The Edwin Rios era is over

[Tim]

He's elected free agency:  https://www.bleachernation.com/cubs/2023/10/17/edwin-rios-is-officially-a-free-agent/

Thinking that through, he was definitely right to elect FA. PA at Iowa are going to be ridiculously hard to come by on that team. Assuming that most of the guys that played the bulk of the year at Tenn get the bump, there are going to have to be a whole bunch of guys traded or released. Right now, we've got these guys all looking to get AAA playing time:

• OF: Davis, Perlaza, PCA (maybe), Canario (maybe), Caissie
• IF: Mervis, Vazquez, Slaughter, Strumpf, Murray Jr, McGeary
• C : Windham, Aliendo, Opitz

With a boat load of fringe and semi-fringe guys looking to get in on the action, too. 

I'm sure there will be trades, releases, guys left at AA, guys promoted and more. I'm definitely not looking at it as a problem. But Rios is correctly reading the room that he was not going to get playing time if he stuck around. Once we remove him from the 40 man, Jared Young may make the same decision.