cubs, bregman, tucker

At the least Cubs have more money for Tucker now. Right?

And, would they trade with the Cardinals?

Andy Dolan

— 8 min read
At the least Cubs have more money for Tucker now. Right?
Kyle Tucker skipping through the grass while daydreaming about where he'll play next year.

I am enjoying Ken Rosenthal dragging the Ricketts ownership at every chance, and he did it again on Sunday when he criticized their half-assed effort to sign Alex Bregman.

The Cubs in 2023 were top five in both revenue and franchise value, according to Forbes. But their current estimated luxury-tax payroll ranks 14th, according to Baseball Prospectus. They potentially are wasting what likely will be their only season with Tucker, who would have benefited from the addition of Bregman to the lineup. If Ricketts couldn’t land Bregman on a short deal, why should anyone expect him to keep Tucker long-term?

I'm not sure the Cubs deserve a lot of criticism for the outcome of the Bregman saga, but they surely do deserve one for their approach.

Bregman is a good player. He's been worth just over 4 WAR the last three years, but just 3.3 on average since his 8.9 WAR (trashcan assisted) 2019 season. The writers gushing over the Red Sox signing of him seem to be leaning way too hard into his leadership abilities, while conveniently ignoring the precipitous drop his numbers have taken in recent years.

Subscribe to Pointless Exercise

He would have helped the Cubs had they signed him. He's an excellent defensive third baseman and he's worth 50-60 extra base hits most years. The signing would have allowed the Cubs to more slowly incorporate Matt Shaw and would have lengthened their lineup.

I was genuinely surprised that the Cubs offer to Bregman was four years and didn't have an opt out after the first season.

Jed Hoyer went out of his way to thank Tom and Laura Ricketts (and hilariously, Todd) for giving him the opportunity to "stretch" the budget to offer $115 million over those four years to Bregman.

As Rosenthal points out, it's hard for the Cubs to want credit for making an offer that was shorter than the longest offer and for less money than any of the other offers.

It's apparent that had the Cubs been willing to more closely match the Red Sox offer they'd have gotten Bregman. He clearly didn't want to play in Detroit and so it was down to Chicago and Boston. Signing with the Red Sox means Bregman will likely have to move to second base. I'm sure it will work out just as well as when Trevor Story signed there, moved from short to second and dislocated his shoulder.

The initial thought was that the Red Sox offered Bregman $40 million per (three years, $120 million) and so when the Cubs didn't match that, it seemed logical.

Only, it turns out that with the deferrals in the deal the Red Sox are "only" paying Bregman $32 million per season, much closer to the $29 million per that the Cubs refused to go up from.

And as that info was coming out, the Cubs had their octogenarian errand boy carry some water for them.

Read more