Cubs Still In Pursuit Of Jesus Luzardo Trade, Hope To Finalize Deal Soon

Alright. Make it happen. All the lefties. 

NL Central 2024 wRC+ figures vs. LHP

Brewers - 99

Pirates - 93

Cards - 92

Reds - 84

I'm even sure if another team in the division mashing lefties would make me consider a 4 lefty rotation as a problem, but certainly the Cubs are well positioned to roll one out there.

Seems inevitable, just down to the cost 

Triantos and Gray enough?

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Alright. Make it happen. All the lefties. 

6 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

Trading for Luzardo and saving even $18M by trading Bellinger sets the Cubs up well to add whatever else they think they need to add. They can get one or two solid pen arms and even a solid right handed hitting 3rd baseman as a guy they can plug in at 3rd if Shaw struggles. They are at $215 now. Save $18M on Bellinger puts them at $197. The line is $241, so assuming they want to be about $5M-$8M under it they would have at least $36M to spend and Luzardo only cost $6M.  

Am I in a bizarro world? Not sure I can handle all these new additions. 

I’m worried about giving up too much in this trade and would rather consider other options before going this route but whatever

The Athletic confirmed the pursuit of Luzardo this evening.

6 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Trading for Luzardo and saving even $18M by trading Bellinger sets the Cubs up well to add whatever else they think they need to add. They can get one or two solid pen arms and even a solid right handed hitting 3rd baseman as a guy they can plug in at 3rd if Shaw struggles. They are at $215 now. Save $18M on Bellinger puts them at $197. The line is $241, so assuming they want to be about $5M-$8M under it they would have at least $36M to spend and Luzardo only cost $6M.  

Lazardo will cost almost 9mil 

1 hour ago, LBiittner said:

Lazardo will cost almost 9mil 

We're at about 26m right now according to FG.  If they leave 10m in space for other moves then we have about 16m left to spend.  9m for Luzardo would mean 7m left to spend on the pen and any bench pickups.  Trading Belli or another OF seems inevitable.

If Belli's full contract goes then we have about 35m left to spend (not including the 10m cushion).  We can get some quality pen arms and have money to spend on a corner IF bat.

are they going to catch him before Christmas? 

8 hours ago, LBiittner said:

Lazardo will cost almost 9mil 

I thought I read he would cost $6M in arbitration. But either way, if/when they trade Bellinger and if/when they get Luzardo they should have plenty of money left to fill the pen and bench without getting too close to their imaginary line.

13 hours ago, UMFan83 said:

I’m worried about giving up too much in this trade and would rather consider other options before going this route but whatever

Currently, there's nothing to support asking for a kings' ransom on the Marlins side. If the Marlins keep him and he pitches well going into the trade deadline well, that's another story.

9 hours ago, LBiittner said:

Lazardo will cost almost 9mil 

His projection is 6 million.

26 minutes ago, TomtheBombadil said:

I’m fingers crossed that the hold up, if this is real, is they’re doing something bigger similar to Kelly being announced after Tucker 

I'm thinking the hold up might be Luzardo's medicals.

14 minutes ago, thawv said:

His projection is 6 million.

Oh boy, spotrac.com has him at 8.6million for 2025.

Who are you using?

1 hour ago, Rcal10 said:

I thought I read he would cost $6M in arbitration. But either way, if/when they trade Bellinger and if/when they get Luzardo they should have plenty of money left to fill the pen and bench without getting too close to their imaginary line.

I'm using spotrac. Are you using mlbtraderumors projections?

1 hour ago, gflore34 said:

Currently, there's nothing to support asking for a kings' ransom on the Marlins side. If the Marlins keep him and he pitches well going into the trade deadline well, that's another story.

Newsweek is trying to project a Boston/marlins swap: Cepedes, Sandlin, Romero for lazardo. 

Probably fiction 

11 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

I'm using spotrac. Are you using mlbtraderumors projections?

Yeah MLBTR's numbers are super accurate, to the point I've heard teams/agents now use it as a starting point in negotiations at times.

16 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Yeah MLBTR's numbers are super accurate, to the point I've heard teams/agents now use it as a starting point in negotiations at times.

That's cool how the site has developed into a respected site, far from the skepticism they  endured early on.

When do arb numbers come out?

40 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

Oh boy, spotrac.com has him at 8.6million for 2025.

Who are you using?

Cot's has 6.5.  Roster resource has 6.  MLB Trade Rumors has 6.  

7 minutes ago, LBiittner said:

That's cool how the site has developed into a respected site, far from the skepticism they  endured early on.

When do arb numbers come out?

Usually during the playoffs.  Once the regular season wraps the guy can run his model.

A quick and dirty rule of thumb is last year's arbitration salary times 1.5.  It doesn't work in edge cases where a guy breaks out or gets seriously hurt,  but it's usually not that far off.  If it's like July and I am looking ahead to the next offseason that's what I tend to roll with.