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40 players are on the MLB RESERVE LIST (roster is full) 

28 players on MLB RESERVE LIST are ACTIVE, and twelve players are on OPTIONAL ASSIGNMENT to minors. 

Last updated 3-26-2024
 
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# bats both

PITCHERS: 15
Yency Almonte
Adbert Alzolay 
Javier Assad
Jose Cuas
Kyle Hendricks
* Shota Imanaga
Caleb Kilian
Mark Leiter Jr
* Luke Little
Julian Merryweather
Hector Neris 
* Drew Smyly
* Justin Steele
Jameson Taillon
* Jordan Wicks

CATCHERS: 2
Miguel Amaya
Yan Gomes

INFIELDERS: 7
* Michael Busch 
Nico Hoerner
Nick Madrigal
* Miles Mastrobuoni
Christopher Morel
Dansby Swanson
Patrick Wisdom

OUTFIELDERS: 4
* Cody Bellinger 
Alexander Canario
# Ian Happ
Seiya Suzuki
* Mike Tauchman 

OPTIONED: 12 
Kevin Alcantara, OF 
Michael Arias, P 
Ben Brown, P 
Alexander Canario, OF 
Pete Crow-Armstrong, OF 
Brennen Davis, OF 
Porter Hodge, P 
* Matt Mervis, 1B 
Daniel Palencia, P 
Keegan Thompson, P 
Luis Vazquez, INF 
Hayden Wesneski, P 

 



 

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MLB Looking For Ways To Improve Competitive Balance

Spring training is all about hope.  It’s a new season and every team is tied for first place.  Anything can happen.  Maybe this is the year that the Cubs (or your favorite team) can win it all.

At least that’s how things are in theory.  In practice, not so much.  The truth is that when MLB opens their 2010 season, about one-third of the teams will have no realistic chance of competing for a spot in the post-season.  These teams have become little more than fodder to fill out baseball’s regular season schedule.

Part of the problem is that too many teams don’t spend enough on player payroll.  The Yankees are an easy target because they annually outspend every other team, but the real outrage is that nearly one-third of the teams in baseball spend less on player payroll and player development than they receive in revenue sharing, that according to ESPN’s Jayson Stark. 

While baseball denies this allegation, this offseason they quietly encouraged the Florida Marlins to spend a bit more on their payroll.  The Marlins routinely low payrolls have been a source of embarrassment for MLB and a source of concern for the Player’s Association. 

The Marlins have been last or next to last in payroll spending every season since 2006, and they have only spent more than $50 million once (2005) since the turn of the century.  Although MLB denies any involvement, the signing of a long-term contract with pitching phenom Josh Johnson only occurred after a great deal of controversy and bad PR over the Marlins frugal ways.

Although the Marlins maintain that they did not violate the basic agreement concerning the use of revenue sharing dollars, the team and the Player’s Association issued a joint statement following Johnson’s contract signing.  The statement indicated that the team and the Player’s Association will work together, along with the commissioner’s office, to make sure that the basic agreement is followed in the future.

Some fans disagree that there is a competitive balance problem in Major League Baseball and they point to these same Marlins as their proof.  Sure, the Marlins are traditionally low spenders, but they have won the World Series twice since 1997.

Despite the two World Series titles, it’s important to keep the Marlins success in perspective.  In 1997, the year the Marlins first won the World Series, they were a high payroll team.  That year, the team payroll was the fifth highest among all teams (Cleveland was third highest).  This was not a case of David beating Goliath so much as it was a case of David becoming Goliath.

Even so, it is true that a lower payroll team occasionally rises up to have an exceptional season.  In addition to the 2003 Marlins, the Twins are a team that have enjoyed a modicum of success.  While they haven’t done well in the playoffs, at least they have made it there a few times.  And we can’t forget about the Tampa Bay Rays who had a great regular season in 2008, and even made it to the World Series.

However, to me, these exceptions prove the rule.  Sure, lower payroll teams occasionally make it to the post-season, but it’s so infrequent that it is an exception to the rule, not the rule itself.

Over the past eight out of ten seasons, at least one team in the bottom third of payroll spending has made the playoffs.  That would seem to indicate that low payroll teams can compete and that competitive balance isn’t an issue.

However, during those same ten seasons, six out of ten times at least five teams in the top third of payroll spending made the playoffs.  In eight out of ten seasons at least four of the top spending teams made the post-season.  In the other two seasons, three of the top ten payroll spending teams made the playoffs.

So in any given year, the top ten payroll teams claim four or five of the eight playoff spots, and the remaining twenty teams are left to fight over the scraps.  Granted, there are occasional exceptions, but as a general rule, the more money a team spends, the more likely they are to make the post-season.

This is not exactly a news flash, but it has taken MLB some time to come to this conclusion.  The MLB Special Committee for On-Field Matters has discussed “floating realignment” which would allow teams to determine their division based on geography, their plans to contend, and payroll.

According to Tom Verducci of Sports illustrated, committee members are interested in pursuing ways to improve competitive balance and believe that floating realignment could be a good non-economic way of accomplishing this goal.  Others, most notably Red Sox owner John Henry, have called for a salary cap.  ESPN’s Jayson Stark has suggested a taxing system that taxes both those teams that spend too much as well as those that spend too little.

The point is, the calls for MLB to do something to improve competitive balance are increasing and getting louder.   Floating realignment may turn out to be a crazy idea and may be completely unworkable, but at least they’re talking about the need for change.  And as with so many things in life, admitting you have a problem is half the battle.

Lou Mindar writes the blog Cubs Notebook.  His book of short stories, Lake of the Falls, is due out in June.

Comments

Interesting article, Lou. A couple of things that I think you should also have taken into consideration. The first is statistics. "Statistics can be used to prove anything" is a common phrase you seen thrown around, and to some degree I think you're guilty of doing that here. "well, here is evidence that disproves the theory, but I am going to move the numbers around until it seems like the majority of the evidence favors one side." The top third, and bottom third, numbers are pretty arbitrary. It may be that if you look at it as top half and bottom half the numbers are not so nearly persuasive. I don't know that, but it's a suspicion that pops up when "bottom third" is pulled on of the air. Well, maybe three things. I'd love to see "non-Yankees-Sox" numbers for the playoffs since the latest round of expansion. I think if you take out those two teams, and to be fair to the bottom spending teams the story may look a lot more balanced. It's a sample size issue. What really hasn't been proven is that what is most important is that a team is well run. If you develop your own players, and sign them to club friendly contracts you can contend and win pennants, in any market. Just because the Royals and Pirates have been run by idiots for the last 20 years, doesn't mean that system is intrinsically flawed. It means that it has had some bad owners introduced.

[ ]

In reply to by The Real Neal

A well run team is very important. It's nice though, for teams like the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets, Angels, Dodgers..etc...is that they can throw money at their mistakes. Some of the smaller budgeted teams don't have that luxury. I mean, the Yankees are almost always in the playoffs, but they really hit free agency hard: Teixeira, Damono, A-Rod, Swisher, Matsui, Sabathia, Burnett, even the homegrown Pettitte was brought back as a free agent. The Red Sox could afford to trade for a Victor Martinez because the budget wasn't a concern. I'm just not sure why, not according to anyone here, but why it's not a good idea to have a salary cap/floor for MLB?

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In reply to by Dusty Baylor

I haven't thought through all the salary floor ramifications, but I think it would tend to make players more money and make overall payrolls rise, assuming the floor is meaningful, maybe $65 million. Guys on bad contracts, who today are treated like lepers, would tend to have some more value. If say the A's needed to grab an extra $6 million in salary to reach the floor, they would find "value" in a guy who doesn't really offer anything to the team. That potential market for bad contracts would make giving out contracts less risky, thus driving up the cost. Now if it was a hard cap so that a team like the Yankees actually have to re-distribute some of their talent, then that may balance things out. It would really depend on the caps and what the flow of players looks like under the new system.

[ ]

In reply to by The Real Neal

TRN -- Thanks for the feed back. Splitting the teams into thirds based on payroll was not as arbitrary as you might think. The reason I did that is two-fold. First, there is a rather significant difference between what the lowest spending team in the top third of payroll spends and what the top spending team in the bottom third of payroll spends. To make the point I was making, it's important for there to be a sizable difference in payroll spending between the teams. Secondly, according to Jayson Stark, the bottom third of teams based on payroll are spending less than they are receiving in revenue sharing. Since part of the point I was making is that the competitive playing field in MLB is not level due in large part to some teams not spending enough on payroll, it was important that I highlight the actual portion of the teams that are spending less on payroll (and player development) than they receive in revenue sharing. You suggested that I split the teams in half based on payroll. By doing this, the numbers are at least equally convincing. Between 2000-2009, 80 teams went to the post-season (8 per year). Of those teams, 21 of 80 had payrolls in the bottom half of all teams. In round numbers, teams in the top half of payroll spending were about three times as likely to go to the playoffs than were their counterparts in the bottom half of payroll spending. I'm not sure what you're saying about the Yankees and Red Sox. While it may change the numbers somewhat, it wouldn't provide an accurate view of how money impacts success. The Yankees and Red Sox are traditionally two of the higher spending teams. They are also two of the teams that pretty routinely make the playoffs. What are you trying to say by removing them? Finally, you are correct that well run teams will do better than poorly run teams, all things being equal. However, having a bigger payroll allows a GM to make more mistakes without it showing up in the W-L column. The GMs for teams like Cleveland and Arizona (and to a lesser extent San Diego) looked a lot smarter when their payroll was higher

[ ]

In reply to by Sweet Lou

I really mistrust anything I see about the revenue sharing. I tried to make sense of the numbers based on Boras's lunatic ramblings back in November when he was making them and... well they just didn't add up. Numbers without reliable sources are going to be pretty meaningless. It's possible that those revenue sharing numbers are likely, but it winds up meaning that MLB gets more revenue on national contracts than the NFL does - which is, well, to put it nicely isn't very likely. What I am saying about the Yankees is that they're an outlier. They've made the playoffs every year, except one for the last what, 14 years? They also out-spend their nearest competitors by 50%. Do a bar graph and look at the salaries for each team. Which team is the biggest outlier? It's not the Marlins or the Pirate, it's the Yankees. They're so far beyond that throwing them into the mix of analysis doesn't lend to a reliable conclusion. Also, good teams spend more money on players, because they have good players. The Twins and the Indians team of a couple years ago were good teams with medium payrolls, because they had good players. There's implicit cause and effect here, and none of the actual proposed solutions are going to address that. Which was the last team that had to be blown up because of payroll considerations? How often does that happen?

[ ]

In reply to by The Real Neal

Just to be clear, I used "revenue sharing" generically as a catch-all phrase for the money that is re-distributed by MLB. However, there are actually three sources (and many more sub-sources) of this money. According to Jayson Stark: • Central fund (includes national TV, radio, Internet, licensing, merchandising, marketing, MLB International money): Each team, from the Marlins to the Yankees, gets the same central-fund payout. And that check comes to slightly over $30 million per team if you deduct the $10 million in pension and operations fees, or just over $40 million if you don't. • Revenue sharing: Only income-challenged teams get a revenue-sharing check. But you should never forget that those checks are a lot larger than your average rebate check from Target. This sport shared $400 million in revenue this year -- more than the gross national product of Western Samoa. Now every club's payout is different. But the five neediest teams -- which we believe to be the Marlins, Pirates, Rays, Blue Jays and Royals -- averaged somewhere in the vicinity of $35 million in revenue-sharing handouts per team. And that still left over $200 million -- more than $20 million a club -- for the rest of the "payees" to divvy up. • Local TV/radio/cable: Good luck getting these exact figures. But we know that 29 of the 30 teams make at least $15 million a year in local broadcast money, and no team rakes in under $12 million. Obviously, some clubs collect much, much more than that. Or own their networks. Or both. And remember, this is money the teams receive before they ever sell one ticket.

Forgive me if this gets a little econ-wonky, but here's what I like for a revenue sharing plan and why: Economic theory says we should pay someone up to their marginal revenue product, and teams bid up player salaries to do just that. Marginal Revenue Product is simply, how much more does player X add to revenues, and is highly connected to how many more wins the player can generate. VORP is an (imperfect) attempt to measure this. If our goal is to get the big-market teams to pay less and the small market teams to pay more, and if we want them to do this of their own accord, then what we need to do is drive down MRP in large markets and drive up MRP in small markets. The payroll tax is effective in driving down salaries in large markets, but then MLB just takes the money and hands it lump-sum to small market teams. That's dumb. If we want to drive up small-market salaries, small-market MRP, and competitive balance, one solution would be to make teams compete for revenue-sharing dollars and award them based on on-field performance. Essentially, everyone would get revenue-sharing shares equal to their winning percentage. A team that plays .400 ball would get .4 shares, and a team that plays .600 ball would get .6 shares. High-payroll teams would contribute disproportionately into the pool, and contributions would be based on payroll, not winning percentage. Say, for instance, the luxury tax was 25% of payrolls over $80 million. That would put about $120 million into the revenue-sharing pool and tax 16 teams based on last year's numbers. A .500 team would collect $4 million in revenue, a .400 team would collect about 3.2 million, and a .600 team would collect about 4.8 million. More to the point, one win is worth about $50,000 in additional revenue-sharing money. If everybody played .500 baseball, four teams would recover their tax payment based on 2009 payrolls, and another three would be really really close. I doubt $50,000 per win would be enough to send the Pirates on a shopping spree, but it might well be enough to get them to think a little bit harder about whether they should send half their team packing at the trade deadline every July. And if you wanted to dial up the incentive a little bit, it wouldn't be that hard to have a two-tiered tax rate, say 20% on payrolls over the league median and 40% on payrolls in the top quartile or something, plus kick in a portion of the national TV contract. If you got to 240 million in the revenue sharing pool, that would make it $100,000 per additional win, or $1.5 million from improving yourself from a .450 club to a .550 club. It's not a radical redistribution, but at least it will go some distance toward trying to make the post-trading deadline league look something like the pre-trading deadline league, which is all I really hope for.

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In reply to by djchi

I like the idea but you're right in that the money is too insignificant. It would have to be applied to a larger section of the pie than just your proposed soft salary cap revenue re-distribution. If the Pirates saved $3 million by trading Freddy Sanchez (as well as get a prospect or two) they're not going to worry about losing $100K in additional losses. You'd need to get it up around $2 million/win. Which would then lead to a problem of haves and have-nots. If the Marlins throw up a .600 season, they get a bonus of $32 million, which they can re-invest in minors and pocket. But the scuffling pirates continue to scuffle because now a smaller market team like Florida makes 40% more revenue. Radical redistribution like that is going require a salary cap for the owners and a salary floor for the players.

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In reply to by The Real Neal

Remember though that this isn't the whole MRP of the player--the team gets some return from the player's contribution already. Losing Freddy Sanchez costs twice--once in fan attendance/TV contracts/merchandising/etc, and once on the part that I want to add. My part is a premium on the first part. Is it big enough to be meaningful? I'm not sure. The folks at fangraphs say that the market value of a win is $4.5 million currently, with .300 as the replacement-level winning percentage. With the revenue-sharing part of MRP at $100,000 per win, that's about a 2% premium. I don't know what the right amount is. From the perspective of owners and players, the right amount is whatever it takes to balance the fact that MLB makes more money when the Yankees win than it does when the Royals win, with the fact that MLB makes more money when competitive balance is high. These two things are in some sense exclusive.

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In reply to by The Real Neal

TRN -- I’m sorry, but I still don’t think I understand your point. If you are saying that the Yankees have drafted better players or they are better at developing players, I can accept that. If you are saying that the Yankees pay more for their drafted players, I can accept that also. However, big league teams are not made up of just drafted players. Making trades and signing free agents play a huge part in roster construction. So I’m not sure that what you said has any practical application in the real world. It’s not unusual for a low revenue team (usually picking early in the draft) to pass on a top prospect due to signability issues. If they do pass and choose a lesser quality prospect, the top prospect is then made available to a high revenue team that can afford them. The current draft system favors the wealthy and just perpetuates the problem (although that is an issue unto itself).

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In reply to by Sweet Lou

Because in the real world you get to paid for peformance. What is the solution, to make every team spend $90 million a year like the Astros are this year? The Astros are WS contenders because they have a bunch of shitty contracts? The teams with the lowest payrolls, with the notable exception of the Marlins are full of shitty players. That's why they have the lowest payrolls. When the Pirates are full of good players, their fans will come and they will have a higher salary. See Brewers, Milwaukee or Astros, Houston for examples of this. Spending an extra $20 million the roster doesn't make sense for these teams, they're finally realizing that getting from 72 to 78 wins doesn't provide $20 million in increased profits, so they don't do it. Unless they're in a position to get into at least nominal playoff contention, maybe 85 wins, there's no point in spending money on Freddy Sanchez and Jason Bay.

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In reply to by The Joe

I talked to Rob last night. He said that he has authorized an upgrade of the server, but that probably won't happen until tomorrow at the earliest. I was going to post this last night, but I couldn't get the site to work. Frustrating...

The so-called problems with competitive balance are very recent and tied directly to the willingness of teams like the Yankees and Red Sox to spend massive amounts on free agents and basically create all-star teams. It's uncharted territory and probably just a phase that baseball is going through because prior to free agency the opposite was true and the World Series was dominated by small market teams. From 1971-75 the Pirates, Reds (the Reds also won in the first season of free agency as well) and A's (3 times) won the World Series. All three of these teams are perennially ranked in the bottom third of MLB in franchise valuations. Here's Forbes' bottom 10 for 2009 and the number of World Series they've won since free agency began in 1976: 21. Tigers (1) 22. Twins (2) 23. Jays (2) 24. Brewers 25. Reds (2) 26. Rays 27. A's (1) 28. Royals (1) 29. Pirates (1) 30. Marlins (2) So, these 10 lowest value franchises have won 12 out of the last 32 World Series. They've actually outperformed the more valuable larger market teams. Of this group, here are the teams with payrolls in the bottom 10 and the number of World Series they've won since 1976 when free agency began: Reds (2) Pirates (1) A's (1) Marlins (2) Twins (2) Rays That's 8 out of 32, so these teams which represent 20% of MLB have won 25% of the World Series titles in the era of free agency. So I take exception when you say,
"However, to me, these exceptions prove the rule. Sure, lower payroll teams occasionally make it to the post-season, but it’s so infrequent that it is an exception to the rule, not the rule itself."

The only competitive balance problem is that people think there's a problem with competitive balance. Salary caps and floors would make trades much more about payroll than performance--not the direction baseball should go. Moreover, NFL and NBA players get a higher percentage of total league revenue because of their salary cap agreements. No way MLB owners want that. Besides, teams that are well run and wisely invest in talent should win a disproportionate number of games. Even so, low payroll teams have tremendous opportunity in baseball to get 6 years of relatively cheap, and often peak, performance from home-grown players. Baseball also gets most of its revenue locally, instead of NFL's tv money. So the real way to provide "competitive balance" (which really means "Yankees win less") is to put another team in New York. Maybe two.

I got my Mariner-Cub tickets ordered for all three games. I expect massive drinking with friends on Tuesday, slightly less drinking with my parents on Wednesday then a huge drop off for the Wednesday day-game with an eldery Thai woman. Good times. Anyone else going to Seattle interleague games? My pants are tight!

Cubs win today 4-1 Silva went 4 IP, 2 H, 0 BB, 2 Ks Caridad, Stevens, Mateo, and Russell combined for 5 IP, 1 H, 1 R, 9 Ks Theriot was 2-3 with a run, Fukudome and Byrd were 1-3, Nady was 2-4 with two doubles and 2 RBI, Baker was 1-1 with solo HR, Soriano 1-3, and Colvin had another hit in his only at-bat

Recent comments

  • crunch (view)

    bruce bochy is hobbling rather badly for a guy who's had 2 hip replacements.  his gait is extremely wonky taking the lineup card to the ump.

  • crunch (view)

    yeah, for me this isn't about who's better at 3rd.  it's madrigal, period.  for me it's about who's not hitting in the lineup because madrigal is in the lineup.

    occasional play at 3rd for madrigal, okay.  going with the steele/ground-ball matchup...meh, but okay, whatever.

    seeing madrigal get significant starting time...no thanks.

  • Dolorous Jon Lester (view)

    Yeah I am very disappointed Madrigal is starting. He has no business as a starter. He is AAA insurance, a back up at best. Sure his defense looks fine because he plays far enough in that his noodle arm isn’t totally exposed. It comes at the cost of 3B range.

    He’s garbage, and a team serious about winning would NOT have him starting opening day.

  • crunch (view)

    in other news, it took 3 PA before a.rizzo got his 1st HBP of the season.

  • Eric S (view)

    With two home runs (so far) and 5 rbi today … clearly Nick Martini is the straw that stirs the Reds drink 😳

  • crunch (view)

    madrigal at 3rd...morel at DH.

    making room for madrigal or/and masterboney to get a significant amount of ABs is a misuse of the roster.  if it needed to get taken care of this offseason, they had tons of time to figure that out.

    morel played almost exclusively at 3rd in winter ball and they had him almost exclusively there all spring when he wasn't DH'ing.

    madrigal doing a good job with the glove for a bit over 2 chances per game...is that worth more than what he brings with the bat 4-5 PA a game?  it's 2024 and we got glenn beckert 2.0 manning 3rd base.

    this is a tauchman or cooper DH situation based on bat, alone.  cooper is 3/7 with a double off eovaldi if you want to play the most successful matchup.

    anyway, i hope this is a temporary thing, not business as usual for the rest of the season.  it will be telling if morel is not used at 3rd when an extreme fly ball pitcher like imanaga is on the mound.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    There are two clear "logjams" in the Cubs minor league pipeline at the present time, namely AA outfielders (K. Alcantara, C. Franklin, Roederer, Pagan, Pinango, Beesley, and Nwogu) and Hi-A infielders (J. Rojas, P. Ramirez, Howard, R. Morel, Pertuz, R. Garcia, and Spence, although Morel has been getting a lot of reps in the outfield in addition to infield). So it is possible that you might see a trade involving one of the extra outfielders at AA and/or one of the extra infielders at Hi-A in the next few days. 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    18-year old SS Jefferson Rojas almost made the AA Tennessee Opening Day roster, and he is a legit shortstop, so I would expect him to be an MLB Top 100 prospect by mid-season. 

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    Among the relievers in the system, I expect RHRP Hunter Bigge at AAA Iowa and RHRP Ty Johnson at South Bend to have breakout seasons on 2024, and among the starters I see LHP Drew Gray and RHP Will Sanders at South Bend and RHP Naz Mule at ACL Cubs as the guys who will make the biggest splash. Also, Jaxon Wiggins is throwing bullpen sides, so once he is ready for game action he could be making an impact at Myrtle Beach by June.

  • Arizona Phil (view)

    I expect OF Christian Franklin to have a breakout season at AA Tennessee in 2024. In another organization that doesn't have PCA, Caissie, K. Alcantara, and Canario in their system, C. Franklin would be a Top 10 prospect.