By today, the Cubs had just five potential arbitration cases remaining: Javy Báez, Kris Bryant, Willson Contreras, Ian Happ, and Zach Davies.
One of those has been resolved so far, and we’ll keep tracking the rest.
Javy Báez reportedly gets $11.65 million for 2021, his final year of team control with the Cubs. That’s near the high end of Báez’s estimated range, which suggests very little weight was placed on his offensive results during the 2020 season. Báez remained elite defensively, and the years that precede the latest year also factor into the final arbitration number. This is a good get for Báez in his final season before free agency, all things considered. That said, in a normal world, if he’d had a full and great season, he probably gets a much larger bump from his $10 million salary in 2020.
UPDATE: The Cubs have also avoided arbitration on Kris Bryant, Willson Contreras, and Zach Davies, per multiple reports.
Bryant gets $19.5 million, which is above his projection range at MLBTR, but to be honest, that was without any kind of bump, which seemed very unlikely even after the 2020 season. Instead, we’d kinda been mentally ballparking Bryant around $20 million, so this sounds about right.
Contreras, in his second arbitration year, gets $6.65 million, which was near the high end of his range, but is still pretty cheap for a second-arb-year-stud-catcher.
Davies, coming off a dominant stub season with the Padres, gets a bump to $8.63 million, which is roughly in the middle of the range projected for him.
We’re just waiting on Ian Happ at this point.
UPDATE: Michael hears a deal is not happening today:
Ian Happ and the Cubs were unable to come to an agreement today and it seems likely they'll be headed to arbitration.
— Michael Cerami (@Michael_Cerami) January 15, 2021
Ian Happ filed for $4.1 million, while the Cubs countered at $3.25 million. Midpoint: $3.675 million.
— Mark Feinsand (@Feinsand) January 16, 2021
Now we see the figures for Happ, and whether there are any extensions in store for this crew or a guy like Anthony Rizzo. And we also see what happens on the trade market now that salaries are finalized.
More on Happ, specifically, later.