You're right, but if they're concerned about the higher penalties, they probably wouldn't do that. I think they should if they want to win a WS. The penalties shouldn't be something that prevents them from trying to win a WS. But I'm sure it will.
The penalty is 20% up to 257...32% up to 277...62.5% up to 297...80% after that.
I also understand that if the go to 290 lets say, the penalty for that would be an additional 8.125 million.
So at the end of the day, not knowing what their budget is, we have no idea what their plans are. I chose the 3rd level because I don't think they want to pay an extra 62.5% in penalties.
So, if the go to the 2nd level, they would pay, 4 million in penalties. If they got to the 3rd level, they would pay an additional 6.4 million. If the went up to the 4th level, they would pay an additional 12.5 million. So, for the sake of this conversation, if they went to 297 million, they would pay 22.9 million in penalties, bringing the payroll up to almost 320 million. I could be wrong, but this just doesn't sound like something the Cubs would do. I hope that I'm wrong.