If you’re a transaction nerd, it always makes you happy to see them: the annual MLB Trade Rumors arbitration projections.
Although not official or perfect, the MLBTR projections for arbitration-level players are frequently quite strong, and among the best ways to roughly gauge how much an arbitration-eligible player may ultimately make in 2026. It’s kind of the ballpark range you use when thinking ahead about possible future budgetary decisions the Cubs may or may not make.
First a quick arbitration primer, for those unfamiliar, since nothing that follows will make sense without it …
Arbitration-Eligible Players and Salary Arbitration
For players who have at least three years of big league service time (plus the top 22% of players (in terms of service time) with fewer than three years, but more than two years (“Super Two” players who get four arbitration years instead of three)), but who haven’t yet accumulated the six years necessary for free agency, it’s time to get yourself a raise in arbitration. You are under “team control” for the following season – the team decides if they want to keep you or let you go – but your salary isn’t set yet, and you also aren’t subject to the unilateral salary selection of your team (like in the first few years of your service time).
So, if the team decides to keep you for the year ahead (“tendering” a contract by the late-November deadline to make that decision), that’s where the arbitration process comes in.
These players have the right to submit a request for a salary (one number), to be countered by the team for a salary (one number), and then duke it out in an arbitration hearing over which number is better.
Typically, though, arbitration-eligible players and their teams negotiate and agree on a contract before all that fighting happens in late January and February. Indeed, most if not all clubs (including the Cubs) are now “file and trial”: either you come together to agree on a contract for the season ahead, or file your numbers (mid-January) and later head to arbitration. That has had the effect of greatly diminishing the number of arbitration hearings.
The 2026 Cubs Arbitration-Eligible Players and Projected Salaries
Here are the four(!) arbitration-eligible Cubs for this offseason, what they’re projected by MLBTR to earn in 2026 if they’re ultimately tendered a contract by the Cubs, where they are in their arbitration years, and what they made this past year:
Justin Steele – $6.55M (Arb year 3 of 4; was $6.55M in 2023)
Reese McGuire – $1.9M (Arb year 3 of 3; was $1.5M in 2025)
Javier Assad – $1.9M (Arb year 1 of 3; was $793K in 2025)
Eli Morgan – $1.1M (Arb year 2 of 3; was $950K in 2025)
Tender and Non-Tender Decisions
With only four arbitration-eligible players this offseason, the decisions for the Cubs are no overly complex. Justin Steele (expected back early in the season) and Javier Assad are no-brainers to such an extent that they bear no discussion at all.
Reese McGuire was a great find for the Cubs on a minor league deal, but they won’t be tendering him a contract in arbitration. Maybe he returns on another minor league deal to once again be the top depth catcher at Iowa, but that’s probably about the only way he sticks in the organization.
Eli Morgan is, perhaps, the only close call in the group, given the arm injuries that sunk his season. But, since he’s likely to have an additional option year in 2026, and since the price tag is so modest, I have to believe he’s going to be tendered.
As always, there will be some additional non-tendered Cubs players this year, even if they aren’t yet in their arbitration years. That’s because there are some many-layers-deep roster rules that can make it advantageous to non-tender a pre-arbitration 40-man player just before the tender deadline, as opposed to simply releasing them at the end of the season. We’ll get to that in November, though, as it’s unrelated to the salary projections for arbitration-eligible players.
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