Tom Ricketts was on 670 The Score Wednesday morning and between whining about paying luxury tax penalties (about $11 million) and saying the Cubs need to refocus on player development, he pretty much told fans not to expect a big free agent move this offseason.
The Cubs aren't cheap. They just spent more than $240 million in payroll, the second highest in MLB in 2019, but repeating last offseason's efforts would be pathetic by this team.
And yes, just like we said last year, the Cubs have enough talent on the roster to be contenders in the NL in 2020. They were a playoff team until the last two weeks of 2019, and short of a few injuries they would have been in the postseason.
At this point, going off of Ricketts' comments, the best case scenario for the Cubs this offseason is that they make smaller moves to fill holes in the roster and don't even join the conversation on the star free agents like Gerrit Cole and Anthony Rendon.
The absolute worst case scenario? Ownership demands the front office to get below the luxury tax. Ricketts didn't necessarily point to that being the case this offseason, but he definitely didn't pass up the chance to cry about the luxury tax penalties.
Via 670 The Score.
“And as you point out, Mully, the fact is if you wanna outspend everyone and try to win, you start bumping into the luxury tax, which this year we’ll pay several million dollars to the league, which is kind of a dead-weight loss that goes to the other teams. And on top of that, if you do it for too long, the fees go up. And if you do it for too much, then you lose draft picks.”
Luxury tax penalties start when a team goes over $208 million in 2020 and they go up after $228 million and then again over $248 million.
Right now, if you include projected arbitration raises and a few options being picked up, the Cubs payroll stands at about $210 million. So, let's just hope that Ricketts really is only setting expectations low on not going after big free agents, rather than taking a huge step back and slashing the current payroll.
Of course, there are ways the Cubs could slash payroll and it would be beneficial. Maybe you package an Ian Happ or some other young player with Jason Heyward in a trade where you still eat some of Heyward's contract, but at least you get rid of a good chunk of it. Or you could find a believer in Tyler Chatwood after his good season coming out of the bullpen. While Jose Quintana hasn't lived up to expectations, his $10.5 million salary for 2020 could be a bargain for a team that needs starting pitching help.
Yet, the issue would then be what happens if the front office is able to cut some of that payroll? Is ownership going to allow them to then spend it right away and get back near their 2019 payroll or call it a day and not add much to make the team better? Or worse, the Cubs are forced to trade Kris Bryant just because he'll be owed one of the highest salaries on the team and the Cubs don't do anything else to improve the roster.
Again, the Cubs aren't some struggling expansion team. It's a big market team.
I'm not going to fully panic and think that a firestorm is coming. Crane Kenney said as recently as September that the team should still have one of the highest payrolls in baseball next year. However, it's probably time to stop thinking about Rendon wearing a Cubs uniform in 2020.
Hey Tom, you know what helps winning consistently? Enhancing your roster with talented free agents.
Here's part of the interview from 670 The Score.
