Chicago Cubs: Who will be making the most money in 2020?

Chicago Cubs: Lets see how this man responds to a normal offseason.

The numbers for Craig Kimbrel in 2019 are pretty ugly…and his season ended in gut-wrenching fashion against the Cardinals a week back. However we can give a guy who signed mid-season and dealt with injuries throughout his first tenure in Chicago the benefit of the doubt, for now.

Kimbrel will make $16 million in 2020 to be the Cubs closer. There is going to be some big changes in that pen and hopefully starting off the season with a fully armed and operational Kimbrel will avoid some of the early troubles they saw in 2019. He is simply going to need to be the guy who entered 2019 with a career 1.91 ERA, 1.96 FIP and 14.7 K/9.

So lets add those four guys up. In total that is $81.5 million worth in payroll next season. To put that in perspective, the 2019 Oakland Athletics total payroll is roughly $110.5 million. Four guys on one team are making up roughly 74% of what Oakland’s payroll is. Pretty insane.