Today is the day for arbitration signings, and that means the Cubs will attempt to finalize 2019 contracts with their seven arbitration-eligible players. For those who do not come to deals today, they and the Cubs will exchanged proposed salaries for 2019, and then they’ll head to an arbitration hearing next month to determine which salary figure wins the day.
In the meantime, we’ll keep track of the deals signed by the Cubs today in this post. The first was reported in the wee hours:
Kyle Hendricks, Cubs settle at $7.405 M
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) January 11, 2019
That’s a healthy and deserved raise for Hendricks, 29, who posted a 3.44 ERA over 199.0 innings last year (14% better than league average). Hendricks earned $4.175 million last year. His new $7.405 million salary is about $200K below his projection at MLBTR, so the Cubs can now afford Bryce Harper!
UPDATE (MICHAEL): I’d expect many more updates over the next half-hour, but the first is a good one: Kyle Schwarber has settled for $3.39M
Schwarber avoids arbitration, signs for $3.39m
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) January 11, 2019
MLB Trade Rumors was projecting $3.1 million for Schwarber in his first trip through arbitration, so his actual earnings are right in line with expectations. This is a healthy bump up from his early-career salaries between $500-600K, but it doesn’t strike me as an unexpectedly wild mark in either direction. In other words, this feels like a fair first arb salary for a guy with obvious upside and past success, but some fair questions regarding his future. I also have no doubt he’ll surpass this in value this season.
UPDATES: The D.J. LeMahieu news has set me back a beat, but Mike Montgomery has also reportedly settled with the Cubs for $2.44M, avoiding arbitration:
Montgomery avoids arbitration with $2.44m deal
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) January 11, 2019
Montgomery was projected to earn $3.0 million by MLB Trade Rumors, but comes up a bit short in his first trip through arbitration. Still, like Schwarber, that still means he gets a big raise from his 2018 salary of $611K.
Three of the Cubs’ seven arbitration eligible players have now settled. Kris Bryant, Javy Baez, Addison Russell, and Carl Edwards Jr. remain.
UPDATE: Although the deadline has passed, the deals will still trickle out. Like this one:
Source: The Cubs and reliever Carl Edwards Jr. have settled on a one-year, $1.5 million contract, avoiding arbitration.
— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) January 11, 2019
Edwards was projected at $1.4 million, so this is in the vicinity. The bigger deals with possibly much bigger spreads are still to come …
UPDATE: Here’s Addison Russell’s somewhat unique deal for an arbitration player:
Russell avoids arb, agrees to 3.4m deal that’s worth up to 4m based on how many days he is on active roster
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) January 11, 2019
He loses about 1/6th of the deal for his suspension under the domestic violence policy in any case, so the deal is worth around $2.8 million, and then presumably up to $3.4 million (i.e., another $600K depending on his time on the roster). He had been projected for $4.3 million, but since then, even more details about the scary behavior underlying his suspension have come out.
Note: if the Cubs decide to release Russell in Spring Training, he receives only 30 or 45 days termination pay (depending on when he’s released) based on his base salary. So having that number be low (because of the bonus provision) means he is now much cheaper to just cut. And he’s cheaper to trade now, too. Just throwing that out there.
UPDATE: More details on Russell:
Russell, who will lose about 540K of his 3.4M base because of DV suspension to start season, recoups all of that if he reaches 4 bonuses of 100K for 30, 60, 90, 120 days on active roster and final 200K bonus for 150 days. https://t.co/6vPWTiWXWr
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) January 11, 2019
UPDATE: There’s Javy Baez’s and Kris Bryant’s deals:
Bryant ($12.9 million) and Baez ($5.2 million) agree to deals with Cubs, avoid arbitration.
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) January 11, 2019
Baez was projected to top $7 million, so that’s way under where the expectations were after his breakout season. Bryant, meanwhile, was projected at $12.4 million, so he gets a touch higher, despite the down/injured 2018 season. More soon.