Orioles Return Rule 5 Picks Brandon Bailey, Michael Rucker
3:01pm: The O’s announced that both players have cleared waivers and been returned to their prior teams.
1:37pm: The Orioles have decided against carrying both of their Rule 5 selections from the December draft, GM Mike Elias told media members including Jon Meoli of the Baltimore Sun (via Twitter). The departures of righties Brandon Bailey and Michael Rucker will open two 40-man roster spots.
It isn’t yet entirely clear whether these two hurlers have cleared waivers. Every other team in baseball will have (or has had) a chance to step into the O’s Rule 5 rights. If nobody places a claim, then they’ll be offered back to their prior teams — where they will not lock up a big-league roster spot unless and until they’re added.
The 25-year-old Bailey came over from the Astros organization after a strong 2019 season in which he pitched to a 3.30 ERA over 92 2/3 innings at the Double-A level with 10.0 K/9 and 4.0 BB/9. He had been selected with the second overall pick in the Rule 5 draft. The Orioles could’ve utilized him as a swingman in the majors this year but evidently didn’t see enough upside to merit the effort.
As for Rucker, who’s also 25, he’d be heading back to the Cubs. Last year, he transitioned into a full-time reliever, throwing 79 2/3 upper-minors innings over 36 appearances. Rucker carried a 4.18 ERA with a healthy combination of 10.5 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 on the season. He also threw five scoreless innings over three appearances in camp, with three strikeouts and a pair of free passes.
Extension Notes: Baez, Minor, Realmuto
Reports back in November indicated that the Cubs had initiated extension talks with star shortstop Javier Baez, but Baez himself said as recently as mid-February that talks on that front have been “up and down.” Asked about the potential of signing a long-term deal in the wake of this week’s seven-year extension for division rival Christian Yelich, Baez told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times that Yelich’s seven-year, $188.5MM extension “doesn’t have anything to do with mine.” Baez acknowledged that he and the Cubs are still “working on” a long-term deal, though there’s no indication that talks have gained significant momentum.
Cubs president of baseball ops Theo Epstein declined to discuss talks with Baez or any other player in detail, merely indicating that the Cubs have tried to sign several players long term. “It’s not worth talking about,” Epstein said of his team’s extension efforts. “If we can get it done, we will. If we can’t, then we’ll move forward. But players don’t have an obligation to sign.” Baez is earning $10MM in 2020 and will be arbitration-eligible one last time next winter before reaching free agency in the 2021-22 offseason.
Some more notes on potential extensions for high-end players…
- Mike Minor has previously made his desire to sign an extension with the Rangers known, but the left-hander told Sam Blum of the Dallas Morning News that “nothing’s happened.” The 32-year-old said he’s not the type to “put a hard deadline kind of thing” on talks before immediately contradicting that statement (to an extent) by adding that he doesn’t want to discuss a new contract during the season. Getting a new deal done before Opening Day would be a “best case” scenario, per Minor, who pitched to a 3.59 ERA with 8.6 K/9, 2.9 BB/9, 1.30 HR/9 and a 40 percent ground-ball rate in a career-high 208 1/3 innings with Texas in 2019. Minor is owed a $9.83MM salary in 2020 — the final season of a three-year, $28MM deal signed with Texas prior to the 2018 campaign. Minor figures to be one of the better arms available on next year’s market and was an honorable mention on the first edition of MLBTR’s 2020-21 Free Agent Power Rankings.
- The Phillies continue to discuss an extension with free-agent-to-be J.T. Realmuto, writes Todd Zolecki of MLB.com. The desire to get a long-term deal worked out isn’t exactly a well-kept secret, as both sides have made their desire to continue the relationship beyond 2020 known. Zolecki reports that talks between the two sides are moving slowly at this point, however. Realmuto for the first time this spring publicly acknowledged that the two sides are indeed talking but wouldn’t specify beyond that, simply stating that there’s “no update” at this time. Realmuto landed second on the first edition of MLBTR’s Free Agent Power Rankings, wherein Tim Dierkes observed that the 29-year-old is one more strong season away from being the first free-agent catcher to ever sign a deal worth more than $100MM.
Kris Bryant Notes: Grievance, Free Agency, CBA
Kris Bryant‘s service-time grievance became one of the offseason’s longest-running subplots, both because of the unexpectedly lengthy amount of time it took for the final ruling to be announced, and because of the perception that this extended wait may have impacted the Cubs’ efforts to trade the former NL MVP. Arbitrator Mark Irvings eventually ruled in favor of the Cubs, which kept Bryant under team control through the 2021 season rather than only the 2020 season, though the specific arguments behind Irvings’ decision weren’t known until Tuesday, when the Associated Press obtained a copy of Irvings’ 42-page ruling.
The Cubs kept Bryant in the minor leagues to begin the 2015 season, arguing that the then-prospect still had to work on his defense in preparation for his eventual MLB debut. Bryant was called up on April 17, a day after he would have gathered enough service time to become a free agent after the 2020 season. Instead, the Cubs gained a seventh year of control over Bryant, who earned a fourth arbitration year as a Super Two player but still couldn’t hit the open market until after the 2021 campaign.
It was widely expected that the Cubs would win the case, and indeed, Irvings ultimately felt “the [MLBPA] could not satisfy its burden of proving that the Cubs’ assignments of Bryant were done in bad faith to mask service time manipulation.” Irvings cited Bryant’s three errors during Spring Training 2015 as plausible evidence that his glovework was a concern for the team, and the specific timing of Bryant’s call-up coincided with injuries to regular third basemen Tommy La Stella and Mike Olt earlier in the week. Also, Irvings noted that Theo Epstein’s front offices in both Boston and Chicago didn’t place rookies on the Opening Day roster as a general rule, so it wasn’t as if keeping Bryant in the minors departed from Epstein’s established norm.
Irvings specified that his ruling applied only to Bryant’s case, and that “this decision does not address, the global issue of whether clubs have the right to manage service time to delay a player’s achievement of the service benchmarks for salary arbitration and free agent eligibility.” Bryant’s grievance is the most high-profile instance of a player challenging the increasingly common practice of star prospects being kept in the minors for (unstated) service-time reasons, yet it isn’t likely that this practice will be formally dealt with in any way until the new Collective Bargaining Agreement is negotiated between the league and the MLBPA.
As one might expect, Bryant sees early-career status as one of the key issues of the coming CBA talks. “I think we need to look at how early in your career you provide so much value to a team, and you’re a significantly huge bargain,” Bryant told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. “And then when it’s your turn to fight for your value, people only want to see what you’ve done recently. I just feel like we should definitely change that structure where you’re paid earlier on, and are quicker to arbitration and free agency, stuff like that. Certain things we should totally fight for.”
Bryant gave his take on a number of current topics surrounding the game during the Q&A, including his thoughts on the Astros’ sign-stealing scandal, his positive feelings about the new three-batter minimum rule for relievers, and his more measured view of other proposals (i.e. an expanded playoff structure, automatically placing a runner at second base during extra innings). While Epstein and Bryant recently had a meeting that left the third baseman feeling that he’ll remain with the Cubs at least through the 2020 season, he told Nightengale that was “over” worrying about trade speculation since “I don’t have any control over it, so what are you going to do?”
That said, it is perhaps telling that when asked about getting no-trade protection in his next contract, Bryant said, “I think that might be the most important thing to me. It just gives you clarity in where you’ll be. If you have that in your contract, you know the team’s 100% committed to you being there. You’re their guy. It’s never in your mind about being traded. That’s definitely a very comforting feeling.”
Pedro Strop On Cubs’ Interest In Free Agency
This past offseason was not one to remember for the Cubs, a big-market, high-payroll team that spent a mere $3.5MM on free agents after failing to make the playoffs in 2019. The club also lost quite a few of its own notable free agents, including reliever Pedro Strop, even though the right-hander revealed Wednesday that Chicago had interest in retaining him.
“They did try hard to bring me back. It’s just money-wise, they couldn’t, because they weren’t allowed [with] all the salary cap stuff; they wanted to try to stay below,” Strop said (via Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times).
The 34-year-old Strop, a Cub from 2013-19, ended up with the National League Central rival Reds on a modest single-season pact worth $1.825MM. The Cubs weren’t even willing to go to those lengths for Strop, however, thanks in part to their desire to stay under the luxury tax (not the nonexistent salary cap) this year. They were one of three teams that had to pay the tax in 2019, when they were forced to fork over a $7.6MM bill. The threshold then was $206MM, but it has climbed to $208MM for 2020. Although they spent next to nothing over the winter, the Cubs project to start this season about $6MM over that mark, per Jason Martinez of Roster Resource and FanGraphs.
Should the tax really be a concern for the deep-pocketed Cubs? Arguably not. Regardless, there’s a case that the Cubs won’t get hurt by letting Strop walk, even though a divisional foe grabbed him for a relatively inexpensive guarantee. Strop was an excellent late-game option for a large portion of his tenure in Chicago, but he took noticeable steps backward last year. For example, Strop posted the worst full-season run prevention marks of his career (4.97 ERA/4.53 FIP) and one of his highest walk rates (4.32 per nine) across 41 2/3 innings. Furthermore, after averaging more than 95 mph on his fastball in each of his prior seasons as a Cub, his mean velocity dropped to 93.7 in 2019. A Strop rebound remains possible, though, and the Cubs are left to hope he doesn’t return to his old form for a Reds team that bought low on him.
Cubs Targeted Dinelson Lamet, Others In Previous Kris Bryant Talks With Padres
The Cubs and Padres discussed various scenarios involving third baseman Kris Bryant but were (obviously) unable to come to an agreement, Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union Tribune reports. Specifically, the Cubs showed interest in right-hander Dinelson Lamet. Catching prospect Luis Campusano was also a potential target.
It’s hardly a shock to see the pitching-needy Cubs pursuing a controllable big league arm like Lamet. The 27-year-old returned from Tommy John surgery in 2019 and gave the Padres 73 innings (14 starts) of 4.07 ERA ball with a massive 13.0 K/9 against 3.7 BB/9 and 1.48 HR/9. Lamet averaged 96.1 mph on his heater and posted a gaudy 14 percent swinging-strike rate in addition to high-end spin rates on his heater and breaking ball.
Beyond Lamet’s ability to miss bats, he’s controlled for four seasons, which surely holds appeal considering the Cubs could see both Jon Lester and Jose Quintana hit free agency next winter. His fit on the 2020 club would be clear as well; currently, the Cubs’ hope is that Tyler Chatwood can hold down the fifth starter’s role — a task that he hasn’t been up to in either of the first two seasons of his ill-fated three-year, $38MM deal. Installing Lamet as a fifth option behind Lester, Quintana, Yu Darvish and Kyle Hendricks would’ve been considered an upgrade.
Lamet, though, is also viewed as a key part of the Padres’ 2020 plans. He’s expected to hold down a rotation spot alongside Chris Paddack, Garrett Richards, Zach Davies and Joey Lucchesi. The back of the Padres’ rotation will be a bit in flux as their wave of high-end prospects — headlined by MacKenzie Gore and Luis Patino — continue to push toward the big leagues. Lamet, though, has perhaps the highest upside of anyone other than Paddack in that initial quintet.
The 21-year-old Campusano, meanwhile, has significantly elevated his status over the past year. A second-round pick back in 2017, Campusano hit .325/.396/.509 in 487 plate appearances against against much older competition in Class-A Advanced in 2019. He’s now widely considered to be among the game’s 100 best prospects — ranking as high as No. 33 overall in the estimation of ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel.
While Bryant wouldn’t exactly be a clean fit into the Padres’ lineup in terms of position, his bat would represent a major upgrade to a Padres team that collectively batted .238/.308/.410 — good for just an 88 wRC+ that ranked 24th among Major League clubs. But with Manny Machado entrenched at third base and Fernando Tatis Jr. slotted in at shortstop — Machado’s other position — fitting Bryant into the mix would be a bit tougher.
Bryant does have experience in the outfield corners, but the Padres aren’t really short on options there, either (Tommy Pham, Wil Myers, Trent Grisham, Franchy Cordero). Bryant would clearly be the best hitter of the bunch, but San Diego acquired both Pham and Grisham this winter, and Myers’ contract ensures that he’ll be a part of the mix in some capacity. Acee does note that while the Padres were willing to consider moving Tatis to center field in the event of a Francisco Lindor acquisition, that scenario wasn’t a consideration when contemplating a Bryant swap.
At this point, the chances of any deal involving Bryant look to be minimal. The former Rookie of the Year and MVP has already had a sit-down with Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein — a meeting from which he came away with the impression that he’ll be remaining in Chicago. Their asking price could be informative in the event that Bryant once again hits the market, however, and it also speaks to the manner in which the Friars value both Lamet and Campusano.
Offseason In Review: Chicago Cubs
The Cubs declined to pull the trigger on a significant trade and chose to spend next to nothing in free agency.
Major League Signings
- Steven Souza Jr., RF: one year, $1MM
- Ryan Tepera, RP: one year, $900K (split contract). Could remain under control for 2021 as an arbitration eligible player
- Jeremy Jeffress, RP: one year, $850K
- Dan Winkler, RP: one year, $750K (split contract). Could remain under control for 2021 as an arbitration eligible player
- Total spend: $3.5MM
Options Exercised
Trades and Claims
- Acquired SP Jharel Cotton from Athletics for cash considerations
- Claimed RP CD Pelham off waivers from Rangers; later assigned outright to Triple-A
- Claimed RP Trevor Megill from Padres in Rule 5 draft
- Acquired 1B Alfonso Rivas from Athletics for OF Tony Kemp
- Acquired RP Casey Sadler from Dodgers for IF Clayton Daniel
- Acquired RP Travis Lakins from Red Sox for a player to be named later or cash; later lost to waiver claim by Orioles
Notable Minor League Signings
- Jason Kipnis, Brandon Morrow, Hernan Perez, Josh Phegley, Tyler Olson, Jason Adam, Ian Miller, Carlos Asuaje, Danny Hultzen, Rex Brothers, Noel Cuevas, Corban Joseph
Notable Losses
- Cole Hamels, Nick Castellanos, Steve Cishek, Brandon Kintzler, Pedro Strop, David Phelps, Derek Holland, Kendall Graveman, Tony Barnette, Ben Zobrist, Addison Russell, Tony Kemp
If you’re looking for a microcosm of the Cubs’ offseason, consider veteran reliever Alex Claudio. Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic wrote back in December that, “Before Claudio signed with the Brewers for $1.75 million, the Cubs had made it clear they were interested. But they needed to clear money first, so he signed with Milwaukee.” The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal wrote just days earlier, “[Cubs] officials are telling representatives of even low-budget free agents that they need to clear money before engaging in serious negotiations.”
It was a winter marked by the Cubs’ small-market division rivals outbidding them on low- to mid-tier free agents. Aside from Claudio, the Cubs reportedly had discussions with starting pitcher Josh Lindblom, who ultimately signed with the Brewers for three years and $9.125MM. The luxury tax hit for the Cubs on Lindblom would have been $3.04MM. Instead, the Cubs are slotting in Tyler Chatwood as their fifth starter, a signing that itself may never have happened had the Cubs not been outbid by the Cardinals for expat Miles Mikolas in December 2017. The backup plan behind Chatwood appears to be Jharel Cotton, who last pitched in the Majors two and a half years ago. The Brewers wound up committing $52.125MM across nine free agents including infielder of interest Eric Sogard ($4.5MM) as well as Swiss army knife Brock Holt ($3.25MM). So the Cubs’ plan at second base will be Nico Hoerner with backup from minor league signing Jason Kipnis and veteran Daniel Descalso.
The Cubs entered the offseason with a clear need in center field, reportedly meeting with Shogo Akiyama at the Winter Meetings. Akiyama instead signed with the Reds for three years and $21MM. The Diamondbacks, another Akiyama suitor, moved on to Starling Marte. The Cubs moved on to Steven Souza Jr., a $1MM right field short-side platoon partner for Jason Heyward. Souza missed all of 2019 due to “an ACL tear, LCL tear, partial PCL tear, and posterior lateral capsule tear in his left knee.” It’s not that he’s a bad pickup — he’s had success in the past and now feels 100% after a grueling rehab process — but that the signing was the biggest move of the Cubs’ offseason is rather eye-opening. The Cubs will hope that Ian Happ and Albert Almora Jr. can provide more production than they received at the position in 2019. Aside from Akiyama, the Cubs will also face new Red Nick Castellanos 19 times this year. The Cubs had interest in keeping Castellanos after he mashed for them in the season’s final two months, but they were never going to pony up $64MM.
The bullpen holdovers have question marks from top to bottom, and that starts with Craig Kimbrel. If we’re going to discuss the team’s lack of spending, it’s worth noting that they flexed some financial muscle when they signed Kimbrel to a three-year, $43MM deal shortly after last June’s draft. Bolstering the ‘pen in 2020 and 2021 was definitely a big part of that signing — but it’s hard to know whether that’ll be the outcome after Kimbrel posted a 6.53 ERA in 20 2/3 innings and spent time on the IL.
The Cubs added pitchers like Jeffress, Tepera, Winkler, Sadler, Megill, and Morrow to the ‘pen, giving them more potential bargains but no additional certainty. The team would probably feel better had it come away with one of the winter’s top free agent relievers, but a look at the previous winter’s crop — and the early returns of their own Kimbrel addition — shows the massive risk inherent in spending big bucks in the bullpen. Doubling down after getting burned in year one of the Kimbrel deal would’ve been risky. The team’s plan of making minor commitments and hoping their Pitch Lab can unearth a few gems actually makes sense.
Back in early December, I was sure the Cubs would at least be willing to spend up to what the collective bargaining agreement calls the “First Surcharge Threshold,” which is $228MM in 2020. That would have meant paying a 30% tax on money spent between $208-228MM. Maybe the team hasn’t yet realized a revenue bump from their new Marquee Sports Network, but given the team’s window of control over key players, spending now and resetting later seemed like the logical choice. Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein stated on October 30th, “As an organization, we’re not talking about payroll or luxury tax at all. I feel like every time we’ve been at all specific, or even allowed people to make inferences from things we’ve said, it just puts us in a hole strategically.”
Cubs ownership apparently didn’t get the memo, as Tom Ricketts commented extensively on the “dead-weight loss” of paying the competitive balance tax. The Cubs paid $7.6MM toward the luxury tax for 2019. Ricketts’ comments have generally served to muddy the waters about this tax, with disingenuous references to losing draft picks. The fact is that a team only gets its top draft pick moved back ten places if it reaches the “Second Surcharge Threshold,” which is $248MM for 2020 — a level to which the Cubs are not remotely close. Tom and his sister Laura also referenced how the penalties increase if a team exceeds the Base Tax Threshold repeatedly. That’s true, and I could see how the Cubs might not want to be a third-time CBT payor in 2021. With Jon Lester, Jose Quintana, and Tyler Chatwood coming off the books in ’21, that may indeed be a time to reset and get below $210MM. But the Cubs’ inaction this winter suggests an extreme reluctance to go past this year’s $208MM base threshold, even though capping payroll at $228MM for ’20 would result in a maximum tax bill of $6MM — lower than what they paid for 2019.
On September 30th, Epstein said, “Next year is a priority. We have to balance it with the future. And probably that’s more important now than it was even a year ago, because we’re now just two years away from a lot of our best players reaching the end of their period of control with the Cubs.” In other words, the team’s window runs through 2021, after which Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, and Kyle Schwarber can become free agents. While Epstein said recently “you can’t be blind to the realities of the following 18 months,” Ricketts feels that “we can stop talking about windows.” Ricketts’ stated goal of “building a division-winning team every year” seems at odds with the notion of spending $3.5MM on free agents because you don’t like paying a 30% tax.
Though we knew payroll was a concern, the Cubs surprised us by topping out at Souza’s $1MM in free agency. That surprise was compounded by the team’s failure to make a significant trade. As of December, a major trade or two seemed inevitable. ESPN’s Jeff Passan wrote, “The Chicago Cubs have been, according to various executives, ‘aggressive,’ ‘manic,’ ‘motivated’ and ‘obvious’ in their desire to trade someone. Or someones. The Cubs are going to make a move. They’re just not sure what yet.”
It seems the Cubs had extensive trade talks involving Bryant, with rumored connections to the Braves and Padres, among others. But with Bryant’s grievance decision dragging until January 29th and reported “sky-high asking prices,” the Cubs did not find a deal to their liking. Without knowing what was offered for Bryant, Willson Contreras, Kyle Schwarber, and others, it’s impossible to say whether Epstein made the right call. Eventually, some of these players will be traded, whether at this year’s July trade deadline or in the 2020-21 offseason. If there’s an obvious extension candidate among the bunch, it’s probably Baez, who acknowledged some “up and down” extension talks with the team this winter.
[RELATED: Grading Theo Epstein’s Cubs Free Agent Signings]
In the end, the Cubs’ biggest offseason acquisition turned out to be manager David Ross. If the players’ complacency under Joe Maddon wasn’t clear before, consider this damning quote from Baez last month: “A lot of players were doing the same as me. They were getting loose during the game. You can lose the game in the first inning. Sometimes when you’re not ready and the other team scored by something simple, I feel like it was cause of that. It was cause we weren’t ready.”
2020 Season Outlook
During the Winter Meetings, when a shakeup still seemed likely, Epstein commented, “Status quo is not a bad option, but we’re obviously out there looking to make changes and change the dynamic and improve.” To that end, the Cubs failed. Epstein’s assessment at the time on what the status quo would mean: “I’d feel like we’d have one of the most talented teams in the league but that we’d have some areas of exposure where we’d need a lot of things to go right.”
That sums up the state of the 2020 Cubs perfectly — question marks persist at second base, center field, right field, fifth starter, and across the bullpen, but it’s still a talented team that should contend. FanGraphs gives the Cubs an 85-win projection and 51.6% chance at the playoffs, much like they did last April after a winter of inaction. If the Reds, Brewers, and Cardinals are behind the Cubs, it isn’t by much, and the Cubs did nothing in the offseason to widen the gap.
How would you grade the team’s offseason? (Link to poll for Trade Rumors app users)
How would you grade the Cubs' offseason?
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D 39% (2,425)
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F 35% (2,189)
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C 21% (1,308)
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B 3% (205)
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A 1% (87)
Total votes: 6,214
Quick Hits: Snell, Nationals, Cubs
Rays left-hander Blake Snell, the recipient of a cortisone shot in his elbow last week, threw 20 fastballs on flat ground Tuesday and came out of it “fine,” according to manager Kevin Cash (via Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times). Snell’s slated to continue working back this week, but even if things go well, it does seem the former Cy Young winner will miss at least the opening week of the regular season, Topkin suggests. Snell’s elbow issues date back to last season, as he underwent an arthroscopic procedure in late July that shelved him for almost two months.
- Nationals outfielder Adam Eaton left the team’s game after the first inning Tuesday with a tweaked left hamstring, manager Dave Martinez told Sam Fortier of the Washington Post and other reporters. The Nationals don’t regard it as a serious injury, however, as Martinez noted that Eaton likely would have stayed in had it been a regular-season game. Meanwhile, fellow Nats outfielder Victor Robles has been battling a sore left side since last week, but he also seems to be OK. If he gets through the next few days without issue, Robles could return to the team’s lineup during the upcoming weekend, per Pete Kerzel of MASNsports.com.
- It remains unclear how the Cubs will distribute playing time at second base this season, Jordan Bastian of MLB.com writes. Minor league pickup Jason Kipnis has been fighting for the starting job with holdovers Nico Hoerner, David Bote and Daniel Descalso this spring. “It really is a wait and see,” manager David Ross said of the four-way competition. A former All-Star with the Indians, Kipnis possesses the longest track record of the quartet, but his offensive production declined to a noticeable extent from 2017-19, thus stopping him from landing a guaranteed contract.
- Sticking with the Cubs, flamethrowing pitching prospect Manuel Rodriguez is down for the time being with a Grade 2 biceps strain, Bastian tweets. Rodriguez, 23, hasn’t pitched above the High-A level to this point, but the Cubs are believers in his potential. They added Rodriguez to their 40-man roster last November to prevent another team from grabbing him in the Rule 5 Draft.
Theo Epstein: Cubs Will “Be Very Objective” At Trade Deadline
You’ve heard by now that the Cubs didn’t exactly turn in an active offseason. Despite entering the winter with talk of change, the club largely picked around the edges and ended up sticking with its existing veterans.
That doesn’t mean the status quo will hold indefinitely. If anything, it seems the pressure will be applied right out of the gates to a roster now overseen by rookie skipper David Ross. As Joel Sherman of the New York Post reports, Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein made clear he’s ready to act at the trade deadline if things don’t go as hoped.
Epstein says the Cubs will “have to be very objective about what we have” during the summer trade period. That’s always the case, to some degree, but it certainly sounds as if the Chicago organization will be applying a rather stringent standard to its buy/sell analysis come July.
“In the middle of this season, if we have a legit World Series contender, that is really meaningful,” said Epstein. “But if we don’t, you can’t be blind to the realities of the following 18 months.”
You need not read through the lines too finely to get the gist. The Cubs are looking at a two-year window on some key players. They’re not interested in waiting until there’s just one season of control left before selling.
Clearly, the hope had been to strike a deal in the just-completed offseason. The team wasn’t able to find a sensible arrangement, but could be more aggressive in shopping players this summer if it’s not in the position it hopes for.
Most interesting of all may be Epstein’s framing of the choice. The standard he poses — “legit World Series contender” — is a fairly lofty one.
What if the Cubs are in a competitive postseason position, but don’t quite seem primed for a serious run at a championship? That’s not clear just yet — and will surely be the subject of close analysis by the organization. But Epstein’s comments make clear, at minimum, that the team has already contemplated scenarios in which it’d engage in a mid-season sell-off of some kind.
The situation is complicated by the fact that the club is pressed up to the competitive balance tax line. It was already fair to wonder, on the heels of a winter of austerity, whether the team would stretch its internal payroll for mid-season additions unless it found itself in a truly compelling position.
NL Notes: Cubs, Bryant, Heyward, Reds, Mahle, Nationals, Castro
The Cubs aren’t yet sure how David Ross‘ style as a tactician will differ from his predecessor, but Ross’ decisions are starting to trickle in and lend some clarity to the Cubs’ 2020 season. For starters, Kris Bryant as the leadoff man does not feel like an experiment – it’s happening. Ross likes Bryant’s speed and baserunning ability, and to his credit, there’s really nothing to dislike about Bryant in the leadoff spot. It does create questions further down the order, but coming off a season in which their leadoff men were last in the league with a .294 OBP, that’s a tradeoff they’re willing to make, per Mark Gonzalez of the Chicago Tribune. The other major decision passed down today was that Jason Heyward would remain in right field as often as possible. Given Heyward’s tremendous defensive abilities and a wRC+ that’s been at league average over the last two years, and it makes some sense to profile Heyward as a centerfielder. He’s more comfortable in right, however, and his glove does play as a genuine asset there. Let’s check in on a couple other National League clubs…
- Tyler Mahle will be more than okay coming out of the bullpen for the Reds if that means staying in the big leagues, per MLB.com’s Mark Sheldon. In the rotation last year, Mahle went 3-12 with a 5.14 ERA/4.66 FIP across 129 2/3 innings in 25 starts. According to Mahle, his biggest problem was the lack of an effective put away breaking ball, something he’s working on by adding a slider. There might be something to Mahle’s analysis, as his curveball induced a 26.6 whiff%. More to the point might be his 7.11 ERA against left-handed hitters, though it’s part and parcel of the same issue, likely.
- Starlin Castro is energized by the opportunity to play for a contender again, per Sam Fortier of the Washington Post. Between the changes that Castro made to his approach in the second half of last year, and his excitement over playing in games of consequence again, the Nationals are finding reasons to believe in Castro’s potential to make up for some of the offense lost in the wake of Anthony Rendon‘s departure. Castro’s a difficult player to pin down in terms of ability, but he is a four-time All-Star entering his age-30 season, and before the terms of his current two-year deal run out, he may even cross the 2,000 hit threshold.
Mild Calf Tear Sidelines Brandon Morrow For 10-14 Days
The whack-a-mole game that is Brandon Morrow‘s body continues to keep him from his comeback. He threw earlier this week and appeared to be on track, until a twinge of pain in his calf during a run revealed a mild tear, per The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma (via Twitter). The injury is minor, with Morrow projected to be sidelined for a mere 10-14 days.
Still, given the absolute deluge of elbow, bicep, and back injuries Morrow has undergone over the last couple of seasons, it’s fair to sound the alarms here. This latest setback is innocuous enough in a vacuum, and yet it certainly takes on greater significance given Morrow’s recent history. Even a short-term injury such as this one has to put Morrow’s availability for opening day in question.
The Cubs bullpen is primed for a re-characterization after moving on from veterans like Pedro Strop, Steve Cishek, Brandon Kintzler, and Mike Montgomery, who was dealt to Kansas City at last year’s deadline. Morrow, 35, re-joined the Cubs on a minor league deal after being physically unable to contribute for the entire second season of his original two-year deal with Chicago. At this point, he has to be considered a long shot to make the team, fun as his reemergence would be.