How Much Payroll Can Cubs Still Add Before MLB Trade Deadline?

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © Kamil Krzaczynski-Imagn Images

Andrew Kittredge and Michael Soroka each signed significant (but not exorbitant) one-year deals this winter. When the Cubs traded for them Wednesday night, they took on the full remaining salaries for each player, which adds up to just over $5.8 million. (By competitive-balance tax payroll calculation, the figure is more like $6.8 million, but the Cubs only need to worry about the real cash this year.) That's the amount the team figures to have added to their payroll for the season, which now stands just over $201.4 million, according to Cot's Contracts from Baseball Prospectus.

The team's CBT number is over $222 million, but that has almost no bearing now. To add another $18 million and change (with just one-third of the season left) would mean acquiring more than $50 million worth of player talent. The team won't do that, and they don't have the authorization to do so, anyway. Rather, according to sources with knowledge of the club's operations, Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins have about $10 million more they can spend Thursday, if the right opportunities arise. What can that buy? What constraints could it create?

Well, first things first: if the front office succeeds in bagging the controllable pitching they're seeking, the budget will almost certainly not be a concern. The full-season salaries of MacKenzie Gore ($2.89 million) and Edward Cabrera ($1.95 million) each leave them owed less than $1 million for the balance of 2025. The hurdles to acquiring them are about how much talent the Cubs are and aren't willing to surrender, not about how much they'd be obligated to pay either Gore or Cabrera. There are other, less famous names who might also be available; who would also be around for three or more seasons; and who also don't make much money this year. If the team ponies up for any of them, they'll face no meaningful financial constraints.

If the team has to pivot toward more veteran hurlers who have signed longer-term or higher-dollar deals, though, things change quickly. Let's ignore the obligations to Sandy Alcántara beyond 2025. This year alone, he's making $17.3 million, which would mean paying him almost $6 million for the balance of the campaign. Mitch Keller is making $15 million this year, which means $5 million after coming aboard with 54 games left. Shane Bieber makes $10 million this season, and so would be owed just over $3 million for the final third thereof. Robbie Ray, a latecomer to the trade market on whom the Cubs made a call Wednesday night, is making $25 million this season, which means he'd take up $8 million—almost the whole remaining budget for Hoyer and Hawkins. 

The budget does matter, because it slightly narrows the field of options. If the Giants sell, they don't want to eat money in the process, so the Cubs would have to take on all of Ray's money. That would mean making no other additions, or paying steeper prospect costs to avoid taking on salary in trades for other, smaller needs. The Rangers are trying to create payroll flexibility, but the Cubs can't take advantage by jumping into that mix—unless it be by prying loose Nathan Eovaldi and his own $6 million in remaining salary for this year, plus $12 million in signing bonuses payable this offseason. 

Dylan Cease ($13.75 million) and Zac Gallen ($13.5 million) are each owed roughly $4.5 million the rest of the way, which shouldn't be prohibitive—but if the Cubs also want to add even a relatively cheap reliever and a bench bat, it all adds up quickly. Willi Castro ($6.4 million in full-season salary; $2.1 million still owed) would soak up about 20 percent of what the team can still spend, for instance.

If the team does add three more players today (unlikely, but possible), we could see them allow one of the teams making a deal to retain a portion of the salary. That would mean giving up a better prospect to complete a trade, but it might be the cost of doing business the way the Rickettses prefer to do it.

While we're talking about money, though, let's take a moment to remember one other key factor in that regard: The business operations department sets each year's baseball operations budget based on the previous year's revenue. Thus, an aggressive trade deadline—and the packed houses and playoff home games it could yield—would pay for itself, come this winter. While Hoyer and Hawkins have to stay under budget, they should be looking for the best possible way to spend right up to their ownership-imposed limit. That's the best way to ensure that they'll have the flexibility and muscle this winter that they have lacked at times over the last year and a half.

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