Cubs arbitration eligibles

[Dfan25]

Great breakdown. I thought insurance was 15 mill last year? Maybe I'm off on that though. I thought the rest of the 40 man comes in at 200k apiece, not 100% sure on that either. But, if I'm correct, it'd shave another 2.5 off the 35.9 we can spend. Of course, we can make most of it by cutting Grimm.

Still, assuming we'll save 7-10 mill for in season moves, it makes a Darvish signing pretty hard to fathom. Same with Jake.

It can be done they just wouldn’t be able to do anything else before the season starts. I would be alright with Caratini as backup C. They don’t need another OF with multiple guys able to play different positions. Yes another reliever would be nice but to have Darvish in the rotation I would go with the current bullpen and see what they need come trade deadline time.

[Bertz]

Great breakdown. I thought insurance was 15 mill last year? Maybe I'm off on that though. I thought the rest of the 40 man comes in at 200k apiece, not 100% sure on that either. But, if I'm correct, it'd shave another 2.5 off the 35.9 we can spend. Of course, we can make most of it by cutting Grimm.

Still, assuming we'll save 7-10 mill for in season moves, it makes a Darvish signing pretty hard to fathom. Same with Jake.

I thought I did it based on what Cot's has, but looking now they have it as ~$14 for player benefits and $2.25 for the 40 man, which would have me off by about $750k. Then again, that's part of why I rounded up everywhere I could, so as to insulate against any mistakes or changes that go the other direction (for instance, KB making $1m last year even though he was a 0-3 player).

But yeah, I think the moral of the story is that if we do Darvish or Arrieta we probably have enough room for a backup catcher and not much else. Further, it probably leaves us enough room for Harper next year but not much beyond that unless we get lucky and Heyward opts out or we dump a salary dump or two.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

FWIW, you gain an extra million by using the real numbers and not rounding to the hundred thousands. If you assume Caratini at backup C, Montgomery as the 5th starter, and a 4 man bench you have 36.8 million to play with. Considering that a 4 man bench is more than within reach if you aren't trading any of the young position players, it seems plenty reasonable to sign Darvish and grab a backup catcher for Rivera money and still be the better part of 10 million under the LT. I believe the true amounts are based on actual dollars paid(meaning deadline acquisitions would count for a fraction of their AAV), so 10 million is probably on the higher end of the buffer you might want to have.

[davell]

Great breakdown. I thought insurance was 15 mill last year? Maybe I'm off on that though. I thought the rest of the 40 man comes in at 200k apiece, not 100% sure on that either. But, if I'm correct, it'd shave another 2.5 off the 35.9 we can spend. Of course, we can make most of it by cutting Grimm.

Still, assuming we'll save 7-10 mill for in season moves, it makes a Darvish signing pretty hard to fathom. Same with Jake.

I thought I did it based on what Cot's has, but looking now they have it as ~$14 for player benefits and $2.25 for the 40 man, which would have me off by about $750k. Then again, that's part of why I rounded up everywhere I could, so as to insulate against any mistakes or changes that go the other direction (for instance, KB making $1m last year even though he was a 0-3 player).

But yeah, I think the moral of the story is that if we do Darvish or Arrieta we probably have enough room for a backup catcher and not much else. Further, it probably leaves us enough room for Harper next year but not much beyond that unless we get lucky and Heyward opts out or we dump a salary dump or two.

OK, so 2.25 means 150k versus 200k. That makes sense. That said, I guess that number goes up every time during the season a guy goes on the DL and a guy comes up. So, maybe we need to save a bit more just for those occurrences?

Cobb at a 15 mill AAV and a low rent backup C seems the most likely scenario for me. You can probably add some sort of pen arm and not worry about things either.

Gotta admit, I'd be slightly disappointed with that, I really want Darvish.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

OK, so 2.25 means 150k versus 200k. That makes sense. That said, I guess that number goes up every time during the season a guy goes on the DL and a guy comes up. So, maybe we need to save a bit more just for those occurrences?

Cobb at a 15 mill AAV and a low rent backup C seems the most likely scenario for me. You can probably add some sort of pen arm and not worry about things either.

Gotta admit, I'd be slightly disappointed with that, I really want Darvish.

I think you're being too conservative about this, they don't need an extra 5 million in buffer for guys coming up on DL stints. If they had no intention of exceeding 15M AAV then the rumors on Darvish wouldn't be as strong as they are, the arb estimates matched up nearly exactly with reality so it's not like anything has materially changed since the Darvish pursuit began.

[davell]

Honestly, Grimm is kind of a dick. We could have cut him and I'm not sure he'd have gotten 2 mill on the open market.

[davell]

OK, so 2.25 means 150k versus 200k. That makes sense. That said, I guess that number goes up every time during the season a guy goes on the DL and a guy comes up. So, maybe we need to save a bit more just for those occurrences?

Cobb at a 15 mill AAV and a low rent backup C seems the most likely scenario for me. You can probably add some sort of pen arm and not worry about things either.

Gotta admit, I'd be slightly disappointed with that, I really want Darvish.

I think you're being too conservative about this, they don't need an extra 5 million in buffer for guys coming up on DL stints. If they had no intention of exceeding 15M AAV then the rumors on Darvish wouldn't be as strong as they are, the arb estimates matched up nearly exactly with reality so it's not like anything has materially changed since the Darvish pursuit began.

You may be right. I'm not thinking 5 mill though, maybe 2? Even that may be too high. We don't have that many guys at AAA that'll be on a shuttle to begin with. Maples, maybe one or two of those DFA claims. It'd take longterm injuries to ramp that number up to anything substantial.

[Perd]

Grimm is so dumb, he probably just heard his agent say “Do you want to go to arb...” said “Yeah” and is still wondering when he’s going to get his beef ‘n’ cheddar.