2020 Team

[Kid]

Below is the status of everyone on the final 40-man roster or on the 60-day IL.

 

Free agents

Castellanos

Cedeno

Cishek

Hamels

Kintzler

Lucroy

Strop

Zobrist

 

Under contract

Bote ($950K)

Chatwood ($13M)

Descalso ($2.5M)

Hendricks ($12M)

Kimbrel ($16M)

Lester ($20M)

 

Player opt-outs

Darvish ($22M)

Heyward ($21M)

 

Club options

Barnette ($3M, no buyout)

Graveman ($3M, no buyout)

Holland ($7M vs $500K buyout (SF pays buyout))

Morrow ($12M vs $3M buyout)

Phelps ($5M, no buyout)

Quintana ($10.5M vs $1M buyout)

Rizzo ($16.5M vs $2M buyout)

 

Arbitration eligible

Almora

Baez

Bryant

Contreras

Happ

Russell

Schwarber

 

 

Anyone not listed is under pre-arbitration team control.

 

[Kid]

I think the only free agents with any chance of being back are Kintzler and Strop (with Strop, it would probably be on a minor league deal giving him a chance to make the team in the spring).

 

Neither Darvish nor Heyward will opt out.

 

Cubs will exercise options on Rizzo, Quintana (but might trade him), and Graveman.

 

Barring any trades, Cubs will tender contracts to all arbitration eligible players with possible exceptions of Russell and Almora.

[rok]

Initially I thought moving on from both Kintzler and Strop made the most sense, but holy shit the list of 2020 RPs is scary. Only Betances and maybe Vizcaino offer some upside.



https://www.spotrac.com/mlb/free-agents/...f-pitcher/

[BigBoy]

Will Smith is probably the only guy I would want the cubs to sign if hes willing to not be closer ( unless Kimbrel is still broken)



Kintzler might be a decent option to bring back.

[rok]

Smith kind of scares me. He's just ok outside of San Fran (lots of HRs), and he seemed to come back down to earth during the 2nd half. He will probably be very expensive and require multiple years, which I don't see this FO doing again after Kimbrel and Morrow.

[funkster]

I'm hoping our in house options prove to be better.  It's kind of nuts that Strop is just now hitting free agency.

[rok]

Let the rumors fly.



https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/2773...on-manager

[funkster]

I have to say, it’s really weirding me out that Joes not coming back. Not used to feeling this much sadness about a departing manager.

[Butcher]

I really dont know who they could replace him with who will be better. They will probably just go the route of hiring someone young who they can tell what to do. I miss him already. I hate that it is ending this way.

[1060Ivy]

Agreed that Cubs will most likely choose a younger manager - who’ll be much cheaper than Joe. Believe current thinking / research is that managers have small impact on overall season record so manager’s value has been historically over estimated.



Agree that an average manager probably doesn’t make a significant impact but Maddon wasn’t an average manager. Can’t see Cubs making jump from 2014 to winning series in 2016 without him.



No clue who manager will be in 2020 but like all Cub fans hoping he gets the most out of the roster and resources the Cubs provide.

[MrSheps]

Believe current thinking / research is that managers have small impact on overall season record so managers value has been historically over estimated.

Yeah, I've heard this too, and admittedly not looked into it, but it's hard to picture the methodology that could show this. You obviously have no control group, and if you're looking at the same players with different managers, you're doing so year-over-year and even then, who is to say what makes for a good manager or a bad one, beyond wins? So much of what a manager does is not easily quantified. If the manager's decisions (assuming they're reasonable) don't impact a game enough to to make a significant difference in wins and losses over a season, that I get, but that's only a part of what they do.



I love and will miss Joe. As an in-game guy I wasn't a huge fan at times. Overall though, I think he did a ton to get the team ready and confident enough to win a world series. In recent years, his unwavering and calm confidence and non-reactive nature may not have been what this team needed though.

[jstraw]

When he stopped bringing in clowns and strippers and ponies, it felt to me that he was phoning it in. Where were the photos of Star Wars getaway day this season? The thrill is gone.

 

I'll be forever grateful to Joe, seriously. I'd have been shocked if Theo had re-upped for more expensive years at the present trajectory. Joe might have been the exactly right guy to marshal the forces that he and Jed assembled. I mean, he *was*. But would he be the guy to lead the team in the transition it's currently facing? I have my doubts.

 

I also wonder if Theo has the passion, and will be given the resources, to retool and do it again.

[rok]

I still have confidence in the FO at the upper levels. These are hyper competitive people, so doubt they have lost any desire to right the ship. That said, I fear the development and scouting side of things is kind of a mess, and the concern is that it will take much more than a 1-2 year restructuring to fix what has taken almost a decade to build.

[rok]

Was reading Greenberg's Athletic column this morning, and was surprised to see this name mentioned as a managerial candidate:

Ex-Cubs outfielder Sam Fuld is an up-and-coming coach with Philadelphia and it feels like he would fit in with the front office, being an educated East Coaster who looks like he could fill out a polo shirt and khakis.

[funkster]

That's random.