NEWSLETTER
The Cubs picked a few winners over the offseason — free agents like David Robertson, Chris Martin, and Mychal Givens came in, succeeded right away, and were ultimately traded for prospects at the deadline. While Marcus Stroman and Seiya Suzuki figure to be important parts of at least the 2023 iteration of the Chicago Cubs. But they were far from 100%. One of their biggest whiffs was signing Andrelton Simmons to a $4 million deal.
But when Simmons wasn’t hurt, he was ineffective, and now he’s gone, with the Cubs ready to eat the money.
I understand what the Cubs were trying to do with Simmons. If this pitching staff was ever going to succeed this season, the defense would need to be elite. And theoretically, Simmons could offer something close to that. But between the injuries, the complete nothing at the plate (25 wRC+), and the emergence of Nico Hoerner’s surprisingly steady glove at short, Simmons was completely superfluous.
Now the Chicago Cubs will just have to hope some team claims him on waivers so they can save some of that 2022 salary.
Brett guessed we might see something like this earlier this week:
You will still see some of this over the next month+, as teams try to waive guys to get them claimed and the rest of their salary assumed by the new team. It’s like trading them for cash. The bonus this time of year, as Arizona Phil reminds us, is that you can waive a guy, and if he clears waivers, you do not HAVE to outright him off the roster at that point. You can just see if there’s interest in claiming him. It’s conceivable the Cubs could try this with a veteran or two later this month if they want to (1) save some cash, and (2) open up a spot for a youngster to get innings/ABs.
That’s a good article for some procedural explanations of transactions from here on out.
Anyway, Simmons finishes his Cubs career (for now, I guess), with a .173/.244/.187 (25 wRC+) slash line and -0.4 WAR.
