{"id":397785,"date":"2026-01-09T19:32:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/397785\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T19:32:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T19:32:12","slug":"sb-nation-reacts-survey-how-much-will-the-cubs-spend-on-a-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/397785\/","title":{"rendered":"SB Nation Reacts survey: How much will the Cubs spend on a free agent?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions of the most plugged-in Cubs fans and fans across the country.\u00a0Sign up here<\/a>\u00a0to participate in the weekly emailed surveys.<\/p>\n

Now that the Cubs have signed a cost-controlled starting pitcher in Edward Cabrera, who will make just $4.45 million this year<\/a>, there would seem to be payroll room to sign one of the top free agent hitters<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, in the SB Nation Reacts survey, I asked how much you think the Cubs would spend<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Interestingly. half of all respondents to the survey said, essentially, \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Meaning, of course, that Tom Ricketts and Jed Hoyer will hold back the approximately $35 million they have left to spend under the first 2026 luxury tax level of $244 million. In fact, since the Cubs didn\u2019t go into the luxury tax in 2025, any penalties are reset. That would mean that if they went over by (say) $5 million or so, the penalties would be minor.<\/p>\n

Thus if they did sign one of the \u201cbig four\u201d hitting free agents still available (Cody Bellinger, Bo Bichette, Alex Bregman or Kyle Tucker), perhaps a contract could be back-loaded or have deferred money, since the Cubs have quite a bit of money coming off the salary books after 2026.<\/p>\n

Advertisement<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still a mystery to me why the Cubs don\u2019t want to defer money, as all the cool teams are doing that now.<\/p>\n

In any case, those \u201cbig four\u201d hitters are still free agents as of this writing. Thus, Tom and Jed\u2026 go get one of them.<\/p>\n

Thanks to all who voted in this SB Nation Reacts survey. This edition of SB Nation Reacts is\u00a0sponsored by FanDuel<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to SB Nation Reacts, a survey of fans across the MLB. Throughout the year we ask questions…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[33557,382,4711,9894,42327,125645,17879,10006,363,192217,99,40434,160044],"class_list":["post-397785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alex-bregman","tag-bo-bichette","tag-cody-bellinger","tag-cubs","tag-edward-cabrera","tag-free-agents","tag-jed-hoyer","tag-kyle-tucker","tag-mlb","tag-sb-nation-reacts","tag-sports","tag-the-cubs","tag-tom-ricketts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}