One Sure Thing Today: Cubs Will Not Add More Than $2.5 Million in Net Salary

[Matthew Trueblood]

There's less than five hours left before the 2024 MLB trade deadline, and the Chicago Cubs need to make more moves to set themselves up for a fruitful future. They're constrained by multiple factors, of course, but one will almost surely be the need to stay under the competitive-balance tax threshold.

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It's almost negligible, but keep an eye on it. When the Cubs traded for Isaac Paredes and gave up Christopher Morel, their salary obligations for the balance of the season rose by just under $1 million. That's not an important amount of money to the Ricketts family, of course, but it's important, because the Cubs were only a few million below the first threshold for the luxury tax under the CBA this year. With Paredes on board, the team owes roughly $234 million for the season, whiskers beneath the cap of $237 million.

This season will not end with a playoff berth. Much though they wished and expected it to be, this year is not part of a winning window for the Cubs. Therefore, they're not going to go into the territory of luxury tax payers. That comes with too many penalties and problems, especially if they end up going over that figure in 2025 and beyond--as they should be planning to do. Triggering the tax penalties over a million bucks or so in a largely lost season would be foolish, and the front office won't do it.

That means that, whoever the Cubs trade for over the next few hours, they're not going to add more than about $2 million in new obligations. That's sufficient flexibility, because they're trying to trade away some players to whom they owe significant sums, anyway. A Jameson Taillon, Nico Hoerner, Drew Smyly, or Héctor Neris trade would take them safely far from the threshold. They might elect to send cash along with one of those players, if they deal them, to goose the return in young talent that they receive in the process, but they should still get some salary relief.

Then, too, they can acquire anyone who's making a seven-figure salary, as long as they dump something else somewhere. They'll only owe that theoretical incoming player about a third of their full-year salary, because that's all that's left of this campaign. Their hands aren't fully tied, or anything. They can make plenty of different moves.

Still, it's important to keep this in mind. Whatever moves the team makes (or eschews), their proximity to the tax threshold will certainly have informed their choices, if only at the margins. Understand that, and you'll have a clearer idea of what they do whatever they do this afternoon and evening--and a better sense of the priorities of this front office now and in the future.

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