Unfortunately not much, at least so far as the Cubs are concerned. I expect this is mainly owing to the market for the top of the line starters and relievers being slow to develop. That's mainly due, I think to the exaggerated demands being discussed for their services.
Darvish and Arrieta are generally supposed to be the pick of this group, with Cobb and Lynn heading the second tier. I'd like to see the Cubs pursue Darvish and pass on Arrieta. The truth is, nobody should be signing pitchers of this caliber to six year deals, especially for the kind of money they are seeking, which is in the neighborhood of $25MM annually.
At the beginning of the free agent season, Cobb was thought to be a great buy at around $50MM for four years. Turns out he is looking for five years and something like $80MM. Lynn seems to be the only one of these four who has not priced himself out of the market. It looks as if he will be the last to go after the first three settle.
Relief pitchers, an even more risky commodity, are looking for similarly inflated deals, at least the top of the market guys like Davis and Holland. Davis has signed with the Rockies for $52MM over three years, which is around $17MM annually. That's kind of absurd on the face of it. Davis was excellent last year for the Cubs, but if you look at his peripherals and his performance down the stretch, there are abundant red flags. Kind of glad the team passed on him. Holland is looking for similar money. Given his injury history and the fact his performance slacked off quite a bit toward the end of the year, he represents a considerable risk.
I rather think the Cubs have done well thus far in this market. There are still quite good relief pitchers out there, Reed and Watson among them. To my mind, Watson is a good fit for the Cubs. Should they obtain him, they might just settle on Montgomery as the fifth starter and go from there.
If you look at the big splash free agent signing in the Epstein era, they haven't exactly set the world on fire. The Cubs paid Earnest Jackson good money to be a complete flop. They signed Ben Zobrist to a four year deal, admittedly not a blockbuster, but so far they have got one good year, one terrible year, and two years of probably declining skills as this veteran player ages.
The Cubs gained instant respectability by signing Lester in 2015, but, in all honesty, he was a bit of a dud in his first season, coming on at the end, then had a super 2016 before a mediocre 2017. The team is on the hook for three more years at least for over $20MM a year.
The other big ticket player was Heyward, who is on the books for big bucks till God knows when. He might turn things around, but don't bet on it. If he does, he'll probably opt out the next year.
I'm not especially faulting Epstein and Hoyer here. The truth is there are more albatross contracts on the high end in MLB than bargains.
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