Spring Training Moves/Transactions Thread

[Stratos]

7 hours ago, Rcal10 said:

Why is what Jed said exactly what one would expect him to say. If they were still active and looking to improve the team why wouldn’t he say they lost out on Bregman but they still have a lot of irons in the fire. Still some options to improve the team. They still have a good amount of money left and are working hard to add talent. He said none of that. He said exactly what one would expect him to say if they didn’t have a plan B to make the team better. So in a way, you are right, he did say exactly what is expected because they don’t have a plan B. Maybe a small add and that is it. And that sucks….

They don't ever say how much payroll they have left for negotiation reasons.  I think they're done adding bigger pieces as they said because there's basically none left.  Robertson is a modest piece and they said they're out on medium size pieces too which is surprising but they may be hiding their cards.

But maybe you're right.  Jed said they were at their payroll limit last year too before adding Bellinger but got the greenlight for extra funds from Tom.  Unbelievable.

Jed says they're banging up on their payroll limit right now with a bit more money left for in- season moves "like Tyson Miller" etc.  They're at 209m lol.   A 215-220m payroll is completely unacceptable.  Let's hope Jed is just giving his poker face.

Edited February 14, 2025 by Stratos

[Rcal10]

7 hours ago, Stratos said:

They don't ever say how much payroll they have left for negotiation reasons.  I think they're done adding bigger pieces as they said because there's basically none left.  Robertson is a modest piece and they said they're out on medium size pieces too which is surprising but they may be hiding their cards.

But maybe you're right.  Jed said they were at their payroll limit last year too before adding Bellinger but got the greenlight for extra funds from Tom.  Unbelievable.

Jed says they're banging up on their payroll limit right now with a bit more money left for in- season moves "like Tyson Miller" etc.  They're at 209m lol.   A 215-220m payroll is completely unacceptable.  Let's hope Jed is just giving his poker face.

I don’t think he is. Maybe we see Canha or Turner. I would guess that is the biggest move he makes. Basically Tom saves $25M and the team isn’t as good as it could have been. Hope I am wrong, but I doubt it. This is the team we have with maybe one small move yet to make. 

[CubinNY]

It has to be difficult to make a team each year to try to fit into a budgeted amount of money. But this is what Jed and Co are paid to do. They don't seem to be able to do that well year after year. It's time for him to go.

As much as the Ricketts family are horrible pieces of horsefeathers, they only bear part of the blame. Jed traded Bellinger away to free up money to get... beaten by every other team in contract negotiations for player after player. Their biggest target is a pitcher who can't stay healthy. I said before their motto is "trying to win with one hand tied behind our back", but maybe it's "living on a prayer". 

Edited February 14, 2025 by CubinNY

[17 Seconds]

Turns out the Cubs offer only had an opt out after year 2, and not year 1 like Boston. So it doesn't sound like we were even close

[Rcal10]

3 minutes ago, 17 Seconds said:

Turns out the Cubs offer only had an opt out after year 2, and not year 1 like Boston. So it doesn't sound like we were even close

I agree. I think the Cubs never really expected Bregman to come here. All an excuse to not spend money. Had to save it for Bregman…… Now the excuse will be they don’t want to trade prospects for proven talent because they believe the prospects will be good. In real talk what they are saying is they don’t want to add salary. Ricketts needs to sell the team before they even act large market. Jed share blame as well. But his job doesn’t have to be this hard. And honestly I am not sure who would want to come here and work within Ricketts guidelines. 

[Irrelevant Dude]

7 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

And honestly I am not sure who would want to come here and work within Ricketts guidelines. 

I agree that it sucks and the Cubs should be spending more, but there would be at least 15 other teams' GM's who would love to be able to operate under the Ricketts constraints.

[Tryptamine]

So we're half way through February and it looks increasingly likely that they're going to go into the season with 30M unspent. Way to go in on Tucker if you weren't even going to maximize your resources.

[Rcal10]

15 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

So we're half way through February and it looks increasingly likely that they're going to go into the season with 30M unspent. Way to go in on Tucker if you weren't even going to maximize your resources.

This is what I don’t understand. If they worked out an extension with Tucker that started this year and raised his salary for LT purposes to $35M I can see why they kept $30M. But we know that isn’t happening.

[squally1313]

53 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Jed traded Bellinger away to free up money to get... beaten by every other team in contract negotiations for player after player.

This is where I'm at (for the moment). Maybe not specifically Bellinger, once the Tucker trade got made you were in a pretty tenuous spot in terms of crowding in the outfield. Jed was probably an early adopter on the 'let's wait out the offseason' thing, but...I'm not totally sure it ended up bearing much fruit? Like, yeah, he got Bellinger for way less than projected last year, but he objectively should have gone for Chapman instead at that moment. And this year he got beat out by the other teams who decided to adopt the same approach. 

A couple things can be true: 

1. The Cubs are universally projected to win the division, win between 86-90 games, they still have an upper tier farm system with a lot of talent knocking on the door, and their payroll situation is relatively very clean. It's a healthy organization by those metrics.
2. Unless the budget has always been $200m, Jed, to date, hasn't done his job of maximizing the team within the understood budget. It's that scene from The Office where Oscar is explaining what a surplus is. You can't logically spend $30m on midseason acquisitions and you don't get to carryforward extra luxury tax space. The offseason is fluid, things don't play out in the order anyone wants, but his job is to land the plane going into the season, and while we're a better team than we were a year ago, 6 months ago, whatever, there's more we could have done. 

[mul21]

This is part of the problem:

https://www.audacy.com/podcast/spiegel-holmes-show-6fb30/episodes/someones-gotta-talk-about-the-cubs-money-if-theyre-doing-it-right-d5462

Spiegel is making excuses for ownership, saying they just didn't do a good job of explaining what's really going on.  The cry of "poor us" because of all the investments they've made around Wrigley just rings so hollow when it's obvious they're making a ton of money off all of that property they own.  

[CubinNY]

9 minutes ago, mul21 said:

This is part of the problem:

https://www.audacy.com/podcast/spiegel-holmes-show-6fb30/episodes/someones-gotta-talk-about-the-cubs-money-if-theyre-doing-it-right-d5462

Spiegel is making excuses for ownership, saying they just didn't do a good job of explaining what's really going on.  The cry of "poor us" because of all the investments they've made around Wrigley just rings so hollow when it's obvious they're making a ton of money off all of that property they own.  

investments in their property is not altruism. the product is the Cubs, not the Thackery Hotel.

[Irrelevant Dude]

"I don't think the Cubs ownership has done a very good job of explaining what the situation is"

Gross.

[Dfan25]

And people get upset when some suggest the Cubs make offers only to make fans think they are trying .

Any winning bid for Bregman was going to include and opt out after the 1st and most likely needed a 30.0 AAV . Cubs just made sure to come just low enough on AAV with no opt out  🤣.

As Jeff Passan said yesterday , they didn’t offer the most dollars , they didn’t offer most years , they didnt offer highest AAV . I would add to that , they offered the least flexibility , so how were they expecting to win the bid ?

Answer is simple . They weren’t expecting to win and they didn’t  want to win . Same thing with Scott . Didn’t come up to 4 years until the last moment  when there was talk the Cubs were his 1st choice and he waited for them 2 weeks to match the offer . They came in lower than the Dodgers on AAV🤣. 
 

 

[CubinNY]

I'm not giving Jed any points for making the Cubs division favorites. Every other team except for the Reds are about the same or worse.

[CubinNY]

7 minutes ago, Dfan25 said:

And people get upset when some suggest the Cubs make offers only to make fans think they are trying .

Any winning bid for Bregman was going to include and opt out after the 1st and most likely needed a 30.0 AAV . Cubs just made sure to come just low enough on AAV with no opt out  🤣.

As Jeff Passan said yesterday , they didn’t offer the most dollars , they didn’t offer most years , they didnt offer highest AAV . I would add to that , they offered the least flexibility , so how were they expecting to win the bid ?

Answer is simple . They weren’t expecting to win and they didn’t  want to win . Same thing with Scott . Didn’t come up to 4 years until the last moment  when there was talk the Cubs were his 1st choice and he waited for them 2 weeks to match the offer . They came in lower than the Dodgers on AAV🤣. 
 

 

I think Jed has a pre-determined limit where he thinks the value of the player is not there for the money/years and he's not going to go past that. Good for him. It's going to get him another job in baseball some day. But it's not good for the Cubs. One would think they look at value in total. There are pre-arbitration and arbitration guys who they are getting plenty of value out of. They don't need to win or break even on every player.

Anyway, that's my take on his behavior. 

[Rcal10]

7 minutes ago, Dfan25 said:

And people get upset when some suggest the Cubs make offers only to make fans think they are trying .

Any winning bid for Bregman was going to include and opt out after the 1st and most likely needed a 30.0 AAV . Cubs just made sure to come just low enough on AAV with no opt out  🤣.

As Jeff Passan said yesterday , they didn’t offer the most dollars , they didn’t offer most years , they didnt offer highest AAV . I would add to that , they offered the least flexibility , so how were they expecting to win the bid ?

Answer is simple . They weren’t expecting to win and they didn’t  want to win . Same thing with Scott . Didn’t come up to 4 years until the last moment  when there was talk the Cubs were his 1st choice and he waited for them 2 weeks to match the offer . They came in lower than the Dodgers on AAV🤣. 
 

 

I agree about your comments on Bregman. They didn’t really want him they just used it as a side show so they didn’t spend money. I don’t agree with Scott. The Cubs have a competitive offer and he chose the Dodgers. I think even if they went up and matched the Dodgers they would have just gone higher. With the Dodgers deferrals the Cubs offer was in line. And, TBH, I am not sure 4 years in Scott is that great an idea anyway. Most baseball people seem to not like that deal the Dodgers made. They can do it, because even if he falls off they just sign someone else and live with a bad deal. Jed can’t. 

[chibears55]

Maybe Rickett just getting ready for the lockout 2027 season when the CBA expires in December 2026.

Owners might start playing hardball with the salaries and want some kind of cap

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

[Rcal10]

34 minutes ago, chibears55 said:

Maybe Rickett just getting ready for the lockout 2027 season when the CBA expires in December 2026.

Owners might start playing hardball with the salaries and want some kind of cap

🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

Maybe. But is sucks that he is the owner of the Cubs. Tired of his excuses to not spend money. 

Edited February 15, 2025 by Rcal10

[Stratos]

If they don't spend at least 230m i don't even know the point of watching this year.  I feel like a chump.

Ricketts is taking advantage of our loyalty to fill the stands and his pockets while putting in the minimum payroll needed to give us the hope of a playoff birth.  80- something wins isn't good enough.  A payroll of 209m is leaving wins on the table.  We pay for all Cubs revenue and this is how you treat us?  Eff you Tom.

[chibears55]

Im surprise they haven't added Chafin yet..

Robertson and Chafin would be nice final pieces for the bullpen. 

 

[Bertz]

9 hours ago, chibears55 said:

Im surprise they haven't added Chafin yet..

Robertson and Chafin would be nice final pieces for the bullpen. 

 

I'd expect one reliever not both.  The bullpen's already nominally full, though the way the rumors have gone make you think they're pretty comfortable cutting Merryweather.

Counsell's press conference on, I think Tuesday, talked about adding help at 1B and "not being afraid to add another reliever on an MLB contract."  So between that and what's written by Trueblood and the Athletic Turner/Robertson is the best guess.

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, Bertz said:

I'd expect one reliever not both.  The bullpen's already nominally full, though the way the rumors have gone make you think they're pretty comfortable cutting Merryweather.

Counsell's press conference on, I think Tuesday, talked about adding help at 1B and "not being afraid to add another reliever on an MLB contract."  So between that and what's written by Trueblood and the Athletic Turner/Robertson is the best guess.

To me, that would be bare minimum passable. That would round out a good off season which would make them a favorite in the division. And they should have enough money at the TDL to add a starting pitcher if they need to. They did miss the opportunity for a great off season, however. But you can’t make a trade with a team if that team doesn’t want to trade and as for FA pitchers maybe they do really like Rea when comparing him to guys like Scherzer, Morton or guys in that range.🤷. Just add someone like Canha or Turner and then someone like Robertson, Chafin or Finnegan. I just really hope they, at least, do that.
I agree with you that Merryweather may be the guy let go if they do add another pen arm. 

[Stratos]

If the Cubs don't spend the money saved via the Bellinger trade then the Tucker trade sucks.  The difference between Tucker and Bellinger is 2 wins, but we lose 3 seasons of a top 10 3B making pre-FA money, plus one of our best prospects, plus Wesneski.

3B was a black hole last year and we have a rookie with hardly any 3B experience plus a bunch of nobodies gunning for the job, and the middle infield coming back from surgery including a 2B who isn't even throwing on the field yet.

If the Bellinger money isn't spent then Shaw has to put up close to Paredes numbers for the Tucker trade to not be a wash even on a 1-year basis, and counting on a rookie for that is insane, and it would still look like a stupid deal long-term.

[thawv]

On 2/14/2025 at 10:04 AM, Tryptamine said:

So we're half way through February and it looks increasingly likely that they're going to go into the season with 30M unspent. Way to go in on Tucker if you weren't even going to maximize your resources.

If we assume that Nightengale or his front office source wasn't lying about the new budget being 220 million, they are pretty much done spending, while leaving about 10 million to spend during the season. 

[Michael Busch Light]

50 minutes ago, thawv said:

If we assume that Nightengale or his front office source wasn't lying about the new budget being 220 million, they are pretty much done spending, while leaving about 10 million to spend during the season. 

Man is that embarrassing.  People need to try to force the Ricketts to sell.  They suck and they are cheap.  horsefeathers them.