Cubs 2011 MLB roster payroll appears to be settling at $130M

What I am seeing is that the Cubs will probably continue to reduce payroll 10% per year

you cannot come to such a conclusion based on this one off season alone. most of what you write is well done, but that last part saying that this is a sign that the Cubs will do so again and again, sorry, it seems like nothing more than the typical bashing of Hendry / Ricketts as cheap blah blah blah…..

It’s January, maybe you should wait and see how McNutt performs before you decide when he should get the call. I’m not saying he should be called up at some point in 2011 for sure. But if he has a strong showing at AA/AAA, and the IF the Cubs are in contention late in the season, why not call him up in august or September if he could help the team. I sure hope the Cubs haven’t already decided when they will call up Trey McNutt. As for the rule 5 draft, you don’t have to be added to a MLB roster to avoid being picked, just on the 40 man roster.

I think you fire up all the big questions, except for the biggest one – how will the big guys produce this year? This team is built on expected success of guys like Soriano, Ramirez, Zambrano, Fukudome, and Dempster. Before the “they suck” brigade comes out, remember that while they mostly didn’t play up to their contracts, they don’t suck. Dome and Sori both were north of 800 OPS and showed signs of improvement from previous years, Z had the best ERA among SP’s, and ARAM was hurt too much again. The point is that all of these guys are still good MLB baseball players capable of good years, and for good or bad, the 2011 Cubs will go as these guys go. Perhaps they’re overpaid, but they don’t suck

On the payroll front, it’s not just being cheap, but recollecting resources after some bad contracts. If the RIckets don’t spend when they have some room to, we can call them cheap, but reducing payroll and moving from Lilly, Lee, and Gorzo to Garza, Pena, and a new prospect is a net positive.

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And if he hadn’t had the injury he wouldn’t have been as focused on improving? Huh?

The following sentence is truly a masterpiece. Six or 7 thoughts in one.

With the signing of all the arbitration players except Carlos Marmol whose bid is now at $5.65M (to the Cubs $4.1M counter), along with estimated bonuses and signings of non arbitration eligible players plus a Reed Johnson the 25-man expected roster appears to be around $130M (or a drop of 10% or about $15M, per Sun Times) and a $5M cushion from the published $135M self-imposed budget limit.

to reducing the payroll will be if the minors can produce ML ready players. I think they are on the right track with what they have. But jumping from the minor leagues to the majors and in quanity is a tough nut.

which is that large percentages of our current payroll will come off the books in the next two seasons. That coupled with our young contributors and hopeful prospects should combine to give us a lot of flexibility if we want to sign a big free agent or two the next couple of offseasons.

After dealing Napoli for Francisco, I think there’s a very good chance Toronto deals Jason Frasor to the Cubs before the season begins. Return would be someone like Grabow, to even out dollars, and a decent Cubs prospect, to even out value.

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