As written here and discussed elsewhere since early last winter, the Cubs almost surely didn’t see the first tier of the competitive balance tax as a hard cap. But when they missed out on the players at the very top of the market, it appeared as though they were indeed trying to avoid any overages. After all, what’s the point of going after value signings if you’re still going to be penalized for it? May as well pay for a little more certainty, to whatever extent that’s possible in baseball.
Yet here the Cubs are, hurtling toward mediocrity like Joe Dirt’s Boeing bomb with a top-10 payroll and about a 2% chance at making the postseason.