Winter Meetings Thread

[Geographyhater8888]

3 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

The Chicago Cubs had 497 balls that were hit to second base in 2025. The Philadelphia Phillies had 490 balls hit to second base. I don't think that's much of a concern. 

My last dumb question. So power bats I assume just profile better into their 30’s?  Alonso will make significantly more despite a lower yearly war average while also being older.

Edited December 12, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[thawv]

1 minute ago, Jason Ross said:

That is literally not the discussion at hand. The Dodgers deferred money on a three-year contract to Edwin Diaz. The Cubs would not have offered that deferred money on a three-year deal like the Dodgers, I am sure. Three years is not a long term contract.

You are moving the goal posts to some other random conversation - I'm confused as to why you are doing that. It does not have to do with the deferred money. I disagree with your premise, but I'm not going to move the goalposts here and change the discussion. 

We have a disconnect here.  It was asked why the cubs don't like to defer money.  My opinion was that since they don't like long contracts, they would dislike it even more if they deferred it even longer. 

[Jason Ross]

Just now, Geographyhater8888 said:

Another dumb question. So power bats I assume just profile better into their 30’s the considering Alonso will make significantly more despite a lower yearly war average while also being older.

One of the things we can see now that we have bat tracking data available through Statcast is that bat-speed-bleed tends to begin with hitters around age 32 and then really hit a cliff around 35+. The benefit of power hitters is that generally they have more bat speed; meaning they can bleed more bat speed and still find power. You can also find homes for bat-first players at DH where as a glove-heavy player kind of needs to find a home. At 2b, you're already the general "low-man" defensively on the totem pole. Players transition off of shortstop to second, and not the other way around as they age, ya know? 

[Jason Ross]

11 minutes ago, thawv said:

We have a disconnect here.  It was asked why the cubs don't like to defer money.  My opinion was that since they don't like long contracts, they would dislike it even more if they deferred it even longer. 

Those are two different ideas. Deferring money lowers your total cost. A $1 today is worth more than a $1 next year because of inflation. Deferring money doesn't do anything except lower the real-world-value of the money. 

I fully believe the reason the Cubs don't defer money is not due to "long term contract" fear; the Cubs have signed Swanson to a 7-year contract, they offered Ohtani a market value 10+ deal. The sticking point was the deferrals on Ohtani for the Cubs - that would lower the total value of the contract. Look here; it's likely that the Cubs contract was for more actual, present day money than the Dodgers. Yet, they wouldn't defer money - so your argument holds zero water. 

I believe the reason the Cubs don't like deferred money is an accounting thing with Tom and the Cubs financials. 

I believe the reason the Cubs generally don't sign contracts that go 7+ years is because Jed Hoyer prefers to keep those contracts for specific types of players and would rather keep a nimble roster format, capable of rolling over. We can see the Cubs aren't completely scared of long deals though; they offered 7 to Swanson, 10 to Ohtani, and were reportedly in on Cease until it hit $200m (that'd have to have been some sort of a 6-or-7 year long offer in and of itself). 

We also have not seen the Cubs defer money on short term deals like the Dodgers have, for example, on Edwin Diaz or Teoscar Hernandez. If they were simply afraid of extending contracts or whatever, we'd have seen this at this point. Yet...not deferrals on short deals.

So ultimately we have seen the Cubs offer long term deals. We have seen them refuse to use the deferral structure. In fact, while we have at least seen one 7 year contract, we have seen zero truly deferred contracts. The closest we get is the "mutual option - buy out" which pushes a $1m or so to the next year.

[Geographyhater8888]

10 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

One of the things we can see now that we have bat tracking data available through Statcast is that bat-speed-bleed tends to begin with hitters around age 32 and then really hit a cliff around 35+. The benefit of power hitters is that generally they have more bat speed; meaning they can bleed more bat speed and still find power. You can also find homes for bat-first players at DH where as a glove-heavy player kind of needs to find a home. At 2b, you're already the general "low-man" defensively on the totem pole. Players transition off of shortstop to second, and not the other way around as they age, ya know? 

Appreciate it. I’m out of dumb questions for now.

[Rcal10]

11 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

Those are two different ideas. Deferring money lowers your total cost. A $1 today is worth more than a $1 next year because of inflation. Deferring money doesn't do anything except lower the real-world-value of the money. 

I fully believe the reason the Cubs don't defer money is not due to "long term contract" fear; the Cubs have signed Swanson to a 7-year contract, they offered Ohtani a market value 10+ deal. The sticking point was the deferrals on Ohtani for the Cubs - that would lower the total value of the contract. Look here; it's likely that the Cubs contract was for more actual, present day money than the Dodgers. Yet, they wouldn't defer money - so your argument holds zero water. 

I believe the reason the Cubs don't like deferred money is an accounting thing with Tom and the Cubs financials. 

I believe the reason the Cubs generally don't sign contracts that go 7+ years is because Jed Hoyer prefers to keep those contracts for specific types of players and would rather keep a nimble roster format, capable of rolling over. We can see the Cubs aren't completely scared of long deals though; they offered 7 to Swanson, 10 to Ohtani, and were reportedly in on Cease until it hit $200m (that'd have to have been some sort of a 6-or-7 year long offer in and of itself). 

We also have not seen the Cubs defer money on short term deals like the Dodgers have, for example, on Edwin Diaz or Teoscar Hernandez. If they were simply afraid of extending contracts or whatever, we'd have seen this at this point. Yet...not deferrals on short deals.

So ultimately we have seen the Cubs offer long term deals. We have seen them refuse to use the deferral structure. In fact, while we have at least seen one 7 year contract, we have seen zero truly deferred contracts. The closest we get is the "mutual option - buy out" which pushes a $1m or so to the next year.

Quick question. When paying the deferred money, does that money go against the team payroll? So using Dansby as an example, had he agreed to the same dollar amount and same years but said for the first 7 years only pay me $20M a year and then for 5 years after pay me the remaining $49M total, does the Cubs payroll in years 8 thru 12 reflect the almost $10M they pay him. 

[Jason Ross]

3 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Quick question. When paying the deferred money, does that money go against the team payroll? So using Dansby as an example, had he agreed to the same dollar amount and same years but said for the first 7 years only pay me $20M a year and then for 5 years after pay me the remaining $49M total, does the Cubs payroll in years 8 thru 12 reflect the almost $10M they pay him. 

I'd imagine that's probably the sticking point with the Cubs. There's so much red tape, back-books and hidden financials with the way MLB teams handle these things, that I suspect the reason the Cubs don't do deferred money is in how they handle these things internally. All we can really see is how the team has to handle their AAV for LT. Everything else is really hidden and I think teams, as much as humanly possible cook-the-books in a way to shift how they account for these things.

For an owner who is as worried about "now profits" I think the Cubs find a way to account for these things in the most favorable of ways and I think deferred money would mess with that structure in some fashion. 

[Rcal10]

14 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

Appreciate it. I’m out of dumb questions for now.

Damn, one more dumb question, please…..

A little off topic, but what impact will the pitch challenge have on players offense? Let’s use Suzuki as an example. He seemed to get a lot of balls called strikes. So if he nets 50 positive challenges over the year doesn’t it stand to reason his BA will improve? He gets 50 more pitches. I do expect more offense this year but don’t know if any formula to back my opinion. 

[Rcal10]

2 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I'd imagine that's probably the sticking point with the Cubs. There's so much red tape, back-books and hidden financials with the way MLB teams handle these things, that I suspect the reason the Cubs don't do deferred money is in how they handle these things internally. All we can really see is how the team has to handle their AAV for LT. Everything else is really hidden and I think teams, as much as humanly possible cook-the-books in a way to shift how they account for these things.

For an owner who is as worried about "now profits" I think the Cubs find a way to account for these things in the most favorable of ways and I think deferred money would mess with that structure in some fashion. 

Same question. Does a team paying deferred money to any player after that player retires, have that money go against their team payroll the year they are paying that retired player. 

[Geographyhater8888]

6 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Damn, one more dumb question, please…..

A little off topic, but what impact will the pitch challenge have on players offense? Let’s use Suzuki as an example. He seemed to get a lot of balls called strikes. So if he nets 50 positive challenges over the year doesn’t it stand to reason his BA will improve? He gets 50 more pitches. I do expect more offense this year but don’t know if any formula to back my opinion. 

Did you mean to tag me? I’m the asker of dumb questions not the answerer. 

Edited December 12, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Rcal10]

10 minutes ago, Geographyhater8888 said:

Did you mean to tag me? I’m the asker of dumb questions not the answerer. 

Probably. 🤷 But I did want Jason to answer. He is the person who generally answers dumb questions. 😬

[thawv]

17 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Same question. Does a team paying deferred money to any player after that player retires, have that money go against their team payroll the year they are paying that retired player. 

No it does not.  Look at Ohtani.  They are getting hit with 46 million a year on their CBT payroll for each of the first 10 years and only paying him 2 million a year.  After that, they are on the hook for 68 million a year for the next 10 years, but pay zero against the CBT as it was already for in the first 10 years.  

[squally1313]

I'm personally of the opinion that the deferred money thing is a big nothing. The players can go to any bank and get a cash advance for the present value of the contract, the team is maybe not explicitly putting the present value in a lockbox and letting it accrue interest until the bill comes due, but is absolutely doing sufficient planning along those lines. Big numbers are shiny and cool I guess, but it's not like these players (and their financial wizards agents) are under the impression the inflated deferred numbers are a bigger contract. 

[Bertz]

3 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I'm personally of the opinion that the deferred money thing is a big nothing. The players can go to any bank and get a cash advance for the present value of the contract, the team is maybe not explicitly putting the present value in a lockbox and letting it accrue interest until the bill comes due, but is absolutely doing sufficient planning along those lines. Big numbers are shiny and cool I guess, but it's not like these players (and their financial wizards agents) are under the impression the inflated deferred numbers are a bigger contract. 

The only coherent argument I've heard for it is taxes.  So it's less "the Dodgers do this thing so it must be an advantage" and more "if the Dodgers didn't do this thing it'd be a disadvantage."  No one batted an eye when the Nationals were the king of deferred money.

Otherwise yeah it's about the vanity of nice round numbers or "record breaking salary for a 3B" which I can't imagine being anything more than a tiebreaker.

[Jason Ross]

7 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I'm personally of the opinion that the deferred money thing is a big nothing. The players can go to any bank and get a cash advance for the present value of the contract, the team is maybe not explicitly putting the present value in a lockbox and letting it accrue interest until the bill comes due, but is absolutely doing sufficient planning along those lines. Big numbers are shiny and cool I guess, but it's not like these players (and their financial wizards agents) are under the impression the inflated deferred numbers are a bigger contract. 

I generally agree with this. That said, it does seem like the vanity of it has some pull in these situations. I don't really care that the Cubs don't use them, and think people upset at them are generally barking up the wrong tree, but I do wish the Cubs were maybe a little more willing to give into the vanity of it all, too.

[Geographyhater8888]

29 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Probably. 🤷 But I did want Jason to answer. He is the person who generally answers dumb questions. 😬

When will they implement ABS? It’s inevitable in the future. I don’t know what the purpose of these baby steps are or what’s holding it back.

Edited December 12, 2025 by Geographyhater8888

[Irrelevant Dude]

5 minutes ago, Jason Ross said:

I generally agree with this. That said, it does seem like the vanity of it has some pull in these situations. I don't really care that the Cubs don't use them, and think people upset at them are generally barking up the wrong tree, but I do wish the Cubs were maybe a little more willing to give into the vanity of it all, too.

I'm with you here.  In most cases, everything evens out and the only thing that really matters is the total value of the contract.  BUT... If there is a case where, for whatever reason, deferred money is what is needed/wanted to get a deal done, that shouldn't be a dealbreaker for the Cubs.

[Rcal10]

18 minutes ago, squally1313 said:

I'm personally of the opinion that the deferred money thing is a big nothing. The players can go to any bank and get a cash advance for the present value of the contract, the team is maybe not explicitly putting the present value in a lockbox and letting it accrue interest until the bill comes due, but is absolutely doing sufficient planning along those lines. Big numbers are shiny and cool I guess, but it's not like these players (and their financial wizards agents) are under the impression the inflated deferred numbers are a bigger contract. 

But for a team who has no issues with going over the LT it is a huge savings in the penalties. On a Ohtani’s contract the Dodgers are getting away with not having to pay a 90% penalty on $28M a year because by deferring they take down the present day cost of the contract. I would call that pretty substantial. 

[Rcal10]

2 minutes ago, Irrelevant Dude said:

I'm with you here.  In most cases, everything evens out and the only thing that really matters is the total value of the contract.  BUT... If there is a case where, for whatever reason, deferred money is what is needed/wanted to get a deal done, that shouldn't be a dealbreaker for the Cubs.

I agree with this. They should be flexible enough to do it. 

[Bertz]

1 minute ago, Rcal10 said:

But for a team who has no issues with going over the LT it is a huge savings in the penalties. On a Ohtani’s contract the Dodgers are getting away with not having to pay a 90% penalty on $28M a year because by deferring they take down the present day cost of the contract. I would call that pretty substantial. 

With all due respect this shows that you still don't understand deferrals

[Rcal10]

17 minutes ago, Bertz said:

With all due respect this shows that you still don't understand deferrals

NVM 

Edited December 12, 2025 by Rcal10

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Jason Ross said:

The Cubs have made it pretty clear they have been uninterested in deferred money. I would not expect that to change.

Agreed. It's a structural concern, not something that has to directly do with the length of the contract, per se. It is just not the structure that they want to promote, and it will pretty much stagnate until the future when ownership or managerial practices change--also, highly unlikely in the near future.

The obligation of the Cubs is what makes them uneasy about the deferred money, and in the end, Jed isn't going to want to increase the deficit of the team to pay obscenely larger amounts. To him, it's a lose-lose scenario.

Edited December 12, 2025 by The Cubs Dude

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

But for a team who has no issues with going over the LT it is a huge savings in the penalties. On a Ohtani’s contract the Dodgers are getting away with not having to pay a 90% penalty on $28M a year because by deferring they take down the present day cost of the contract. I would call that pretty substantial. 

Uhh.... ?

[Bertz]

9 minutes ago, Rcal10 said:

Teach me then. Do the Dodgers show $70M on their team payroll and get penalized for $70M a year or do they get penalized at the $42M. 

Not the most important thing but its $46M rather than $42M

But to the main point the deferrals lower the worth of the contract.  So the Dodgers are paying penalties on 46, but that's because Ohtani's contract is only *worth* 46.  No one is getting away with anything, no one is at a disadvantage (well...except California taxpayers), it's just simple accounting. 

The confusion is for all of history if we said a contract was "ten years, $700M" it meant that three things:

- The player would play with the team for ten years

- The team would pay him $700M

- The team would pay that $700M while the player was playing for them

With deferrals 1 and 2 stay true and 3 goes out the window.  But we'reconditioned on all three being true so it creates sticker shock.  Thankfully though his is math is VERY EASY and VERY COMMON to account for.  It's stuff you learn before the first midterm in a 100 level college finance class.  No player's agent is getting bamboozled here.  No rival teams have to Google "how to do a deferral".

[Tryptamine]

Several days later and I'm still pretty annoyed the Cubs didn't pick up Finnegan on such a reasonable contract. Add him to this pen and I'm feeling pretty damn good about a 7th, 8th and 9th of Maton, Finnegan and Palencia.