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Monday, former Cub Nicholas Castellanos signed with the Reds.
Now, he’ll be joined by one of his former Cubs teammates:
BREAKING: Pedro Strop has reached an agreement for a year and US$ $1,825,00 with the Cincinatti Reds. Strop could earn around 1.5US$ Milions on performance bonuses.@z101digital @ZDeportes
— Héctor Gómez (@hgomez27) January 30, 2020
Well, I dunno. Given the money the Cubs have spent on Jharel Cotton, Dan Winkler and Jeremy Jeffress, they probably could have afforded to bring Pedro Strop back for another year, even with incentives as noted in the tweet above.
Strop is one of the best relievers in Cubs history, even with his rough 2019 season. In seven Cubs seasons (2013-19) he posted a 2.90 ERA and 1.048 WHIP and had a 10.3 strikeouts/nine innings ratio. He posted 29 saves and 7.4 bWAR over those seven (really, six and a half) seasons.
Pedro came to the Cubs from the Orioles July 2, 2013 for Scott Feldman and Steve Clevenger. Even if that had been all the Cubs got in that trade it would have been a huge win for the Cubs. Of course, they also received Jake Arrieta in that deal, which makes it one of the best trades in Cubs history.
I wish Pedro well... except when he’s pitching against the Cubs. As a division rival now, we’ll likely see him fairly often in 2020. And I hope when he’s done playing, the Cubs bring him back into the organization as a coach.