Newly-signed outfielder Dylan Carlson‘s deal with the Cubs is of the minor league variety, but it comes with a very healthy big league rate if he makes the team – $2 million, per Jon Heyman, plus another $1 million in possible incentives.
It’s not a big deal – literally or figuratively – but that structure tells us a few things, and it got me thinking about the Cubs’ bench competition (specifically the 4th outfielder gig). So I’m just gonna flow through some thoughts.
At a minimum, a hearty big league rate on a minor league deal like this tells us: (1) Carlson was heavily pursued on this kind of deal, and maybe even had an offer for a big league deal at a million or so; (2) he may have enough interest out there to be very confident in opting out of his minor league deal with the Cubs if he doesn’t make the team; and (3) the Cubs will have to feel very confident that he’s ready to bounce back if they’re going to carry him out of Spring Training, because once that big league deal kicks in, it’s guaranteed.
Of course, there’s a related thought on each of those three items: (1) maybe Carlson falls into a unique space where no one was going to guarantee him a 40-man spot, but everyone was willing to pay him a decent salary *IF* he showed in the spring that he had turned a corner (he’s only 27, after all); (2) if that big league rate with the Cubs is higher than any other team offered, it almost acts like a poison pill AGAINST Carlson opting out, since he might not get that much anywhere else; and (3) usually when a big league veteran gets a minor league deal of this type with a decent big league rate, it’s a sign that both sides tentatively expect the guy to make the team (but the club wanted roster flexibility in the meantime).
And, to all of that, I’ll remind you of what we discussed yesterday: if the Cubs wanted to keep maximum outfielder depth, the only realistic way to do it would be to add Carlson to the big league roster at the end of the spring, to add Chas McCormick to the 40-man at the end of spring and immediately option him to Iowa, and to option Kevin Alcantara to Iowa to open the season, utilizing his fourth and final option year.
It sucks for Alcantara, in particular, but if he were to get the 4th outfielder bench job, the Cubs very well might lose the other two guys. A good decision on day one, perhaps, but when the injuries inevitably come? The Cubs might hate that they thinned themselves out so much. So I very much expect them to figure out a way to keep at least one of Carlson and McCormick.
Heading into Spring Training, then, I now would say that Carlson has the inside track on winning the 4th outfielder job out of the gate, with Alcantara being optioned to Iowa to play every day, and then the Cubs separately making a decision on McCormick based on how he looks this spring (i.e. whether they want to use a 40-man roster spot on him for depth/bounce-back purposes as the season goes on). That is not to say that Alcantara nor McCormick could win the job, but instead saying only that Carlson looks like the guy on paper to win it, when you factor in the roster considerations.
He still has to perform, mind you. Although you don’t want to evaluate a guy on results in Cactus League games, the Cubs are going to want to see that Dylan Carlson looks like a guy who can still hit lefties very well (he’s a switch-hitter, but, for his career, he’s hit much better from the right-handed side), and can also cover all three outfield spots well enough if necessary. The guy is a former top prospect who is just 27, destroys Triple-A any time he’s forced to play there, has had some injury issues that might explain a little of the recent down performance, and has had past success in the big leagues. I get why you’d want to take a chance on him and also default to carrying him on the bench, all else equal. But the performance the last three seasons has been so bad (.210/.294/.314/75 wRC+, abysmal contact quality, eaten up by every pitch type) that it’s hard to have much in the way of expectations.
That is all to say that, while the contractual/roster situations may push the Cubs toward preferring Carlson on the bench, McCormick added to the 40-man and optioned, and Alcantara optioned, the expected early season performance in the big leagues is also going to be a heavy factor. You don’t simply maximize depth (at a very healthy price) if you expect that depth to perform poorly.
Which leads to a bit of an irony. If Dylan Carlson were to perform poorly in the spring or otherwise look not-yet-quite-ready to bounce back, it seems all the more likely that he wouldn’t opt out of his deal with the Cubs, and would head to Iowa as additional outfield depth. So if he looks really good? The Cubs probably keep him to maximize depth. If he looks really bad? He might want to stick around on the minor league deal and the depth is maximized anyway.
Last point on all of this: we conceive of these discussions before and during Spring Training largely in a vacuum, and the example here is “who will win the 4th outfielder job?” But reality often has a way of upending those kinds of clean discussions by the time the regular season arrives. Maybe one of the Cubs’ three starting outfielders gets hurt in the spring, and the calculus on all of this outfielder talk changes completely. Or maybe a couple non-outfielders get hurt, and the Cubs have to completely reconfigure what they want the initial bench to look like.
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