The Chicago Cubs have shifted gears into the offseason.
They'd of course like to still be playing, but a futile hitting effort in the NL Wild Card Series at the San Diego Padres ended that hope.
Instead, the Cubbies have to start considering what the roster will look like for next season.
The expectation is that it'll be different. The likes of Ian Happ, Seiya Suzuki, Kevin Gausman and Matthew Boyd are all bound for free agency, and they aren't guaranteed to return.
One guy who will be back is Michael Busch, the slugging first baseman.
He's one of a dozen Cubs who are due for the salary arbitration process this offseason, which allows for some projections on what a player might earn.
And if values come in as they potentially could, Busch could work out to be a bargain.
MLB Trade Rumors writer Matt Swartz has projected values for all the Cubs' arbitration eligible players.
The MLBTR projection for Busch's salary for the 2027 season comes in at $5.4 million.
At first glance, that feels like quite the good value for the Cubs.
That, in a lot of ways, is how the system is designed.
Each player that reaches the major leagues via the minor leagues has six years of club control once they reach the majors.
The first three years have a salary based on the collective bargaining agreement, and they're considered the pre-arbitration years.
Years four through six of a player's time with a team are the arbitration years. In each of those offseasons, a player is eligible to go to salary arbitration to determine what he's paid the following season.
The arbitration process features the team submitting a value and the player submitting one, and the independent arbitrator comes to a conclusion on which one wins out.
Teams and players in recent years often negotiate in advance to avoid actually going to what can be a contentious hearing, but the value they come out with will still end up close to what it would've been in arbitration.
All that said, it matters which year a player is in for the sequence — and this is only Busch's first arbitration year. Generally, the first arbitration year comes with the lowest salaries, and they rise in each of the two subsequent years, even if the player is viewed as having exactly the same value each season.
That means that Busch wasn't going to end up with a huge value no matter what he did this season.
The best he can do is get a solid salary this offseason and try to keep building for years ahead — unless the Cubs want to sign him to a contract extension that buys out some of his free agent years and gets him a better payday now.
The Cubs have 12 players eligible for salary arbitration this offseason, including Busch.
The full dozen: Justin Steele, Edward Cabrera, Braxton Garrett, Javier Assad, Tyler Austin, Miguel Amaya, Gabriel Arias, Ryan Rolison, Ethan Roberts, Michael Busch, Ben Brown, Daniel Palencia.
The Cubs don't have to keep all those players. They can opt to non-tender someone (not offer him a contract), and that sends them instead straight to free agency.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
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