Even before the Carlos Correa news broke late Tuesday night, the internal tensions between the business and baseball sides of the Chicago Cubs organization had spilled into the open. With astronomical contracts resetting the market for top free agents, Cubs president of baseball operations Crane Kenney deflected the external pressure to do something onto Jed Hoyer, the No. 1 baseball executive at Wrigley Field. Hoyer believes publicly discussing payroll parameters puts the Cubs at a competitive disadvantage. Kenney, however, recently appeared on the team’s flagship radio station and again revealed that Hoyer’s group still has leftover money from last season’s budget.
“The business is still healthy and that left Jed with a lot of money to spend this year,” Kenney told 670 The Score. “Like last year, where he didn’t spend all the money he had. Last year, he just didn’t see transactions that made sense to him. I hope there are transactions that make sense to us this year to spend all the money he has.”
You can cross Correa’s name off that wish list after the All-Star shortstop reached an agreement with the Giants on a 13-year, $350 million contract, making it two consecutive offseasons that the Cubs whiffed on the generational talent who once drew comparisons to Alex Rodriguez during a dazzling pre-draft workout at Wrigley Field.
One by one, free agents the Cubs targeted are signing with other teams, narrowing the potential paths for an 88-loss club to make substantial improvements and reach the playoffs next season. If the baseball operations group has so much money to spend that the president of business operations is talking about it on the radio, why did the Cubs pass on Christian Vázquez and Kodai Senga? Vázquez, a potential replacement for All-Star catcher Willson Contreras, received a three-year, $30 million commitment from the small-market Twins. Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander weren’t enough for Steve Cohen’s rotation, so the Mets landed Senga with a five-year, $75 million contract, betting on the Japanese pitcher’s potential.
The rampant frustrations on Cubs Twitter made this a good time to run a multi-part mailbag/airing of grievances. Questions have been lightly edited for length and clarity.
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