The Cubs’ blockbuster trade for Kyle Tucker generated the biggest headlines in Wrigleyville this winter, with the team also adding such notables as Matthew Boyd, Colin Rea, Eli Morgan, Carson Kelly, and Caleb Thielbar to the roster. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer stated this week that the Cubs were still looking to add to the bench and bullpen, and recent reports suggest that the latter pursuit could even take the form of a big-ticket signing of Tanner Scott.
One of the over-arching questions about Chicago’s winter plans is exactly how much Hoyer had available to spend, and chairman Tom Ricketts addressed this point in an interview with The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney. Ricketts said that the team expects to spend around the $241MM luxury tax threshold, which therefore gives the Cubs quite a bit of extra capacity, as RosterResource estimates its current tax number at roughly $198.3MM.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the Cubs will be splashing around a lot of that cash in the coming weeks, however, as Ricketts said some money could be earmarked for upgrades at the trade deadline. “We always have the ability to add payroll if we need to at the deadline. And if there’s a piece we need to keep winning, there’s always that option,” Ricketts said.
The same wait-and-see mentality also impacts the remainder of the winter, as Ricketts noted that teams “don’t control the timing of when these guys sign. And every offseason is different. Nothing will happen for three weeks, and then one guy will sign. And then three other guys want to sign in the next two days. You just have to be flexible through the process, and keep an eye open at the end with some dry powder, in case there is someone that might be value-added that comes at a good price.”
A more expensive signing like Scott would take up a sizeable, yet not overwhelming, portion of Chicago’s budget space. Rumors have persisted that the Cubs remain at least on the periphery of the Alex Bregman and Jack Flaherty markets, so despite Hoyer’s comments about the team’s focus on more lower-tier moves, Chicago can’t be entirely ruled out as a landing spot for either player until they sign elsewhere. Bregman is reportedly not interested in a shorter-term deal with opt-outs while Flaherty is at least open to such an arrangement, so Flaherty could be a better fit as the type of “value-added” opportunity Ricketts describes (though any number of teams might also be interested in Flaherty in that same context).
The Cubs have taken a step back in their approach to payroll in recent years, as 2024 marked the first time since 2020 that Chicago’s Opening Day payroll landed within the league’s top ten spenders. While the Cubs boosted payroll last year and into this offseason, some budget restraints are still clearly in place. Most notably, the trade that sent Cody Bellinger to the Yankees was about unloading the majority of Bellinger’s remaining salary, in addition to clearing room for Tucker in Chicago’s outfield.
Fans have criticized Ricketts for this relative lack of spending from a big-market team, with some fingers pointed at the private investment firm Arctos for having an influence in this department. Ricketts pushed back against this criticism in particular, noting that because Arctos has investments in multiple MLB teams, “they’re not allowed to participate in any baseball discussions, so they’re walled off from anything to do with payroll or player analysis….Ultimately, the private equity investors have very long-term horizons and are just looking to participate in the appreciation of sports assets in general. They don’t need certain win totals or cash-flow numbers. They’re just strong, silent partners.”
As always, the Competitive Balance Tax is calculated via average annual value plus additional player benefits, as opposed to just straight dollars — this is why the Cubs’ $227.7MM payroll in 2024 translated to a $239.9MM tax number, which put Chicago slightly over the $237MM tax threshold. This means that the Cubs would have to give up two draft picks in order to sign a qualified free agent like Bregman, which is why non-qualified free agents like Scott or Flaherty could be preferable.
Not coincidentally, the Cubbies’ scaled-back spending through a semi-rebuild coincided with a dearth of postseason baseball. After reaching the postseason in 2020, the Cubs had sub-.500 seasons in both 2021 and 2022 before posting identical 83-79 records in each of the last two seasons. There has been plenty of frustration among Cubs fans over the last two years’ worth of near-misses, and it has led to speculation that Hoyer is facing extra pressure as he enters the last year of his contract as the team’s PBO.
Ricketts downplayed the idea of 2025 as a particularly important season, noting that “every year, the goal is the playoffs.” While Ricketts didn’t give Hoyer an outright vote of confidence in terms of promised job security, the chairman did praise Hoyer’s big-picture approach to roster-building.
“You evaluate the front office on a couple levels. Obviously, No. 1, is just the wins on the field,” Ricketts said. “That’s the most obvious metric to check. But it’s just overall organizational health. One thing that’s been very encouraging over the past few years is that we have drafted better. And the guys that we have drafted have developed more quickly than some years past. We put ourselves really behind the eight-ball a few years ago with a series of drafts that weren’t very productive. And I think we’re on the other side of that now. We’ve got a lot of players coming through, which will give Jed a lot of trade capital to go into the future.”
Evaluators and pundits have increasingly praised the state of the Cubs’ farm system, and this depth already manifested itself in the Tucker trade. Isaac Paredes was included in the three-player trade package to the Astros because the Cubs have confidence that Matt Shaw is ready for regular third-base work, plus top prospect Cam Smith was also sent to Houston in the deal.
“Maybe in a few years, people will say we should have traded somebody else,” Ricketts said. “But that’s what it is – there’s a balance to every trade. In this case, I think Jed was right in assessing that we needed an impact bat this season.”
Ricketts also added that “hopefully, [Tucker will] enjoy his time here and he’ll be here a long time.” Tucker is a free agent after the season, and while Ricketts naturally isn’t going to outright say that the Cubs view him as a just a one-year rental, his comment at least leaves open the possibility that the Cubs are willing to give Tucker the mega-deal that he’ll undoubtedly command if he keeps up his current form. Jason Heyward’s $184MM contract remains the most expensive deal in Cubs history, and the club is very likely going to have to at least double that price to re-sign Tucker.