to a 2.51 ERA through 28 2/3 innings.
That’s perhaps the ideal role for him to assume in 2024. The Cubs have Justin Steele, Kyle Hendricks and Jameson Taillon locked into three rotation spots. They’re likely to add at least one arm this winter to replace Marcus Stroman, who opted out of his contract. Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks and Hayden Wesneski headline the remaining options for back-end roles.
With Smyly officially back in the fold, Roster Resource projects the Cubs’ 2024 player payroll around $178MM. They’re at roughly $186MM in luxury tax obligations, around $50MM shy of the threshold. Chicago opened the ’23 campaign with a payroll around $184MM.
Smyly makes a fine swing man and hopefully some team like the Royals see that and are willing to make a trade. I’m sure we have some mid level prospect they would be willing take on in exchange for Smylys contract… Mervis anyone?
I have a really hard time seeing Wesneski as a starter. He doesn’t have enough feel for his pitches to be effective but can be a lights out reliever.
If you ask me, fifth starter goes to Assad unless Wicks really impresses in the Spring. Wicks is the next man up with Horton and Brown being post season push guys.
Wesneski also struggled badly against LHB. If he can figure out how to get them out, I agree he could be a very good reliever.
Assad all but earned a rotation spot in my opinion. However, I think regression is coming with him. Should still be a solid #5 though.
@drasco, or they can attach to Smylys contract- the rights to your guy(s), Tucker Barnhart and Hosmer ( the first guy to jump off the bench). Both should be announcing their retirements soon.
I gotta hand it to this guy. One short season (2020) when he was on the IL and he’s parlayed those 7 wonderful games played into a nice career earnings.
Unless you’re a Giant fan you probably didn’t know how dominant he was in 2020. Amazing. And he left and made $11M in 2021 with the Braves.
You can’t count on him for 30 starts but as a swing man/bulk innings guy, you can do worse.
The Giants missed the playoffs by 1 game that season (thanks Farhan and Joe McCarthy and Conner Joe (before he was good). If they got in with Smyly and an unhittable Kevin Gausman, who knows?