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Orioles Re-Acquire Pedro Araujo

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The Orioles announced today that right-hander Pedro Araujo was re-acquired after being returned to the Cubs. $750K of international bonus signing availability went to the Chicago organization in the deal, Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune tweets.

Araujo’s Rule 5 status made him a tough fit on the Baltimore roster. As a 2017 selection who missed some action due to injury last year, he only needed to be held on the active roster for a few weeks for his rights to permanently go to the O’s. But he’d still have required a 40-man roster spot even if he was optioned down.

By working things out this way, the Orioles will keep Araujo without having to tie up a 40-man spot. They’ll cough up some international pool availability, but the organization has already been utilizing its excess bonus cash in other trades. The long-term plan is likely to begin putting that asset to work directly through prospect signings, but the O’s first need to establish an international infrastructure that was not pursued under the prior front office regime.

The 25-year-old Araujo obviously has impressed the Baltimore brass to some extent, given that they wanted to keep him in the organization. But it was plain that he wasn’t really ready for the majors. Last year, he was torched for 7.71 earned runs per nine over 28 frames, coughing up nine home runs along the way. But he also generated a healthy 13.9% swinging-strike rate at the MLB level.

Marcell Ozuna Headed For MRI

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  • Cubs skipper Joe Maddon said Wednesday that the two-year extension signed by managerial peer Terry Francona doesn’t have him thinking about his own contract status (link via Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times). “I’ve been treated more than well,” said Maddon. “So I don’t lament or worry about things like that.” Maddon added that he’s not in the business of comparing himself to other skippers throughout the league. Wittenmyer, however, notes that Maddon’s current $6MM salary is substantially higher than the rates at which the influx of younger managers are being paid throughout the league. That, certainly, will be a factor in negotiations with the Cubs (or any other club, if he is not retained).

Cubs Extend David Bote

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The Cubs announced Tuesday that they’ve agreed to a contract extension with infielder David Bote. The contract will cover the 2020-24 seasons and also contain a pair of club options.

David Bote | Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports

Bote will be guaranteed $15.003MM over that 2020-24 span, Gordon Wittenmyer of the Chicago Sun Times reports (on Twitter). MLB Network’s Jon Heyman tweets that the two option years are valued $7MM and $7.6MM. According to the Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales (also on Twitter), Bote will receive a $50K signing bonus and earn $950K next season. He’ll then earn $1MM in 2021, $2.5MM in 2022, $4MM in 2023 and $5.5MM in 2024. The first option season comes with a $1MM buyout, and the second carries a $500K buyout.

Bote recently approached the Cubs to initiate the talks, president of baseball operations Theo Epstein tells reporters (Twitter link via ESPN Chicago’s Jesse Rogers). He was already under club control through the 2024 season, but the Cubs will now obtain some cost certainty and also secure control over what would have been his first two free-agent seasons.

Though he never rated as one of the organization’s top prospects, Bote made his way to the big leagues last season and now looks the part of a useful bench option capable of backing up at multiple infield spots and perhaps in the outfield corners. His primary positions have been third base and second base, but Bote also logged 10 innings at short in 2018 as well as seven in left field and two at first base. He’s a .246/.327/.410 hitter to this point in his big league career (223 plate appearances).

That defensive versatility surely appealed to the Cubs, as did the quality of Bote’s defense at his most frequent position: third base. In just 375 innings there last season, Bote was credited with +5 Defensive Runs Saved and a 4.4 Ultimate Zone Rating. Whether that type of rating is sustainable over a larger period remains to be seen; Fangraphs Eric Longenhagen wrote after the 2017 season that Bote lacked a true position, calling him a potential bat-first utility option if all panned out. Based on Bote’s .281/.355/.502 slash through 299 Triple-A plate appearances and last season’s small sample of exit velocity readings, perhaps he’ll live up to that billing.

Bote’s extension is a surprising move in that he isn’t viewed as any sort of key player for the Cubs at the moment. However, the modest price tag on the deal carries minimal risk — particularly for a large-market team like the Cubs — and the $15MM guarantee seems to suggest that the organization eventually feels Bote could take on a larger role. Generally, utility players don’t earn quite this much over the course of arbitration; Boston’s Brock Holt, for instance, will earn $3.575MM this season in his final year of arbitration eligibility and stands to reach free agency having earned a bit shy of $9MM.

The contract could prove to be a bargain if Bote can settle in as any sort of semi-regular contributor, though for a nearly 26-year-old former 18th-round pick who was never heralded as a top prospect and is still three years from arbitration, it’s easy to see the appeal of being guaranteed any financial security. Frankly, there’s little precedent for an extension along these lines. As shown in MLBTR’s Extension Tracker, extensions for players with under one year of service time have generally been reserved for players who’ve broken out as stars (e.g. Ronald Acuna) or quality regulars (e.g. Paul DeJong), or for top-tier prospects who are on the cusp of the Majors or very early on in their big league careers (e.g. Eloy Jimenez, Evan Longoria, Matt Moore, Scott Kingery). It’s possible that Bote’s deal will set something of a precedent for role players seeking some early-career stability — particularly given the deluge of long-term deals that have been signed during the recent “extension season.” Bote’s deal now stands out as the 27th multi-year contract extension signed by a player since mid-January.

Orioles Select Matt Wotherspoon, Designate Pedro Araujo

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The Orioles announced today that they have selected the contract of righty Matt Wotherspoon. He’ll take the roster spot of fellow righty Pedro Araujo, who was designated for assignment.

Wotherspoon was picked up a few years back in exchange for international bonus pool money. He has been bypassed in the Rule 5 draft but will now get his first crack at the majors at 27 years of age. Last year, he pitched to a 4.60 ERA with 10.1 K/9 and 3.6 BB/9 over 94 Triple-A frames.

Araujo, a 2017 Rule 5 pick, only needed to be kept on the MLB roster briefly in 2019 for his rights to be permanently transferred to the O’s. But he’d still have required a 40-man spot that the Baltimore organization obviously wasn’t interested in committing. He’ll now be offered back to the Cubs if he clears waivers.

Offseason In Review: Chicago Cubs

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This is the latest post of MLBTR’s annual Offseason in Review series, in which we take stock of every team’s winter dealings.

Faced with a lack of payroll flexibility, the Cubs were only able to tinker around the edges after picking up Cole Hamels’ option.

Major League Signings

Options Exercised

Extensions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Notable Losses

After Cubs president Theo Epstein said on October 3rd that the front office would “spend all our energy trying to fix” an offense that “broke” in the second half of the 2018 season, most observers did not think the team’s most notable new offseason bat would be utility infielder Daniel Descalso.  Whether we read too much into Epstein’s raw comments or gave too much credence to his previous free agent spending, the fact is that the Ricketts family set a hard player payroll budget, and the team had very little maneuverability within it to make outside additions.

The Ricketts family drew a line: Epstein’s past free agent missteps would not be papered over with further spending in the 2018-19 offseason.  Bryce Harper’s free agency came at an inopportune time for the Cubs.  As Epstein put it in a January conversation on ESPN’s Waddle & Silvy show, “After I’ve had a big steak dinner and had chocolate cake, I want ice cream too, but it doesn’t mean I can have it.” Ownership clearly wasn’t interested in pulling out the wallet to fund a treat; when asked in mid-February about the team’s remaining funds for baseball ops, chairman Tom Ricketts replied: “We don’t have any more.”

A major shakeup was not in order.  Manager Joe Maddon enters the final year of his contract in what seems like a “prove yourself” season, after various Epstein comments have laid implied blame at his skipper’s feet.  For example, Epstein said in January that there’s been too much complacency since the team won the World Series.  The Cubs did have a lot of coaching turnover, with newcomers including hitting coach Anthony Iopace and pitching coach Tommy Hottovy.

An easy win could have come in the form of adding a veteran backup known for leadership qualities, after GM Jed Hoyer said there was “a bit of a void” of that type of player on the roster in 2018.  Perhaps that could be the 32-year-old Descalso, but the more obvious choice would have been a veteran backup catcher.  The Cubs reportedly made a better offer to Brian McCann than the one he accepted from the Braves, and weren’t able to land Martin Maldonado due to a lack of available playing time.  The Cubs certainly had alternatives.  Russell Martin, who the Cubs once attempted to sign, was traded to the Dodgers with that team picking up $3.6MM of his salary.  Quite a few other backstops were available as well, but the Cubs will stick with 25-year-old Victor Caratini as the backup to 26-year-old Willson Contreras.

The Cubs also missed out on another potential veteran leader, shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, who instead chose the Yankees.  The Cubs’ plan was reportedly to have Tulo serve as the team’s starting shortstop until Addison Russell returns from his domestic violence suspension on May 3rd.  Back in October, Patrick Mooney of The Athletic wrote, “The sense around the team is that Russell has already played his final game in a Cubs uniform.”  Mooney’s colleague Ken Rosenthal wrote a few months later that “a couple of unidentified clubs at least contemplated adding Russell, and one even discussed the matter with ownership,” but further details from Russell’s ex-wife Melisa Reidy on December 19th seem to have killed trade interest.  So the Cubs decided to take the PR hit of retaining Russell, with Epstein outlining his reasons for the player’s “conditional second chance.”

In hindsight, the events of November 2nd served as an omen for the remainder of the Cubs’ offseason.  An early morning tweet from ESPN’s Buster Olney proved prescient: “Other teams’ read on the Cubs’ situation this winter: They have very little payroll flexibility, and will have to spend very carefully to affect upgrades for the 2019 season.”  Later that day the team picked up Cole Hamels’ $20MM club option, shipping Drew Smyly and his $7MM salary to the Rangers in a cost-saving move that also tied up a few loose ends on the trade earlier that year that brought Hamels to Chicago.  This was less than a month after Epstein had said, “We’re set up to have some depth in the starting staff next year.  We’re not looking to get rid of starting pitchers. We’re looking to have as much depth as possible so we can withstand multiple injuries.”  The Cubs thought enough of Smyly’s post-Tommy John potential to pay $10MM to stash him for 2019, only to compromise their depth in the face of a tight budget.

The bullpen would not be spared the Cubs’ penny-pinching mandate.  The only new face on the current roster is Brad Brach.  The Cubs return an uninspiring group of veterans, with the oft-injured Brandon Morrow heading up the group once he returns from November elbow surgery.  The club did sign Xavier Cedeno and Tony Barnette to bargain basement Major League deals, finding a few pennies under their couch cushions by chopping $1.35MM off Brach’s deal due to what the pitcher called “a little bit of a viral infection.”  That is one expensive case of mono.

The bright spot of the Cubs’ offseason came last week, with Kyle Hendricks’ four-year extension.  Hendricks would have been eligible for free agency after the 2020 season, which was misaligned with the team’s core in that Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez, and Kyle Schwarber are under control through 2021 and Willson Contreras is controlled through ’22.  The soft-tossing Hendricks has had nothing but success through 4.5 big league seasons, and now he’ll anchor the team’s rotation potentially through 2024.

The team’s contention window is what gets me about this offseason.  The Cubs have been good since 2015 and project to be good through 2021.  That is a potential seven-year window of success.  I don’t think fans would have objected if the team felt it needed to take a step back at that point, which naturally involves a lower payroll.  The time to push the pedal to the floor is now, even if a third of the payroll is a graveyard of bad Epstein contracts.  The internal improvements Epstein pushed all winter can and should happen, but this club had a major need for key outside additions and just about nothing was done.

2019 Season Outlook

At the time of this writing, the Cubs project at FanGraphs as an 85 win team with a 56% chance of reaching the playoffs.  On paper, it’s the worst team the Cubs have opened the season with in several years, and it comes at a time when the other four NL Central teams all look competitive.  Winning the division seems like the Cubs’ most likely path to the playoffs, and every win will be crucial if they’re to pull it off.

How would you rate the Cubs’ offseason? (Link to poll for Trade Rumors app users.)

MLB Awards “Championship Belt” During Arbitration Symposium

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Major League Baseball hosts an annual symposium on arbitration wherein delegates from each team come together with the league to make recommendations for upcoming arbitration hearings. There is a ceremony near the end of the symposium when a “championship belt” is awarded to the team that best accomplished the “goals set by the industry,” per The Athletic’s Marc Carig. Passed annually from one year’s winner to the next, The Belt is a chintzy, plastic “prize,” intended as a moment of levity and morale for what can be a difficult process on all sides. In this thoughtful article, Carig digs into the arbitration process, its history, the toll it takes on those involved, and of course, The Belt.

Clearly, given the tumultuous relationship between Major League Baseball, the owners, and the Players’ Association, the optics here aren’t great. However harmless the intent (or however private), an award for essentially best limiting the earning potential for players is not likely to sit well with the MLBPA – or the public for that matter. MLB confirmed existence of The Belt, explaining it as “an informal recognition of those club’s salary arbitration departments that did the best.” This season, the finalists were the Astros, Braves, Cubs, Indians, Rays, and Twins.

Executive Director of the MLBPA Tony Clark reacted with a statement (via Twitter), saying, “That clubs make sport of trying to suppress salaries in a process designed to produce fair settlements shows a blatant lack of respect for our Players, the game, and the arbitration process itself.”

Cubs, Dixon Machado Agree To Minor League Contract

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The Cubs have agreed to a minor league contract with infielder Dixon Machado, according to reports. The former Tigers infielder, who was released by the Marlins earlier this week, will head to Triple-A Iowa with his new organization.

The 27-year-old Machado received a career-high 233 plate appearances with the Tigers in 2018 but struggled mightily at the plate, hitting .206/.263/.290 with one homers, 13 doubles and a triple in that time. Machado’s bat has never been his calling card, however. The middle-infielder was touted as a plus defender throughout his minor league career as he rose through the Tigers’ ranks, and posted quality Ultimate Zone Rating marks at both middle-infield spots.

Chicago doesn’t have an immediate spot for Machado on its big league roster, so he’ll bide his time in Iowa and hope to earn a look at some point later in the season (or else attract the interest of another organization). In parts of three seasons at the Triple-A level, Machado is a .259/.330/.335 hitter.

Cubs Outright Brian Duensing

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  • The Cubs announced that lefty Brian Duensing has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Iowa. He has enough service time to reject the assignment and still retain the entirety of this year’s $3.5MM salary, but there’s no indication yet whether he’ll choose to do so. The 36-year-old Duensing had a strong year with the 2017 Cubs but was clobbered for a 7.65 ERA in 37 2/3 innings last season after signing a two-year, $7MM contract to remain in Chicago. His second season with the Cubs saw him walk more batters (29) than he struck out (24), and his struggles continued into Spring Training, where he yielded eight runs in seven innings of work.

Cubs Extend Kyle Hendricks

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12:57pm: It’s a four-year, $55.5MM extension for Hendricks, per The Athletic’s Ken Rosethal (Twitter links). Hendricks will be paid $12MM in 2020 and $14MM annually from 2021-23. He has a $16MM vesting option for the 2024 season that comes with a $1.5MM buyout but would become guaranteed if he finishes top three in the 2020 Cy Young voting.

12:47pm: The Cubs announced Tuesday that they’ve signed right-hander Kyle Hendricks to a four-year contract extension spanning the 2020-23 seasons. The deal also contains an option for the 2024 season. Hendricks, who is already set to earn $7.405MM in 2019 after avoiding arbitration, was originally under control through the 2020 season. He’s represented by Wasserman.

Kyle Hendricks | Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

Hendricks, 29, has blossomed from unheralded prospect to steadying force in the Chicago rotation. While he’s unlikely to ever match the dominance that carried him to a third-place finish in the 2016 Cy Young voting, when he pitched 190 innings of 2.13 ERA ball, he’s nevertheless a rock-solid mid-rotation piece, thriving on pristine control and weak contact rather than overpowering opponents. Hendricks averages just 87 mph on his fastball, but he ranked in the top eight percent of the league in terms of average opponents’ exit velocity in 2018 (85.2 mph), and the spin rate on his curveball is among the best in the game (89th percentile).

In all, since debuting in 2014, Hendricks has amassed 789 innings of 3.07 ERA ball with 7.6 K/9, 2.1 BB/9, 0.86 HR/9 and an above-average 48.9 percent ground-ball rate. His plus changeup and hook, paired with pinpoint control, allow him to generate a well-above-average swing-rate on pitches outside the strike zone (32 percent), which helps to explain how he’s managed to continually limit hard contact despite laying claim to one of the slowest fastballs in the Majors.

Hendricks would’ve reached free agency heading into his age-31 season, and the price on his four-year extension is somewhat reflective both of his age and his proximity (or lack thereof) to an open-market setting. Both Nathan Eovaldi and Miles Mikolas, for instance, received $68MM on their own recent four-year contracts. However, Eovaldi received that sum as a 29-year-old on the free-agent market, while Mikolas received that deal with his own foray into free agency just a few months away.

For the Cubs, getting Hendricks locked up long-term was likely of particular importance given the long-term outlook of their starting staff. Lefties Jon Lester and Cole Hamels remain quality options but are both near the expiration of their contracts and are both aging. Lester has just two guaranteed years of his contract remaining, while Hamels can become a free-agent at season’s end. Jose Quintana, similarly, has just one year of control remaining beyond the current season.

The Cubs do have some longer-term options, but the organization can’t know exactly what to expect from Yu Darvish, who pitched just 40 innings in the first season of a six-year, $126MM contract last year. Chicago picked up Kendall Graveman this winter as he recovers from Tommy John surgery, but while he’s controlled through the 2021 campaign, he won’t be a plausible option until next year. Mike Montgomery is arbitration-eligible through the 2021 season as well, but he’s never worked a full season as a starter. With Hendricks now in place for an additional three years beyond the point at which he’d have originally become a free agent, the Cubs have some much-needed certainty in place.

From a luxury tax standpoint, the extension does have some ramifications. Hendricks had counted as a $7.405MM hit against the team’s luxury-tax bill, but that number now rises to $12.581MM. And because the Cubs were already into the second bracket of luxury tax penalties, every single dollar of that increase will come with a 32 percent tax hit. As such, even though Hendricks’ salary is unchanged for the coming season, the Cubs will now pay an additional $1.656MM in surcharges. Beyond flying in the face of the audacious comments made by owner Tom Ricketts last month, in which he claimed that the Cubs “[didn’t] have any more” money to spend, the Hendricks extension will give the Cubs more than $232MM of salary that counts against the luxury tax. It’ll also push the Cubs’ 2020 payroll to a guaranteed $114MM before the 2019 season even kicks off.

From a broader perspective, Hendricks’ contract is the latest in an avalanche of long-term deals signed by players this spring against a backdrop of general unrest regarding the state of free agency. Dating back to Sonny Gray’s late-January extension with the Reds, there have been a remarkable 22 multi-year deals signed by players who were still under club control (as shown in MLBTR’s Extension Tracker). That number would typically constitute two, if not three year’s worth of spring extensions. The series of long-term deals has not only weakened next winter’s free-agent class but now, with extensions from Hendricks and Jacob deGrom, has begun to cut into the 2020-21 class of free agents as well.

Cubs To Re-Sign Junichi Tazawa

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The Cubs have agreed to re-sign veteran righty Junichi Tazawa, according to Jon Heyman of MLB Network (Twitter link). It’s a minors deal that would pay $900K in the big leagues, per Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune (via Twitter).

The 32-year-old Tazawa had been cut loose by the Cubs over the weekend. It appears that he was afforded an opportunity to test the open market when it was decided he wouldn’t crack the Chicago Opening Day roster. With no superior chances to be found, he landed back as a depth option for the Cubs, who now avoid paying Tazawa the $100K retention bonus to which he’d have been entitled as an Article XX(B) free agent (i.e. a player with six-plus years of service who finished the preceding season on a Major League roster but signed a minor league deal in the offseason).

Tazawa produced good results in his 5 2/3 innings in camp, racking up nine strikeouts without permitting any runs, but has struggled quite a bit in recent seasons. He long produced solid peripherals, if not always the desired results, during his run with the Red Sox. But over the past two seasons, Tazawa carries an ugly 6.16 ERA with 7.1 K/9 and 4.1 BB/9 over 83 1/3 MLB innings.

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