Latest On Interest In Cubs’ Trade Chips
12:41PM: The White Sox and Red Sox are two of at least seven teams interested in Kimbrel, 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine writes, while the White Sox have also scouted another Cubs reliever in Ryan Tepera.
10:49AM: The Cubs completed another trade last night in sending Andrew Chafin to the Athletics, setting the stage for what should be a very busy week of transactions for Chicago in advance of Friday’s 3pm CT trade deadline. Many of the biggest names remain, and rumors continue to circulate about where these top names could land.
Closer Craig Kimbrel is drawing much of the buzz, and The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal reports that the Padres are among the teams interested in the veteran reliever. While many of the Cubs’ most notable trade chips are rental players, Kimbrel is controlled through the 2022 season due to a $16MM club option. He also has around $5.5MM remaining in salary for this season, so he isn’t an entirely inexpensive proposition for a team looking at the right-hander as just a rental.
This is a particular factor for a team like the Padres, who are facing a luxury tax overage for the first time in franchise history. Team ownership is willing to make that leap beyond the $210MM payroll threshold, though the Padres are naturally exploring ways (such as unloading Eric Hosmer‘s contract) to avoid the tax if at all possible.
The Red Sox “have at least had preliminary conversations ” with the Cubs about first baseman Anthony Rizzo, ESPN.com’s Jeff Passan reports, which seems like a natural fit considering how little production the Sox have received from the first base position this season. Boston is the first team officially linked to Rizzo on the rumor mill, as Passan writes that Rizzo’s market “is not so robust” since he is a veteran position player who is a free agent after the year.
In fact, there has been more speculation about Rizzo possibly staying with the Cubs rather than leaving, even though extension talks in Spring Training failed to produce a new contract. Recent reports suggested that the Cubs would look to again discuss extensions with both Rizzo and Javier Baez prior to the deadline, but NBC Sports Chicago’s Gordon Wittenmyer reports that “no extension talks are happening with” either player.
This doesn’t mean that either will be traded, however. In fact, Wittenmyer hears from sources around baseball that the Cubs will be keeping both Baez and Kyle Hendricks beyond Friday’s deadline. (MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand reported last night that the Cubs weren’t looking to move Hendricks and that a trade was unlikely.) It isn’t quite as firm about whether or not Rizzo could remain or be dealt to Boston or another team, but if the first baseman is kept, Wittenmyer writes that the Cubs will again look into extending both Rizzo and Baez before they reach free agency this winter.
Cubs Will Reportedly Try Again On Rizzo, Baez Extensions Before Exploring Trades
The Cubs have already traded Joc Pederson to the Braves and are expected to continue selling veteran players in the two weeks leading up to the deadline, but they’ll first take one last effort at hammering out contract extensions with shortstop Javier Baez and first baseman Anthony Rizzo, reports MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (via Twitter).
Both Rizzo and Baez have been viewed as extension candidates with the Cubs for the past several years, but neither has worked out a deal to remain in Chicago beyond the 2021 campaign. Rizzo is playing out the second of two option seasons that were included on his original seven-year, $41MM contract with the club.
Chicago unsurprisingly picked up both of those club options, and Rizzo will end up earning a combined $75MM over a nine-year term. The Cubs reportedly offered Rizzo a five-year, $70MM contract extension back in Spring Training — about $60MM less than the Cardinals guaranteed Paul Goldschmidt for the same portion of his career.
As for Baez, he’s playing out his final arbitration year and earning $11.6MM before reaching free agency. The two parties were reported to be progressing in talks on a long-term deal in spring 2020 before the season was shut down.
Neither Rizzo nor Baez is playing at peak levels in 2021, although both have rebounded somewhat from a down year in 2020. Rizzo posted a .222/.342/.412 batting line in 243 plate appearances last year but is up to .247/.342/.429 so far in 2021. His .182 ISO (slugging minus batting average) is his lowest mark since 2012, as is his 9.7 percent walk rate. Rizzo’s production this season is still comfortably above the league average, by measure of wRC+ (111), but it’s a far cry from his 2014-19 levels (.284/.388/.513, 141 wRC+). He’ll turn 32 next month, however, which surely impacts the team’s comfort level both in terms of contract length and annual value.
For Baez, the 2020 season was nightmarish. He batted just .203/.238/.360 with career-worst walk (3.0) and strikeout (31.9) percentages as his power dipped to its lowest level since 2016. This year, he’s batting .238/.284/.493 with 21 home runs — some of the best power output of his career. However, Baez’s long-troubling strikeout issues have ballooned to new heights in 2021, as he’s fanned in 36.6 percent of his plate appearances. He remains an excellent defender and won’t turn 29 until the offseason, so there are still several years of Baez’s physical prime left.
Both players are somewhat difficult to value from an extension standpoint at the moment. Rizzo hasn’t bounced all the way back from last year’s downturn in production, and any new contract would be buying out his mid-30s. Baez is younger and enjoying a larger bounceback effort, but his glaring swing-and-miss tendencies and bottom-of-the-scale OBP are difficult to overlook.
The Cubs have tried at various points to lock up both players, and it seems it’ll be even more difficult now to hammer out terms in a two-week window leading up to the trade deadline — particularly when the front office is also dedicating so much time to fielding trade interest in other players on the roster. That’s not to say an extension for either player is out of the question, but the timing isn’t exactly working in their favor. The absence of an extension doesn’t make a trade a foregone conclusion, however; either player would be a candidate for a qualifying offer, which would give the Cubs an opportunity to retain them on a high-priced one-year deal or at least gain a compensatory draft pick should they sign elsewhere.
As notable in Heyman’s report on the likelihood of extension talks with Baez and Rizzo is that it appears no such talks are being planned with star third baseman/outfielder Kris Bryant. The former NL Rookie of the Year and NL MVP is enjoying a more substantial rebound season than either of his two aforementioned teammates and figures to enter the offseason as one of the top free agents on the open market. He’ll draw interest from a wide number of contenders as they look to bolster their lineup over the next 14 days, and the absence of any last-ditch extension talks would seem to indicate an acknowledgement of that ship having sailed.
Bryant, Craig Kimbrel, Zach Davies, and Andrew Chafin are among the likeliest Cubs to change hands in the coming days, and they’ll surely receive interest in veterans Willson Contreras and Kyle Hendricks as well. Contreras, however, is controlled through 2022 via arbitration. Hendricks is signed affordably through the 2023 campaign with an option for 2024. Given that level of remaining club control, there’s less urgency to make a deal involving either player, though that won’t stop other teams from trying to pry them loose.
Cubs’ Recent Losing Streak Changes Trade Deadline Outlook
A couple weeks ago, the Cubs had positioned themselves as likely buyers during trade season. As recently as June 24, Chicago was tied with the Brewers atop the NL Central, nine games over .500. The past two weeks have been an unmitigated disaster for the North Siders, though.
Between June 25 and July 7, the Cubs lost eleven consecutive games. They snapped that streak with a win over the Phillies last night, but Chicago enters tonight’s matchup against Philadelphia with an uninspiring 43-44 record. The Brewers, meanwhile, have rattled off a 10-3 stretch over that time, opening up an 8.5 game lead on Chicago within a 14-day span. (The 45-41 Reds have also since passed the Cubs to jump into second place in the division). Chicago isn’t a whole lot closer in the Wild Card race, trailing the Padres by seven games (with Cincinnati and the Nationals also above them in the standings).
An eleven game losing streak can certainly tank a team’s season, and it seems it might’ve in the Cubs’ case. On June 24, FanGraphs gave Chicago a 35.7% chance of making the playoffs; entering play today, their odds were down to 6.4%.
With a playoff berth all of a sudden seeming highly unlikely, the calculus for the Cubs front office changes considerably, a fact that president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer acknowledged this evening. Speaking with reporters (including Jordan Bastian of MLB.com, Paul Sullivan of the Chicago Tribune and Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago), Hoyer sounded far more willing to move players off the big league roster than he’d been a couple weeks ago.
“Eleven days ago, we were certainly fully on the buying side … and obviously (teams) are now calling to see which players are available,” Hoyer said. “So it’s a very different scenario than we’d expected. Life comes at you fast.” Asked whether the front office is willing to make players available, Hoyer noted their responsibility to consider anything “that can help build the next great Cubs team,” citing their aforementioned dwindling playoff odds.
The implications for the Cubs are obvious. Three of their highest-profile players — Kris Bryant, Javier Báez and Anthony Rizzo — are all slated to hit free agency at the end of the season. If the team isn’t contending in 2021, it stands to reason any or all of them could find themselves on the move over the next few weeks.
Certainly, there’d be plenty of interest in every member of that group. Bryant has bounced back from a disappointing 2020 to hit a very strong .269/.349/.498 with sixteen home runs over 324 plate appearances this year. He’s making far more consistent hard contact and barreling balls up at a rate he hasn’t since his MVP peak. Bryant’s production has tailed off after he got out to a scorching start to the year, but his combination of excellent season-long numbers and overall track record would make him perhaps the top player on the trade market were the Cubs to make him available.
Rizzo’s .250/.343/.439 line is down rather significantly from his best seasons. It’s still above-average offensive production, though, and he continues to offer a rare combination of bat-to-ball skills and hard contact (to say nothing of quality defensive marks at first base). Báez has struck out at an alarming 36.6% clip this year en route to a .234 batting average and a .282 on-base percentage. But he’s also popped 21 home runs and slugged .496, and he’s a comfortably above-average defender and baserunner.
Between their career accolades, key roles on the 2016 World Series team, and impending free agencies, that trio figures to draw the most fanfare in advance of the July 30 trade deadline. They’re far from the only players on whose availability other teams might inquire, though. Zach Davies, Joc Pederson and Jake Marisnick are useful players set to reach free agency this winter. (Marisnick has a mutual option for 2022, but mutual options are rarely exercised by both parties).
Willson Contreras, controllable via arbitration through 2022, is one of the game’s best catchers and was the subject of trade discussion last offseason. Closer Craig Kimbrel is having an incredible bounceback campaign, pitching to a 0.57 ERA with a 46.2% strikeout rate and 8.5% walk percentage after struggling mightily between 2019-20. Kimbrel’s $16MM salary for 2021 now looks more than reasonable, as does the matching option on his contract for 2022.
Certainly, it’d be a surprise to see all of those players change teams in the next few weeks. Hoyer pushed back against the idea the Cubs were planning to kick off any sort of full-on rebuild, even as he acknowledged that the 2022 roster will look different from the current iteration. He also noted there’s still some possibility — slim as it now seems — the team plays its way back into contention over the coming weeks.
The Cubs have eighteen more games before the deadline. After facing the Phils tonight, their slate through July 29 consists of seven games against the Cardinals, six against the lowly Diamondbacks, and four against the Reds, one of the teams they’ll need to leapfrog for a postseason spot.
Winning thirteen or fourteen of those contests might get the Cubs sufficiently close to the postseason picture that the front office decides not to orchestrate a sell-off. The core of the current club has been pivotal to arguably the franchise’s most successful five-year run in over a century. It certainly wouldn’t be a surprise to see Hoyer and his front office give the group as long a leash as possible this summer to try to play their way back into the mix.
Nevertheless, the most likely scenario is that the club’s dreadful past two weeks dug them a hole too deep to come back from. That’s an inescapable reality Hoyer acknowledged this afternoon, one that may result in a few of the franchise’s most important players of recent memory donning new uniforms in a few weeks’ time.
The Cubs’ Deadline Dilemma
The 2021 season hasn’t gone as the Cubs expected after trading away their ace and listening to offers on several other highly regarded players over the winter. Trading Yu Darvish, non-tendering Kyle Schwarber and generally avoiding any additions until some bargain pickups late in the winter, the Cubs appeared ticketed for a transition year. With Kris Bryant, Javier Baez and Anthony Rizzo set to become free agents after extension talks failed to bear fruit, a retooling of some extent appeared nigh.
Perhaps the Cubs didn’t count quite so much on the inactivity throughout the rest of the division. The Cardinals eventually added Nolan Arenado in a blockbuster trade with the Rockies, and the Brewers made some nice late moves, most notably signing Kolten Wong to a two-year pact, but the NL Central was a wasteland in terms of hot stove activity. The Reds dumped their two best relievers to trim payroll and now have MLB’s worst bullpen. The Pirates, setting out on a lengthy rebuild, obviously made little effort to improve. Even the Cardinals, beyond their acquisition of Arenado, opted not to address some spotty pitching depth.
The result was an eminently winnable division for anyone other than the rebuilding Pirates. (Sorry, Pittsburgh fans.) And with all the focus on the looming turnover in Chicago after Theo Epstein stepped away and Jed Hoyer ascended to the top baseball operations spot, it almost became easy to forget that the Cubs won the division by three games during last year’s shortened season. Subtracting Darvish and Schwarber hurt, but the Cubs added some complementary veterans to round out the roster a bit: Zach Davies, Joc Pederson, Trevor Williams, Jake Marisnick, Andrew Chafin and old friend Jake Arrieta all entered the mix. It was at the very least a competent roster in a lackluster division.
Add in varying levels of resurgences not only from Bryant, Rizzo and Baez but also from written-off closer Craig Kimbrel, and the Cubs suddenly find themselves in the thick of the division race. Bryant was playing at a near-MVP level for much of the season until a recent slide. Rizzo’s bat isn’t back to peak levels but is much improved over 2020. Ditto Baez. And Kimbrel? The right-hander is sitting on a 0.59 ERA with a 46.4 percent strikeout rate against an 8.9 percent walk rate — both the third-best single-season marks of his career. He’s played so well that the $16MM option on his contract for next season suddenly looks like a bargain.
The result is a second-place Cubs team that finds itself in a gray area with just over one month until the trade deadline. Entering the year, the predominant question regarding Bryant was: “Where will he be traded this summer?” Now, it’s shifted to: “How can they trade him when they’re only a few games out of first?”
In reality, it’s hard to envision the Cubs trading anyone if they’re this close to the front of the division. To the contrary, this team looks more like a buyer than it does one that should be expected to dangle Bryant, Baez, Rizzo, Kimbrel, Davies, Pederson, Chafin or any of its impending free agents. The front office may have envisioned the Darvish trade as a launching point for similar deals down the line — clear payroll, add some young talent to lay the groundwork for the next generation — but instead the 2021 season now has the feel of one final hurrah with the 2016 core.
The context of the division and the schedule plays an important role, too. The Cubs have dropped nine of their past thirteen games, including series losses to the Dodgers and Mets. Normally, that might’ve begun to shift the team away from potential buying status, but their Central-division competition hasn’t exactly been thriving, either (outside of the first-place Brewers).
The Cardinals have dropped eight of their past 10 games as they try to weather major rotation injuries. They were recently swept by both the Cubs and by a Reds team that put its two best relievers, Lucas Sims and Tejay Antone, on the injured list. Cincinnati has now dropped seven of ten themselves. There’s plenty of talent on both the Cardinals and the Reds, but injuries have impacted both clubs quite a bit in recent weeks.
The schedule in July will be pivotal for the division as a whole. Chicago plays three games in Milwaukee and three in Cincinnati before hosting the struggling Phillies for four and the Cardinals for three. Coming out of the break, the Cubs will play six of their first 14 games against MLB’s worst team, the Diamondbacks; the others are, again, against Cincinnati and St. Louis. It’s probably not what the front office envisioned, but given all that context it’d take a somewhat of a faceplant, primarily against a series of .500-or-worse opponents, for the Cubs to really be in position to sell.
The Darvish trade, of course, looks all the more egregious now that starting pitching is precisely what the Cubs need. Sahadev Sharma and Patrick Mooney of The Athletic took a thorough look at the Cubs’ rotation needs this morning, noting that executives around the league don’t expect them to make an aggressive, blockbuster style acquisition. The likelier focus, per Sharma and Mooney, would be on pitchers with reasonably affordable salaries and/or relatively low costs of acquisition.
Fans are never going to be excited by any report suggesting that their team’s primary targets are middle-of-the-road pitchers who can simply keep them in the game for five or maybe six innings at a time, but given where the Cubs are versus where they likely expected to be, it’s also not a huge surprise. A Darvish-caliber arm isn’t walking through that door, but someone like Merrill Kelly (D-backs), Chris Flexen (Mariners, if they sell pieces controlled beyond ’21) or Tyler Anderson (Pirates, if the Cubs don’t mind sending a prospect elsewhere in the division) are all speculative names that fit that general mold.
The next few weeks of games are going to be pivotal to most clubs around the league; there aren’t many clearly defined sellers. Even underperforming clubs like the Twins and Cardinals have so many games left against division rivals and/or rebuilding teams that they’ll probably wait to definitively commit to a course of action. But there might not be a team whose long-term outlook will be so closely tied to the fate of its July performance than the Cubs.
There are long-term implications for every team this time of year, but the Cubs have a slew of short-term veterans to market if they wish to sell — several of whom are longtime cornerstones. This could be a month in which they genuinely jumpstart an accelerated rebuild — not unlike the one the Yankees engineered in 2016 when they traded away Andrew Miller and Aroldis Chapman.
On the flip side, if the Cubs continue to exceed expectations, the pendulum would swing in the other direction, likely leaving the team with some draft compensation (via qualifying offers for Bryant, Rizzo and/or Baez). Not only would they lose the opportunity to add to a thin farm via trade — they’d perhaps further deplete the current system to make a measured push to remain in the division hunt.
A few clubs always find themselves performing something of a tightrope walk this time of year, but the Cubs are among the more prominent examples in recent memory. The clubhouse probably relishes the fact that they’ve upset the front office’s expectations to date; every group of players wants to win, after all. If they can keep it up a month longer, we’ll likely be looking at a much different deadline than most expected for the Cubs after they shipped Darvish to San Diego in exchange for Davies and a handful of lottery-ticket teenagers who might not make it to the Majors before the entire roster turns over.
Cubs Notes: Kimbrel, Baez, Pederson
The Cubs have been a frequent topic of conversation this year (and the last couple) when it comes to the trade market. If they continue to be competitive, it’s certainly difficult to imagine a sell-off of their big brand stars. One interesting suggestion making the rounds (most recently from Jesse Rogers on ESPN) is that Chicago could continue to walk-the-line between short-and-long-term planning by trading star closer Craig Kimbrel. With Ryan Tepera, Andrew Chafin, and Tommy Nance providing good work out of the pen, the Cubs could conceivably back-fill the closer spot while adding to the farm system.
There would certainly be interest in Kimbrel, who appears back to his old self. The 33-year-old has locked down 14 saves in 24 appearances with a 0.75 ERA/1.27 FIP, stellar 45.1 percent strikeout rate, and much-improved 8.8 percent walk rate, his lowest such mark since 2017. He’ll be a name to watch, but for now, Kimbrel’s not going anywhere. The Cubs are more focused on getting healthy. On that front…
- Javier Baez buzzed his right hand hitting the ball off the end of the bat in San Francisco. His wrist, hand, and thumb were sore. He will be looked at further when the team arrives in San Diego, per MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian (via Twitter). It does not sound like a significant injury, which is good for the Cubs, as they’re already a little short-handed in the infield with David Bote, Nico Hoerner, and Matt Duffy on the injured list. Sergio Alcantara and Eric Sogard will have to stand in at shortstop if Baez misses any time.
- Joc Pederson is also day-to-day after tweaking his back, per MLB.com. Pederson left Saturday’s game in San Francisco after running into the wall on an Alex Dickerson home run. Rafael Ortega has been seeing playing time in the outfield for the past couple of days.
Hoyer: No Current Extension Talks With Cubs’ Core Players
The core of the Cubs’ 2016 World Series club is nearing the end of its tenure in Chicago, and president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said Thursday that there are no current extension talks with any members of that core (Twitter link via 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine). Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez are all slated to become free agents at season’s end, while catcher Willson Contreras hits the market following the 2022 season.
For much of the offseason, talk around Bryant was focused on whether he’d even make it to Opening Day. The fact that former Rookie of the Year and NL MVP had a dismal 2020 season likely helped keep him in Chicago, as last summer’s struggles paired with a hefty arbitration raise to sap much of his trade value.
A quarter of the way through the 2021 season, the pendulum has swung in the other direction. While the entire league seems to be plagued with anemic offensive performances, Bryant is better than ever. Through his first 167 trips to the plate, he’s raking at a .301/.401/.615 pace with 10 homers, 14 doubles and a pair of stolen bases. He’s even doing so while splitting his time between third base and all three outfield positions, showing off plenty of defensive versatility.
Rizzo is also in the midst of a resurgent campaign, having increased his average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage over last year’s levels. He’s still not back to peak form, but a .250/.361/.443 slash is solid — particularly in the aforementioned era of strikeouts and near-weekly no-hitters. Rizzo is a rarity in 2021, having walked at a higher clip (14.8 percent) than he’s struck out (12.4 percent). The Cubs reportedly offered him an extension in the vicinity of five years and $70MM back in Spring Training, which checks in at about $60MM shy of the $130MM commitment the division-rival Cardinals made to Paul Goldschmidt. That deal began in Goldschmidt’s age-32 season — the same age at which Rizzo will play in 2022.
Baez, meanwhile, is enjoying a more productive season than he did in 2020, albeit with plenty of red flags. He’s raised his slash line across the board but is now striking out at a 37.2 percent clip that represents the highest non-rookie mark of his career. Even though he’s raised his average 60 points over its 2020 level, Baez’s OBP is still resting just shy of .300. He’s batting .263/.299/.526 on the whole, which is certainly sound production, but he’s needed career-highs in BABIP (.351) and homer-to-flyball ratio (32.3 percent) in order to get there. If either of those two marks regresses or his strikeouts continue to tick up, Baez’s 2.7 percent walk rate will become all the more glaring.
Contreras, the only one of the group controlled beyond the current season, is hitting .254/.349/.462, continuing a lengthy run as one of the game’s best-hitting backstops. That he’s controlled into 2022 puts a bit less of a spotlight on him, but there were some trade rumblings surrounding Contreras over the winter.
At 21-21, the Cubs needn’t yet entertain the idea of any sort of broad-reaching fire sale. They’re still just 3.5 games back of the Cardinals in the NL Central and very much in the mix as of mid-May. Should they wilt in the coming months, any of the impending free agents would make for a plausible trade candidate. There would of course be PR implications to consider with dealing from that group, but an unavoidable reality; even if the Cubs hold onto everyone through season’s end, they’ll eventually have to bid adieu to at least one, if not two or all three of Bryant, Rizzo and Baez in free agency. For now, the hope is likely that the group puts together a big showing over the next two months, positioning the Cubs as division favorites and deadline buyers.
The more interesting scenario to consider, though, will be what the Cubs will do if they’re still in precisely this spot come mid-July. A Cubs team hovering at .500, give or take a couple games, would have to weigh two sides of a difficult dilemma. Make one final run with an offensive core that really hasn’t gotten it done in October since that World Series victory, or sell off some of the most iconic players in recent franchise history? The former route could leave the Cubs with little to show in terms of compensation for a core that won’t stay intact. The latter route would be tantamount to waving a white flag while still in striking distance of a postseason bid while turning the page on a historic era of Cubs baseball.
Hoyer, it should be noted, did make clear that the Cubs maintain an “open-door” policy and aren’t ruling out future negotiations. But Rizzo said earlier this year that he’d made his peace with the lack of an extension, while Bryant has never seemed all that likely to sign before free agency. They’ve talked with Baez for the past two to three seasons without a deal ever coming together. Generally speaking, the expectation of a deal for any of the bunch coming together before free agency (save for perhaps Contreras this offseason) should be low.
NL Central Notes: Moran, Brewers, Baez, CarMar
Colin Moran left in the first inning of today’s 3-2 Pirates loss to the Cubs, as Moran experienced some left groin discomfort while making a play at first base. Moran snagged a line drive and then dove at the bag in an attempt to double Willson Contreras off of first base. Moran is officially day-to-day, and an injured-list placement would cost the Pirates their top offensive performer of the last two seasons.
Moran is hitting .297/.352/.468 with four home runs thus far in 2021. Given the forgettable state of his hard-hit ball numbers, it’s safe to say Moran has benefited greatly from his .392 BABIP, though he has been an above-average hitter (103 wRC+, 104 OPS+) since coming to Pittsburgh prior to the 2018 season. Moran has seen almost all of the action at first base this season, and Todd Frazier is probably the likeliest candidate to fill in should Moran indeed require an IL stint.
More from the NL Central…
- The Brewers have been hit hard by injuries this season but they’re finally starting to get some better health news. Catcher Manny Pina (left toe fracture) returned to the lineup today after being sidelined since April 27, while southpaw Brett Anderson (right hamstring strain) is expected to start on Sunday for his first action since April 23. Manager Craig Counsell also told MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince and other reporters that Corbin Burnes will throw a bullpen session on Monday and in all likelihood return to the rotation during the Brewers’ upcoming homestand against the Cardinals and Braves. Burnes was placed on the IL for unspecified reasons on April 29 but the ace looks to make a fairly quick resumption of a possible Cy Young Award-caliber season. Over 29 1/3 innings, Burnes has a 1.53 ERA and 49 strikeouts, and he has yet to issue a walk.
- Javier Baez also left today’s Pirates/Cubs game in the seventh inning due to lower back tightness, though it was a “precautionary” removal, as Cubs manager David Ross told NBC Sports Chicago’s Tim Stebbins and other reporters. “I saw him moving a little bit stiff out there…He just wasn’t moving well, and it doesn’t make sense to push him there,” Ross said. Baez reported some improvement with his back even after the game ended, though since the Cubs aren’t playing on Monday, it wouldn’t be surprising if Baez is rested on Sunday to give him some extra recovery time.
- The Cardinals recorded a 9-8 victory over the Rockies today, despite a very shaky outing from Carlos Martinez that saw the starter allow five runs on six hits and five walks over five innings pitched. After the game, Martinez told Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat (all Twitter links) and other reporters that he was pitching on a twisted ankle. Manager Mike Shildt said trainers tested Martinez prior to the game and gave him the green light to make the start, and Martinez believes he’ll be ready for his next scheduled start. The injury occurred during Friday’s game, Martinez said, as he hurt his ankle while standing on the dugout steps to high-five Jack Flaherty after Flaherty hit a home run.
Latest On Cubs, Javier Baez
TODAY: The Cubs’ offer was slightly lower than Olney’s figure, according to MLB Network’s Jon Heyman (Twitter link), sitting somewhere between $160MM to $170MM.
APRIL 18: The status of extension talks between the Cubs and each of Javier Báez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo has been one of the biggest stories surrounding the team over the past couple years. There were some public discussions between the Cubs and Báez during the 2019-20 offseason, and Buster Olney of ESPN now sheds light on those discussions.
The Cubs offered Báez an extension “in the range of $180MM” after the 2019 season, Olney reports. Of course, the two-time All-Star declined that proposal and the sides haven’t yet managed to come to terms on a multi-year deal. The Cubs and Báez ultimately settled on a $10MM salary to avoid arbitration in 2020 (prior to proration) and agreed on an $11.65MM deal for 2021 this past offseason.
There are plenty of obstacles standing in the way of Báez securing such a lofty deal at this point. Revenue losses due to the intervening COVID-19 pandemic affected plenty of teams’ willingness to spend this past winter, the Cubs chief among them. Chicago opened 2021 with an estimated payroll just shy of $148MM, per Cot’s Baseball Contracts, far below their $203MM outlay in the season before the pandemic. Shedding salary was no doubt a factor in the decision to trade Yu Darvish to the Padres in a deal with very little recent precedent.
Even more significantly, though, Báez’s personal production has cratered since that offseason. At the time of the reported offer, the star shortstop was coming off a two-year run in which he’d hit .286/.321/.544 (123 wRC+) while playing high-end defense. He’d earned All-Star selections in both 2018 and 2019 and finished as the National League MVP runner-up in the first of those years. It’s easy to see why the Cubs felt comfortable investing in Báez long-term and why the player was willing to bet on himself continuing to perform at an elite level.
That’s not what’s happened, at least to this point. Over the past two years, Báez is hitting just .201/.241/.376 in 291 plate appearances. Controlling the strike zone has never been his calling card, but Báez’s 2.7% walk rate and 34.4% strikeout rate in that time are untenable figures. The 28-year-old has continued to play a strong shortstop, but his 63 wRC+ is fourth-worst among the 190 players to take at least 200 plate appearances over the last two years.
There had been some hope Báez could rebound from his 2020 struggles in a longer, more normal season. His bottom line results have indeed been better (albeit still below-average) thanks to the four home runs he’s popped. But Báez’s underlying process metrics are equally or more concerning. His 44.6% strikeout rate is up twelve points relative to last season, while his walks have fallen even further.
Most concerning, Báez has made contact on less than half his swings (48.7%) in this season’s early going. For reference, he connected on a little more than two-thirds of his cuts during his peak years, and even made contact at a 64.2% clip last year. Only Sam Hilliard has a lower contact rate among the 259 players with 30+ plate appearances, with every other hitter in the league putting the bat on the ball at least 54.9% of the time.
There’s plenty of time for Báez to right the ship, but he’ll need to make significantly more contact in the coming months if he’s to secure a massive deal from the Cubs or any other team. The two sides remain in contact, with Báez reiterating in February he hopes to work out an extension with Chicago rather than go elsewhere in free agency.
Latest On Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez
The Cubs entered Spring Training hopeful of securing long-term contracts with multiple pending free agents but weren’t able to come to terms with any of Anthony Rizzo, Javier Baez or Kris Bryant. Fans in Chicago are holding out hope that some of the team’s 2016 core can be retained, but Rizzo gave little reason for optimism today when appearing on the Kap & Hood show on ESPN 1000 radio (Twitter link via Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago).
Rizzo, who already indicated that he was “at peace” with the lack of progress just prior to Opening Day, said that he feels the Cubs have had a “fair” opportunity to get a deal done both in 2021 and in years past, but nothing has come together.
“I don’t see any reason for us to listen,” the first baseman said in response to the Cubs’ recent efforts. Obviously, a sizable increase in years and/or dollars would surely change that thinking, but the team’s reported initial offer — five years and $70MM, per The Athletic — didn’t get the ball rolling.
The 32-year-old Rizzo has already inked one club-friendly deal in the past and delivered considerable surplus value to the Cubs over the life of that contract. For some context, Chicago’s reported offer of $70MM clocked in at just north of half the five-year, $130MM commitment the Cardinals made to Paul Goldschmidt for what will be the same block of his career (his age-32 through age-36 seasons).
Of course, Goldschmidt was coming off a brilliant run with the D-backs at that point and had slashed .290/.389/.533 in his final season prior to being traded to St. Louis; Rizzo’s .222/.342/.414 slash in last year’s shortened season was his least-productive showing since 2013. It’s understandable both that Rizzo would feel the offer to be well below market and that the Cubs may be a bit cautious with their long-term overture after a down year in 2020. As things stand, the disconnect between the two sides seems prohibitive, although president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said last week that he remains “confident” an accord will eventually be reached.
As for Baez, he’s not speaking in such definitive terms. The shortstop told reporters after yesterday’s game that his representatives and the Cubs continue to talk, though his personal focus is on the field at this point (links via Russell Dorsey of the Chicago Sun-Times and Jordan Bastian of MLB.com).
Baez was, however, happy to discuss Francisco Lindor‘s recent extension with the Mets and the manner in which it benefited next year’s class of shortstops. The 28-year-old called the Lindor contract “huge” for other shortstops in the game — next year’s class of free agents in particular. (Baez, Corey Seager, Trevor Story, Carlos Correa and Marcus Semien will all hit the market next winter.) “No one was going to get more than Lindor, and you’ve got to be honest about it,” Baez said. “[But] he opens doors for other people.”
Like Rizzo, Baez is attempting to put an uncharacteristically poor 2020 season in the rearview mirror. The former NL MVP runner-up batted just .203/.238/.360 through 235 plate appearances last year, but he’s not far removed from a .286/.321/.544 showing from 2018-19. Baez connected on his first homer of the season yesterday and has swiped a pair of bases already after stealing just three bags in 2020.
However, Hoyer made clear that a fast start to the year for any of their players won’t necessarily change the calculus in the team’s offers. Said Hoyer (via Dorsey): “These guys have long track records, and how a guy’s hitting in April — positively or negatively — is not going to impact our perception of that player’s value.”
NL Notes: Reds/Cardinals Brawl, Castellanos, Padres, Baez
Outfielder Nick Castellanos was issued a two-game suspension for his part in Saturday’s brawl between the Reds and Cardinals, the league announced. Castellanos was the only player suspended, and he is appealing his two-game ban. Fines were issued to three players on each team — the Reds’ Castellanos, Jesse Winker and Eugenio Suarez, and the Cardinals’ Jordan Hicks, Yadier Molina, and Nolan Arenado.
The incident developed after Cards pitcher Jake Woodford hit Castellanos with a pitch during a fourth-inning at-bat. Castellanos wasn’t pleased by the HBP, and picked up the ball and held it in Woodford’s direction as he went to first base. Later in the inning, Castellanos scored from third on a wild pitch, and celebrated the run by standing over Woodford (who was covering home plate) and flexing. This led to the benches clearing, and a lot of shoving and heated words between the two NL Central rivals.
More from the division….
- The Padres hope to have Trent Grisham back in center field when they travel to play the Rangers on April 9, manager Jayce Tingler told Jim Duquette of MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM (via Twitter). Grisham has been out of action since suffering a hamstring strain during a Spring Training game on March 11, though he did play in some simulated games at the end of camp. Austin Nola isn’t quite as far along in his rehab from a fractured left middle finger, but he could soon get some plate appearances at the Padres’ alternate training site.
- The Cubs drafted Javier Baez with the ninth overall pick of the 2011 draft, a selection that has proven to be a winner even though Baez was one of many notable players taken in an unusually star-studded first round. As Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune writes, the Cubs were set on Baez as their pick, though they were eyeing Jose Fernandez and C.J. Cron as Plan B options if Baez was selected by one of the eight teams picking in front of Chicago. Tim Wilken, the Cubs’ director of amateur scouting at the time, said that the club would have taken Baez even if another star shortstop prospect in Francisco Lindor was still on the board — it ended up being a moot point, as Cleveland took Lindor with the eighth overall pick, just ahead of Baez and the Cubs at ninth.