Cubs Reach Agreements with All Arb-Eligible Players

In addition to their $4 million agreement with Justin Steele, the Cubs have avoided arbitration with their five remaining eligible players. Patrick Wisdom previously agreed to a $2.725 million salary for the 2024 season, so the Cubs won’t be headed to the table with anyone prior to camp. Jed Hoyer has rarely experienced an arbitration hearing as either GM or president, so this is par for the course.

These agreements came in a little more than $800,000 below initial estimates, which doesn’t really move the needle one way or the other. Looks like MLB Trade Rumors was pretty close, as you can see from the parenthetical values.

Adbert Alzolay: $2.11 million ($2.5M)
Mark Leiter Jr.: $1.5 million ($1.6M)
Nick Madrigal: $1.81 million ($1.9M)
Julian Merryweather: $1.175 million ($1.3M)
Mike Tauchman: $1.95 million ($2M)

The activity has picked up for the Cubs lately, though most of that is based on necessity. The deadline for these settlements was Thursday afternoon at 1pm EST and Shota Imanaga‘s posting window would have closed four hours later. But between these moves and picking up two rostered players on the cheap in a trade with the Dodgers, Hoyer now needs to add a big name or two to really round things out.