Though he was clearly carrying plenty of rust, Cubs righty Yu Darvish nevertheless turned in a rather promising first spring outing today, as MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian writes. Darvish says he felt great and the radar guns reflected it. While he struggled a bit to stay in the zone, that’s a secondary concern at this point given the major health ailments that ruined his 2018 season. With $101MM still owed to Darvish over the next five years, the Cubs have to be encouraged to see him feeling strong, though he still has a ways to go to reestablish himself as a front-line starter.
Cubs Rumors
Cubs Yet To Discuss Extensions With Javy Baez, Kyle Hendricks
The Cubs haven’t yet begun talks with second baseman Javier Baez or right-hander Kyle Hendricks about potential contract extensions, the two players told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times. Both said that they “would love to stay” with the team over the long term, and would welcome such negotiations if they took place.
Both Baez and Hendricks avoided arbitration with the Cubs this winter, agreeing to respective salaries of $5.2MM and $7.405MM for the 2019 season. Baez was arb-eligible for the first of three times this winter and isn’t eligible for free agency until after the 2021 campaign, while Hendricks was in his second arbitration year and can become a free agent after the 2020 season.
It is still early in spring camp, and the Cubs could yet begin talks with Baez, Hendricks, or any number of players over the coming weeks. Still, Baez and Hendricks stand out as perhaps the two most obvious extension candidates on the roster, even beyond the notable players who could be free agents after the 2019 season. Of that group, the Cubs control Anthony Rizzo and Jose Quintana via club options for 2020, while the team probably isn’t likely to explore extending veterans like Cole Hamels or Ben Zobrist until later in the year or even after the season, to guard against declines from either veteran (Hamels is 35, Zobrist is 37).
Baez broke out as one of the game’s best all-around players last season, hitting .290/.326/.554 with 34 homers and a league-high 111 RBI over 645 plate appearances. Baez augmented his first above-average run producing (131 wRC+) season with solid overall baserunning that included 21 steals, as well as his typically strong glovework at multiple infield positions (699 2/3 innings at second base, 462 2/3 IP at shortstop, 142 2/3 IP at third base). Among all position players, Baez ranked 10th in bWAR (6.3) and 14th in fWAR (5.3) last season.
With Kris Bryant indicating a willingness to go year-to-year until he reaches free agency after 2021, Baez stands out as the Cubs’ top young building block. Among other recent young infielders to sign extensions, Eugenio Suarez’s seven-year, $66MM deal with the Reds and Jean Segura’s five-year, $70MM extension with the Mariners could be potential comps, even if neither quite fit Baez’s situation. For instance, Suarez was locking in his first big professional payday as something of a surprise breakout performer, whereas Baez was a hyped prospect for years before reaching the big leagues. Segura was also over a year older at the time of his extension than Baez is now, and had only one arbitration year remaining.
Hendricks, meanwhile, has been a solid and usually durable member of Chicago’s rotation for four seasons. Something of a throwback pitcher with a sub-90mph fastball, Hendricks has relied on soft-to-medium contact rather than big strikeouts (career 7.62 K/9) to good effect in his career, posting a 3.14 ERA over the 708 2/3 innings since 2015. The 29-year-old’s best season came in the Cubs’ World Series campaign of 2016, when Hendricks posted a league-best 2.13 ERA.
Hendricks’ arsenal might help him project better as a long-term investment for the Cubs or potential future free agent suitors, as it isn’t like he is a hard-tossing strikeout artist who could be more apt to decline with a loss in velocity. What could harm Hendricks’ chances at an extension, however, is that Chicago made such a huge investment in its starting staff, and gotten next to nothing in return from Yu Darvish and Tyler Chatwood. Beyond 2020, however, Hamels, Chatwood, Quintana, and potentially Jon Lester (depending on a vesting option) will no longer be on the books, leaving the Cubs in search of arms. Prospects like Adbert Alzolay, Alec Mills, or Justin Steele could be contributing by that point, of course, though the Cubs might also want to have another solid veteran on hand to augment that bunch. (Also, the Cubs have had enough difficulty in developing pitchers in recent years that relying on prospects doesn’t seem sound.)
Of course, as Wittenmyer notes, discussions about extensions also need to factor in whether a player could be more apt to sign an extension rather than test an increasingly hostile free agent market. “You have to look at what’s going on around the league, for sure. You have to educate yourself on things that have happened in the past and what the market looks like now, then make the best decision possible,” Hendricks said. The threat of a potential work stoppage could impact Baez the most directly, as the current Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on December 1, 2021 — roughly a month after Baez is eligible to hit free agency.
Montgomery On Hamels' Return, 2019 Role
- Cole Hamels’ return to the Cubs all but eliminated Mike Montgomery’s chances of opening the season in the team’s rotation, but Montgomery nonetheless tells MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian that he was “rooting” for the team to retain Hamels. Montgomery will return to a role with which he’s quite familiar — one that requires him to be ready to start, pitch in high-leverage spots late in games and also to enter in multi-inning stints as needed. “Be a guy that can start 20 games or close 20 games, because it has to be [that way],” said Montgomery. As Bastian notes, Montgomery not only started 19 games in Chicago last season, he also entered the game in eight different innings as a reliever and pitched multiple innings of relief on seven occasions. The versatile lefty is controlled through the 2021 season and will earn $2.44MM in 2019 as a first-time arbitration-eligible player.
Maddon: Cubs Not Likely To Add To Roster
- Potential new additions have “not been a heavy part of the discussion” between Cubs skipper Joe Maddon and the front office, Maddon told Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun-Times and other reporters. “That doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen; I’m not saying that,” Maddon said. “But…I anticipate what you see showing up tomorrow [at camp], the [Opening Day] group’s going to be derived from that group.” It has been a quiet offseason for a Cubs team that is seemingly dealing with strict budget restraints, as the Northsiders try to stay under the $246MM payroll mark (to avoid a larger luxury tax penalty).
NL Central Notes: Tazawa, Brach, Pirates, Goldschmidt
Junichi Tazawa is set to arrive in Cubs camp on Monday after working out visa issues that delayed his arrival, per the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales. Tazawa remains a long shot to make the Cubs Opening Day roster, as he hasn’t been an asset to a major league bullpen since 2016 with the Red Sox. After posting a 7.07 ERA for the Marlins and Angels last season, Tazawa looks to re-establish himself in Cubs camp for former employer Theo Epstein, though again, the window of opportunity in Chicago is slim. Pedro Strop, Carl Edwards Jr., Steve Cishek, Mike Montgomery, Brandon Kintzler, and newcomer Brad Brach all figure to hold down spots in the Chicago pen, leaving Tazawa to compete for the final remaining innings with Xavier Cedeno, Tyler Chatwood, Alec Mills, Brian Duensing, Dillon Maples, Randy Rosario, and a few others. Brandon Morrow’s injury provides a limited-time opportunity for someone, but he’ll obviously take over one of those open spots when he returns for the injured list. Here are a few more notes from the Cubs bullpen and the rest of the NL Central…
- A couple weeks before being traded from the Orioles to the Braves last season, reliever Brad Brach noticed his arm slot had shifted higher than usual, writes the Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma. When his release point shifts over-the-top, Brach loses some of the deception in his delivery and changes the plane of his pitch movement. He is cognizant, however, that he’s more effective as he stays closer to a three-quarters delivery. The mechanical adjustment certainly seemed to help as he turned in 23 2/3 innings of 1.52 ERA ball after joining the Braves. His peripherals don’t wholly buy the shift in performance, but his fastball command certainly improved and that’s the foundation of his arsenal. Of course, the revelation is only one part of the process, as refining and automating the lower arm slot will continue to be a process as he starts throwing again this season. If Brach can repeat his delivery consistently, he may prove to be a significant addition to a Cubs pen who needs the help.
- Brach should have no trouble keeping his competitive edge with the Cubs, who are facing a dogfight in a tight National League Central. There’s no tanking here, where the Reds have raised the floor with marked improvements to their rotation this offseason. The Cardinals and Brewers have made obvious win-now additions this winter as well, and while the Cubs have largely stood pat (excepting additions like Brach above), there’s little doubt they will be in the competitive mix once again. The sleeper in the division and maybe the league is the Pirates, per Ben Frederickson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The PECOTA projection system has the Pirates ahead of the Cubs, and though they’ve been quiet this winter, their biggest additions were made at least year’s deadline when they traded for Chris Archer and Keone Kela. It would certainly be a surprise for the Pirates to steal the NL Central from such a crowded field, but they’re only three years removed from the most successful stretch in recent franchise history and they finished above .500 last season. A Pirates division title would be surprising, for sure, but it’s not inconceivable.
- In a video for CBS Sports, Jim Bowden expresses optimism that Paul Goldschmidt will outperform both Bryce Harper and Manny Machado en route to an MVP-type season. Goldschmidt should certainly bolster the Cardinals offense in 2019, though his long-term future with the club remains uncertain. The Cardinals are pursuing an extension with Goldschmidt, and given the current free agent market, Goldy would be wise to at least consider locking up his long-term future now if the offer is fair.
Cubs Sign Xavier Cedeno
Feb. 15: Chicago’s announcement of the contract reveals that Cedeno’s contract is actually a non-guaranteed Major League deal, meaning he’s been added to the team’s 40-man roster. He can still be cut for only a portion of that salary this spring, but the Cubs would be on the hook for the full $900K if he makes the Opening Day roster.
Feb. 13, 8:28pm: MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that Cedeno can earn an additional $300K worth of incentives on the contract. He’ll be in Major League camp as a non-roster invitee.
7:52pm: The Cubs are in agreement on a contract with left-handed reliever Xavier Cedeno, per Patrick Mooney and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic (Twitter link). Mooney further tweets that it’s a non-guaranteed deal that would pay Cedeno a $900K base salary if he makes the roster. Cedeno is represented by MDR Sports Management.
Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein voiced earlier this week that he hoped to be able to “squeeze” one more reliever into the team’s apparently limited budget (Twitter link via Jesse Rogers of ESPN Chicago), and landing Cedeno on a non-guaranteed deal is certainly a nice means of doing so. The southpaw split the 2018 season between the White Sox and the Brewers, pitching to a terrific 2.43 ERA with 9.2 K/9, 4.3 BB/9, 0.27 HR/9 and a 54.4 percent ground-ball rate in 33 1/3 innings. That marked a strong bounceback effort for the former Rays reliever, who pitched just three innings in 2017 owing to a forearm injury.
Though the 32-year-old Cedeno is far from a household name, he had a solid run from 2014-16 leading up to that forearm issue. In 94 1/3 innings in that time, he worked to a 3.05 ERA with 95 strikeouts against 27 walks with just seven home runs allowed. He’s been especially hard on left-handed hitters throughout his career, holding same-handed opponents to a bleak .218/.285/.298 batting line over the life of 384 plate appearances.
The Cubs aren’t exactly short on left-handed volume in the ’pen, with Mike Montgomery, Brian Duensing, Randy Rosario and Kyle Ryan each already on the 40-man roster, though Cedeno will give them yet another depth option with a fair bit of MLB experience to add to that mix.
Cubs Officially Announce Regional Sports Network
The Cubs have announced their long-awaited formation of a regional sports network. The organization will partner with Sinclair Broadcast Group to launch the “Marquee Sports Network” beginning with the 2020 season.
There’s risk and opportunity aplenty in taking this route, as the Cubs will now be seeking to work out carriage deals for a channel reliant all but entirely on their ballclub and brand. Obviously, it’s quite a popular franchise, but one that — like any other — is hardly immune to on-field downturns or off-field controversy and won’t have live games to market for much of the year.
The Ricketts-owned Cubs have obviously thought through all of the competing considerations and decided to take the plunge. This is hardly their first notable business initiative. Rather, the move comes on the heels of a multi-year, multi-fronted plan to overhaul the organization’s business and baseball operations. There have certainly been some notable successes along the way, though there’s also suddenly quite a bit more uncertainty (at least on the baseball side) than anyone anticipated when a young Cubbies squad broke the curse in 2016.
In the announcement, Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney promised a “Cubs-centric” network that will feature the iconic organization but also some unspecified “other local sports programming.” (The remaining three Chicago professional sports teams are already committed to remain with NBC Sports Chicago.) Kenney adds that the the network will “feature uncompromising, in-depth and behind-the-scenes coverage.”
Sinclair, which is best known for its conservative-oriented news coverage, is one of the country’s most powerful media companies. The company is presently bidding against MLB and others for the regional sports networks that are being auctioned due to Disney’s pending acquisition of certain Fox media assets. Sinclair already has media ties to White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf through the Stadium network.
If the partners are successful in structuring and marketing this channel, they could reap major profits. It’s not hard to imagine how that might continue to support investments in the club’s baseball operations. Indeed, the organization has long emphasized the connectivity between its business initiatives and roster-building efforts, with salary ramping up quite significantly over the past several years. On the heels of a disappointing conclusion to the 2018 season, though, the Cubs are wrapping up a surprisingly inactive 2018-19 offseason with clear budgetary limitations in place.
Minor MLB Transactions: 2/6/19
Here are the day’s minor transactions from around the game…
- The Cubs announced a list of 27 non-roster invitees to Major League Spring Training, including the addition of right-hander Carlos Ramirez. The 27-year-old (28 in April) logged 25 innings at the big league level between the Blue Jays and Athletics across the past two seasons, working to a combined 2.88 ERA in that time but with a less-impressive 19-to-12 K/BB ratio. He’s had some success in the upper minors, posting a 2.71 ERA with 65 strikeouts against 28 walks in 63 innings of work at the Triple-A level. Ramirez represents the latest in a series of low-cost and/or minor league signees that the Cubs have added in an effort to bolster their bullpen depth while operating under the specter of payroll constraints.
Cubs Sign Christian Bergman
The Cubs have signed right-handed swingman Christian Bergman to a minor league contract, according to Matt Eddy of Baseball America.
The 30-year-old Bergman was a member of the Mariners over the previous two seasons, though he spent the majority of that period with their Triple-A affiliate. Bergman pitched to a 5.00-plus ERA in both the 2017 and ’18 seasons in Tacoma, where he combined for 227 2/3 innings and 42 appearances (41 starts). Overall, Bergman – who’s also a former Rockie – owns a 4.66 ERA with 6.6 K/9 and 2.1 BB/9 in 376 2/3 frames at the minors’ highest level.
While Bergman has seen major league action in each season dating back to his 2014 debut, he had difficulty preventing runs in all five of those campaigns. In 215 2/3 innings, 14 of which came in 2018, the soft-tossing Bergman has managed just a 5.59 ERA/5.09 FIP with 5.43 K/9, 2.04 BB/9 and a 37.1 percent groundball rate.
NL Central Notes: Cardinals, Senzel, Cubs Comeback
It doesn’t sound as if the Cardinals are planning to make another addition to their roster. Rick Hummel of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch quotes president of baseball operations John Mozeliak in stating that the team has accomplished much of what it set out to do this winter. “Any move we would make now would sort of complicate things,” said Mozeliak. “Even if we were to break (camp) today, we’re going to have guys competing for at-bats already. And we still feel we have a lot of depth in our pitching.” Beyond that, Mozeliak indicated that he “[sees] no reason” that left fielder Marcell Ozuna wouldn’t be ready for Opening Day. Ozuna played through a shoulder injury in 2018 and underwent offseason surgery, but Mozeliak notes that the outfielder is already swinging a bat and is on track to begin a throwing program when he reports to Spring Training in February.
More from the division…
- Nick Senzel will be given every opportunity to earn starting centerfield duties this season, per John Fay of the Cincinnati Enquirer. The Reds have no shortage of outfielders, with Yasiel Puig, Scott Schebler, Jesse Winker and Matt Kemp all in the corner outfield mix, but none of them are natural fits in center. Phil Ervin will have the chance to take some at-bats, but he profiles better in the corners as well. The hope appears to be that Senzel will prove a quick study, able to secure his spot in the bigs by learning yet another new position. Senzel, of course, comes to big league camp a third baseman by trade, and he’s spent some time at second base as well – but with Eugenio Suarez locked into a long-term deal at third, and Scooter Gennett at least temporarily installed at second, Senzel’s path to the the bigs goes through the only position on the Reds lineup card without a starter in place.
- Former first round pick Luke Hagerty is attempting a comeback at age 37, writes ESPN’s Jeff Passan. Hagerty hasn’t pitched professionally since 2008 when a case of the yips drove him from the game. Hagerty has reworked his arsenal and his mindset at the Driveline Baseball Program, the same facility where Kyle Zimmer of the Royals trained last season. At a recent Driveline pro day tryout, the 6’7″ Hagerty averaged a 96.9 mph fastball, impressing himself and the area scouts in attendance. Sixteen and a half years after they signed him the first time, the Cubs signed Hagerty again, this time to a minor league deal. The first time through the Cubs system, Hagerty suffered from the yips, a hiccup rooted in psychology wherein an automatic physical ability, like throwing a baseball over the plate, suddenly and without apparent cause, becomes no longer automatic. The yips are a hurdle that Hagerty appears to have cleared, however, and the southpaw is throwing electric stuff. If Hagerty does make it to the show, he would be the oldest player (without international experience) to make his major league debut since Satchel Paige in 1948. Even Jim Morris, made famous by Dennis Quaid in Disney’s The Rookie, was three years younger than Hagerty when he took his last/best shot at the bigs.
