Chicago Cubs: Paying players to play for other teams

This offseason the rumors are that the Cubs are unable to make a significant addition unless they get rid of some salary. The two contracts the Cubs would most like to shed from their payroll are the ones that belong to Jason Heyward and Tyler Chatwood.

Heyward has five years and $106 million left on his contract. Chatwood has two years and $25 million left on his contract. But none of the other 29 teams in Major League Baseball is going to want those players on their rosters at those costs.

Heyward’s contract is further complicated by trade clauses in his contract. During the first three years of his contract, he had a full no-trade clause. After two more seasons, Heyward will be a 10/5 player (10 years in the league, 5 with the same team). That gives him the right to veto trades. So this is part of a limited window where Heyward only has a limited no-trade clause. During these two seasons, Heyward names 12 teams that he can block trades.

One possibility is a swap of bad contracts. The Cubs had a semi-successful bad contract swap in 2009 when they traded outfielder Milton Bradley for starting pitcher Carlos Silva.

Switch-hitting Bradley was supposed to bring balance to a mostly right-handed hitting lineup. But after fitting in with a unique clubhouse in Texas, Bradley never did fit in with the Cubs. In 2010 Silva nearly pitched himself into the All-Star game in the first half of the season. But he did not pitch anywhere near as well in the second half of the season.

Aside from a trade of Chatwood for Russell Martin it’s difficult to see a place where there would be a bad contract out there that might fit the Cubs needs. Martin could have filled the role of the veteran backup catcher for the Cubs.  Chatwood could have been a buy-low starting pitcher with a lot of potential upside for the Toronto Blue Jays. However, Martin has since been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

The Cubs are currently facing many questions in the bullpen. Fans and pundits alike are calling for the Cubs to sign some free agent relievers to bolster the bullpen. But the Cubs already have a full bullpen. If the Cubs add to their bullpen, what are they going to do with pitchers such as Chatwood, Brian Duensing and Brandon Kintzler?

Kintzler enacted his one-year player option that pays him $5 million after the Cubs declined his $10 million team option. Duensing signed a two-year, $7 million deal last offseason. So he has one year left at $3.5 million.

If the Cubs release these pitchers, they will have to pay them their full salaries. That’s what the Cubs had to do with Edwin Jackson in 2015.

That leaves making the kind of trades where the Cubs agree to pay part or most of their salary. If they do that, not only will the Cubs be paying their own players more than ever before in team history; the Cubs will also be paying players to play for other teams. And don’t forget, the Cubs would still need to turn right around and pay the player who is going to replace the player with the bad contract. At that point, you have to ask yourself if the Cubs would be improving what they put out on the field.

If Chatwood is as wild as he was last year, the Cubs might have to just dump him one way or another. Either way, it will cost the Cubs millions of dollars in wasted salary to do so. But if Chatwood can salvage his Cubs career by contributing in the bullpen and perhaps being starting pitching depth, the Cubs will get at least some value out of the $25.5 million remaining on his contract.

As bad as we feel about Duensing’s 2018, don’t forget how good we felt about his 2017. If Duensing gets healthy and pitches like its 2017 again, the $3.5 million he earns next season will feel like as much of a bargain as we thought it was going to be when he originally resigned with the Cubs last offseason.

Kintzler didn’t pitch well after he was traded to the Cubs last year. Again, we felt this way about Justin Wilson after his trade to the Cubs in the 2017 season. Wilson recovered to be one of the most dependable arms for the Cubs bullpen in 2018. Like Wilson, Kintzler had a substantial history of success before his trade to the Cubs. So perhaps Kintzler is due for a similar bounce-back type of season.

We saw some glimpses in 2018 of the player we thought Heyward be might when he originally signed a free agent contract with the Cubs. For a significant stretch of the season, he was hitting third in batting order and even hit a walk-off grand slam.

It’s likely that Heyward will never be as good as we all hoped he was going to be when he first signed with the Cubs. But if the Cubs pay more than half a $100 million for him to play on another team that probably is a poor use of the budget.

Its not as if Heyward doesn’t contribute at all. His offense has been valuable at times. His defense is valuable. His leadership already helped the Cubs win the World Series.

There are rare occasions where even this front office has deemed it necessary to pay a player to play for another team. The Cubs might find themselves at that point with Chatwood this coming season. But if at all possible you want to avoid doing that. I suspect that is part of the reason the additions to the bullpen that some are clamoring for haven’t happened this offseason. Chatwood, Duensing and Kintzler are going to be given every opportunity to fill those roster spots. Heyward will in all likelihood finish out his contract in a Cub uniform. These players are more valuable to the team as Cubs than in another team’s uniform.