I feel there’s a lot of fans that don’t know what today’s payroll news really means. But, for all intents and purposes, it doesn’t mean much at all. The Chicago Cubs had six players that were awaiting salary arbitration numbers. Today was the deadline to accept before going to an arbitration hearing. But, nearly all of these salaries were already assumed in the excel file that holds the Cubs payroll. So… really nothing has changed.
Here were the Cubs expected arb numbers coming into today.
- Kris Bryant $18.5m
- Javier Baez $9.3m
- Kyle Schwarber $8m
- Willson Contreras $4.5m
- Albert Almora $1.8m
- Kyle Ryan $1.1m
Here is the final agreed upon numbers.
- Kris Bryant $18.6m
- Javier Baez $10m
- Kyle Schwarber $7.01m
- Willson Contreras $4.5m
- Albert Almora $1.575m
- Kyle Ryan $975k
In the process, the Cubs gain roughly $500k in salary. While not a lot, this could help in some way (since they’re pinching pennies). What also can help is the Cubs overpaying on both Bryant and Baez.
Sure, combined they made $800k more than projected figures, but this is the third year the Cubs have overpaid Bryant. Baez had mostly been underpaid throughout the arbitration process, so maybe this deal helps any long-term conversations move forward.
That is the next step for all of these guys. How do the Cubs retain as many of them as they can past the year 2021. I still believe the Cubs have an older school way of approaching multiyear deals with players already under contract. I think they assume a player will sign a below market deal, for the comfort in being in one city, not having to negotiate or go through free agency. That’s not really the case in today’s game. What we’ve seen in today’s game is, teams need to pay market value, otherwise most guys know there’s tons of money on the market.
And to answer your question of, how much money is enough money? All of the money.
