NEWSLETTER
Today is the day arbitration-eligible players and teams must exchange salary requests for 2020 in the absence of an earlier agreement on a contract. That is to say … a lot of agreements are coming.
We’ll track the signings today in this post, and update with useful, related information/rumors as relevant (anyone gonna sign an extension today?!?).
Here are the players (together with estimated arbitration price tags via MLBTR, arb years, and what they made last year) who’ll be agreeing to deals with the Cubs today, or will be exchanging salary figures and proceeding to arbitration next month:
UPDATE: The first news is arguably the biggest news, as Kris Bryant has reportedly agreed to a one-year deal worth $18.6M in 2020, avoiding the need to go through arbitration.
Third baseman Kris Bryant and the Chicago Cubs have settled on a one-year, $18.6 million deal, a source familiar with the agreement tells ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 10, 2020
Now, as a one-year pact, this doesn’t actually have any effect on the outcome of his grievance. In fact, we were holding out some hope (and the league probably was, too) that the two sides would come to some sort of two-year deal nixing the need for the grievance in the first place. Alas, that remains an outstanding issue that this decidedly does not resolve. Still, it’s good to see them avoid arbitration, because that does make things a little simpler and more streamlined.
For what it’s worth, there is now nothing standing in the way of the grievance being resolved.
UPDATE 2: Albert Almora comes in under the projection, which maybe isn’t a huge surprise, given that his was a dicey tender in the first place:
Source: Almora and Cubs agree to $1.575m arbitration deal.
— Gordon Wittenmyer (@GDubCub) January 10, 2020
Note that arbitration-level agreements are not fully guaranteed. If a guy is healthy but isn’t going to make the team in Spring Training, he can be cut for termination pay (30 days or 45 days, depending on when he’s cut).
UPDATE 3: Like Almora, Kyle Ryan comes in a good bit below his MLBTR estimate:
Cubs and LHP Kyle Ryan have avoided arb with a 1-year, $975K deal, per a source.
— Jordan Bastian (@MLBastian) January 10, 2020
Given the Cubs’ currently razor-thin margin with the luxury tax, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that they hoped to save as much money as possible – even small amounts – in these negotiations today.
UPDATE 4: Willson Contreras lands exactly on his MLBTR projection:
Cubs settle with Willson Contreras. $4.5 million for 2020
— Jesse Rogers (@ESPNChiCubs) January 10, 2020
And Kyle Schwarber gets a very small amount over $7 million for some reason:
Cubs settle with Kyle Schwarber. $7 mil + $10,000 for 2020.
— Jesse Rogers (@ESPNChiCubs) January 10, 2020
UPDATE 5: And there’s the last one, with Javy Baez doing MUCH better than he did last year:
Infielder Javier Baez and the Chicago Cubs are in agreement on a one-year, $10 million contract, sources with knowledge of the deal tell ESPN.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 10, 2020
