We wrote about this earlier this week as Dylan Cease was officially signed by the Toronto Blue Jays. His $210 million contract over seven years has deferred money included, which brings down his AAV to about $27 million in relation to the luxury tax payroll, which is what a lot of teams have self-imposed as their salary cap to avoid penalties and sometimes loss of draft picks and international bonus money.
Anyway, Cubs fans should be super annoyed now that two things have been confirmed. For starters, the Cubs were indeed in pursuit for Cease, but they decided to exit talks once the bidding reached the $200 million mark. Fine, maybe you agree that Cease's inconsistent seasons aren't worth nearly $30 million per season and resources could be better used elsewhere.
However, one idiotic practice that the Cubs continue to enforce is the refusal to incorporate deferred money when negotiating with free agents and this course of action happened again when attempting to lure Cease back to Chicago.
The Athletic's Sahadev Sharma reported on Tuesday that the Cubs avoided going up to $200 million for Cease, while pointing out that the team has avoided deferrals for several years now.
There's really no other way to describe this sort of attitude from the organization other than stupid. Deferred money, especially in these large contracts, serve to benefit the team in the long term as the deal's value actually decreases in its present value. It helps bring down the cost on a player yearly and as we've seen with the Cubs for many years they obviously prefer to stay below the CBT, so bringing that number down also helps out to spend more elsewhere within the same time period.
I have no idea why the Ricketts looked at the Cubs winning a World Series in 2016 with Jon Lester and Jason Heyward having two big contracts that did have deferred money and have since decided to stay away from that. Sure, they can keep making Heyward out to be the boogyman and how he didn't live up to his deal, but it's unforgivable that they are still using him as an excuse a decade later.
So, that's the first major takeaway that we kind of already knew from how things have worked out with a few different free agent targets for the Cubs so far this offseason. If the team refuses to use deferrals, then they're more than likely going to lose out on top guys like they did with Cease.
On the flip side, I guess there is one positive and that's the Cubs actually pursuing a top free agent in Cease. Yes, you can joke around about having a seat at the table, but if you want to remain somewhat optimistic, then going after Cease to upgrade the rotation probably means the Cubs will also be involved with other top starting pitchers on the free agent market.
Right now, the big-name free agent that most Cubs fans seem to want is Tatsuya Imai. The 27-year-old is coming over from Japan this offseason and has received mixed reviews on his potential in MLB. Yet, the Imai does have the talent, which has earned him contract projections upward of $190 million, although most experts believe Imai will eventually sign closer to the $150 million range.
In summary, the Cubs were engaged in talks for Cease and appeared to be willing to go well above their recent comfort zone for pitching, somewhere between $100 million and $200 million. Yet, once the bidding got to that $200 million figure they said no thanks. The Cubs still won't use deferred money in contract talks, which may hinder future pursuits in free agency. Positively speaking, the Cubs seem to be more willing to go after bigger free agent targets this offseason and Japanese free agent Tatsuya Imai, could be on their radar.
