Cubs free agent target: Juan Soto

Let’s address the proverbial elephant in the room.

Let me make clear my personal point of view on this topic right now, so there’s no question about it.

The Cubs aren’t signing Juan Soto. Period, end of story. Yes, this even though he says he’s open to all 30 teams, including…

Right. Because the Rays, a team known for trading good players before they get expensive and who currently don’t have a park to play in for at least the next couple of seasons, are suddenly going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on Juan Soto.

Just to be more clear, the $600 million (by some accounts) that Soto might get in free agency is equal to the sum of all Rays payrolls for the last eight full seasons (excluding the 2020 pandemic year).

That’s not happening.

Since I know that there are those who will say, “If the Cubs don’t sign Soto it means that they don’t want to win,” or words to that effect, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m not going to say, “Spending the most money doesn’t guarantee you winning,” because the results of the 2024 season did seem to say that. Of the four teams that made the league championship series, three of them (Dodgers, Mets, Yankees) had the top three payrolls in MLB during the season.

Is it always going to be that way? Probably not; the playoffs can be fairly random, and in fact, last year the four LCS teams ranked fourth (Rangers), fifth (Phillies), seventh (Astros) and 21st (Diamondbacks).

But yes, spending that sort of money likely gets you a seat at the table. Granted and stipulated.

What else do those top-three teams in 2024 have in common? They all have TV deals with channels the team owns that provide them with much more revenue than the Cubs are getting from Marquee Sports Network. That does allow them more financial flexibility. Further, though the Cubs undoubtedly play in a “large market,” the New York and Los Angeles markets are both more than double the size of Chicago. That matters.

Some of you recently cited this quote from Jed Hoyer as evidence that the Cubs weren’t going to try to win:

“We’re looking to be creative, if we can find value on the margins to be able to do that,” Hoyer said. “You’re always trying to be creative and there’s room for it this year.”

I was asked to address that and figured that this article was the best place to do that.

As I said above: The Cubs aren’t signing Juan Soto. I think that’s pretty clear. He appears to like it in New York and very likely is staying there.

The real question is: If they did — and thus broke through any salary and luxury tax level that they’ve ever before done — would that really move the needle that much? The Cubs already have a full outfield and designated hitter rotation with Ian Happ, Pete Crow-Armstrong, Cody Bellinger and Seiya Suzuki.

Could they trade one of those guys?

Well, first:

Clearly, the Cubs aren’t trading PCA — it’s possible, in fact, that PCA could become a star player in this league in 2025, given his excellent performance in the second half. They’re not trading Suzuki, who was pretty much their best hitter most of 2024.

Bellinger? I suppose they could look into trading Bellinger, whose contract is a bit more than 50 percent of what Soto is expected to make in AAV for the next… oh, 10 to 12 years. But here’s another quote from Hoyer from that article link above:

“It’s great,” Hoyer said. “We signed him to that deal and we love him as a player. Any time a really good player decides to stay with you, that’s really good news.”

Of course, Hoyer’s going to say good things about a player on his team for another year. Cody Bellinger, in fact, is a “really good player.” In my view, he’s likely to have a 2025 season closer to his 2023 performance, presuming he’s healthy. If he does, he probably opts out after 2024 — but then, if he does that, the Cubs are likely going to have a better season than the 83-win years they’ve had two seasons in a row.

Would Soto be better than that? Probably, but at what cost? Soto is not a good defender and that’s not going to get any better as he gets older. To me, the best thing about him besides his power is all the walks he draws — that .421 career OBP leads all active major leaguers. No doubt, he is a great player.

But I think the Cubs can allocate their money better elsewhere. Should they spend more? Yes, absolutely, they should. Granted and stipulated.

Let me now remind you of a situation from earlier this century.

After the 2000 season, Alex Rodriguez, then looked at as a generational player comparable to Soto, left the Mariners as a free agent. The Mariners made no move to keep A-Rod, and he wound up signing with the Texas Rangers, with an AAV of $22 million, then just about the highest salary for anyone in MLB.

Meanwhile, the Mariners, a 91-win team in 2000, took some of that money and signed Bret Boone and some guy from Japan named Ichiro Suzuki to free-agent contracts.

Ichiro was a revelation and was AL Rookie of the Year and MVP, a 7.7 bWAR season, on his way to a certain Hall of Fame election. Boone batted .331/.372/.578 with 118 runs and 37 home runs and led the AL with 141 RBI, an 8.8 bWAR season. That’s 16.5 bWAR from two players who got paid a total of about $9 million in 2001, less than half what A-Rod got from the Rangers.

The 2001 Mariners won 116 games, only to then be eliminated by the Yankees in the ALCS.

Now, am I saying that this sort of “creative” spending by Jed Hoyer would suddenly turn the Cubs into a 100-win team? Of course not, that’s ridiculous.

But I do think there are free agents and/or guys available by trade other than Juan Soto who could turn the 83-win 2024 Cubs into a 90-win Cubs team that could/should win the NL Central, the team that Craig Counsell literally said the Cubs should be.

So no, the Cubs should not sign Juan Soto, and I also don’t want to hear that the failure to sign him means the Cubs don’t want to win. That is an open topic of discussion, to be sure, but the non-signing of one player, no matter how great, doesn’t lead to that conclusion, in my opinion.

I wish Soto well. He appears to be most likely either staying with the Yankees, or signing with their crosstown rival Mets.

I hope I’ve been fair in my comments on the topic of Cubs spending. As always, we await developments.