Its Friday, so insane brain thoughts on the 2022 Cubs.
Locked in for 2022:
JHey - $24 million
Hendricks - $14 million
Bote $2.5 million
Arb Eligible:
Willson - $12 million (est)
Happ - $6 million (est)
Pre-Arb:
Alzolay
Hoerner
Mills
Wisdom
Maples
Wick
Wieck
Kohl Stewart
Ortega
Alcantara
Steele
Thompson
So, this team would have:
3 SPs (Hendo, Alzolay, Mills)
3 pure relievers (Wick, Wieck, Maples)
3 swing SP/RP (Stewart, Steele, Thompson)
C - Willy
1B - ??
2B - Bote, Hoerner, Alcantara
SS - Hoerner, Alcantara
3B - Wisdom, Bote, Alcantara
OF - Happ, Heyward, Ortega
From the minors, can assume Hermosillo will get a shot at an OF spot based on his play, no one else screams like they need a spot in the bigs right now.
So, Cubs would need 2 SPs, probably higher level SPs too, 2-3 RPs, not necessarily high end, a backup C (ugh), a starting 1B and then 1 IF and 1 OF depth. With likely $80 million in payroll to the existing team, that leaves a looooot of room to actually compete next year, if they want. Not happening thought says - resign Rizzo, sign Castellanos when he opts out - likely $40 mil combined, go after a couple of high dollar, low year SPs (Charlie Morton, Alex Cobb) likely cost $25-$30 million to get them on 1 year deals. That fills out the holes on the team and still leaves $10 million below the 2021 team salary to get a real closer (Rosenthal, Hand, Iglesias).
I mean, this locks in Riz and Nick, the rest would be short term solutions - and with full capacity Wrigley, $150 million payroll should be a minimum. And they still could technically splurge for a big time MIF and still barely be in the top 10 payrolls.