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

[Brock Beauchamp]

Bruce Levine, appearing on the Mully & Haugh Show, spoke on the Cubs' continued pursuit of Marlins starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo.

Levine mentioned that the Cubs have been in pursuit of Luzardo for weeks and would like to get a deal done in the next few days. He also takes a look at Chicago's pursuit of a new closer and mentions that Jed Hoyer, Cubs' President of Baseball Operations, is looking to complete trades before turning to the free agent market this offseason. There is also a bunch of information on the Bellinger trade talks with the Yankees, including what the Cubs' goals are in any potential deal with New York.

There are a bunch of useful tidbits in the link above, give it a listen.

View full rumor

[Dfan25]

 

[Jason Ross]

Alright. Make it happen. All the lefties. 

[Bertz]

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.

[Rex Buckingham]

Seems inevitable, just down to the cost 

[We Got The Whole 9]

Triantos and Gray enough?

[Brock Beauchamp]

1 hour ago, 1908_Cubs said:

Alright. Make it happen. All the lefties. 

[Jason Ross]

6 minutes ago, Brock Beauchamp said:

 

[Rcal10]

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.  

[JHBulls]

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

[UMFan83]

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

[Bertz]

The Athletic confirmed the pursuit of Luzardo this evening.

[LBiittner]

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 

Edited December 17, 2024 by LBiittner

[Stratos]

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.

[CubinNY]

are they going to catch him before Christmas? 

[Rcal10]

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.

[gflore34]

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.

Edited December 17, 2024 by gflore34

[thawv]

9 hours ago, LBiittner said:

Lazardo will cost almost 9mil 

His projection is 6 million.

[NorthsideAvenger]

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.

[LBiittner]

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?

[LBiittner]

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?

[LBiittner]

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 

[Bertz]

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.

[LBiittner]

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?

Edited December 17, 2024 by LBiittner

[thawv]

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.