40-Man Roster Decisions Made and Unmade, Minor League All-Stars, Qualifying Offer Decisions, and Other Cubs Bullets

Nov 11, 2022

I am a big coffee drinker. Lots of it. Too much of it. But one thing I never do is have coffee after about 1pm. That was less a conscious decision about timing and more just the product of me not really ever having coffee after lunch, because that’s when I switch into soda mode. Well, two days ago I had a latte at 3pm because I had a random craving, and dude I was up until midnight without even the remotest chance to fall asleep. How is it that I could be so impacted by the caffeine that much later, even though I’m POUNDING it daily up through 1pm? Weird. Anyway, coffee is great, though.

Ken Rosenthal reports that the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw are close on another new one-year deal, so we’ll see if that gets finalized today.

If you missed the Cubs roster news last night, or glossed over the implications, some of the big stuff: Franmil Reyes has effectively been non-tendered, so if he’s to come back, he and the Cubs would have to work out a new deal. David Bote is now in the minors (he keeps his guaranteed money) and off the 40-man roster, which seems like an ideal outcome for the Cubs, because he’s still quality depth. Alec Mills and Brad Wieck (rehabbing from Tommy John) are free agents now, together with several others.

Jason Heyward hasn’t officially been released yet, so that’s a 40-man spot available to the Cubs whenever they need it, and other bubble guys like Esteban Quiroz, Michael Rucker, Erich Uelmen, Jared Young, and Rafael Ortega are all still on the 40-man for now. You know who else is still on there? Pitching prospect Alexander Vizcaino, who simply chose not to pitch last season, and whose future is very much unclear.

Also: the 40-man is at 36 right now, so the Cubs could protect four prospects from the Rule 5 without making any other changes before Tuesday’s rostering deadline. That said, I would think they’ll want an extra spot or two open for a waiver claim or trade, since other clubs will still be shuffling their rosters at the margins this weekend and leading up to Tuesday. I also think many of the bubble guys will be moved off the 40-man sometime next week, via non-tenders or waivers or trades. Obviously the Cubs are going to need a whole lot more than four spots from here on through the rest of the offseason …

MiLB announced final league All-Stars for the year, where the Cubs got honors for Jake Slaughter, Alexander Canario, Yonathan Perlaza, Pete Crow-Armstrong, and D.J. Herz. If you’re wondering where players of the year Matt Mervis and Luis Devers are, they didn’t spend enough time at any single level to accumulate “All-Star” level stats, apparently.

Not a single All-Star for the Myrtle Beach Pelicans, by the way, which is odd given that they were one of the best teams in all of Minor League Baseball this year (PCA got his nod from the Midwest League). I suppose a lot of that is because of roster churn, but Kevin Alcántara at least should have gotten some love.

Cubs outfield prospect Cole Roederer is playing in Australia this winter and he hit the first homer of the league’s season:

@CanberraCavalry Cole Roeberer gets the ABL season going with the first run AND first home run of season 23.#abl23 #thisisourtime pic.twitter.com/4yxOIJjzCv
— Australian Baseball League (@ABL) November 10, 2022

The Silver Slugger winners this year (no Cubs):

These guys know how to rake.

Here are your 2022 NL Silver Slugger winners! pic.twitter.com/J1ZO8LXrsv
— MLB (@MLB) November 11, 2022

The best with the bats from the American League.

Your 2022 AL Silver Slugger winners! pic.twitter.com/eBv7gGgSdQ
— MLB (@MLB) November 10, 2022

A good question, since the rejection didn’t actually come immediately after the offer:

I did find odd this week's report about him having already decided to reject even before actually getting a chance to gauge the market. I felt like I was on an island a month ago when I was saying there was a 5% (or whatever) chance he could accept. Maybe I wasn't wrong? https://t.co/IqnXP8M2Mu— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) November 11, 2022

I still think it’s overwhelmingly likely that Contreras will reject the Qualifying Offer, but it just seemed odd to me that it was reported earlier this week that he already knew he was rejecting it before he could even shop around. Maybe that report was premature? I guess we’ll find out no later than Tuesday. But if you wanted to hold out hope that he would accept the one-year, $19.65 million offer from the Cubs, it turned out that he didn’t actually reject it immediately!

(To be fair, none of the 14 players to whom a QO was made have rejected it yet. So he’s not alone. And it still feels like the case that the Cubs have wanted to move on all along.)

written by

Brett Taylor

Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

40-Man Roster Decisions Made and Unmade, Minor League All-Stars, Qualifying Offer Decisions, and Other Cubs Bullets

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