Chicago Cubs: Did Alex Cobb miscalculate in January?

HOUSTON, TX - JULY 31: Alex Cobb #53 of the Tampa Bay Rays pitches in the first inning against the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park on July 31, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)
HOUSTON, TX - JULY 31: Alex Cobb #53 of the Tampa Bay Rays pitches in the first inning against the Houston Astros at Minute Maid Park on July 31, 2017 in Houston, Texas. (Photo by Bob Levey/Getty Images)

Did MLB free agent Alex Cobb miscalculate his January approach, refusing an offer from the Chicago Cubs?

MLB free agent Alex Cobb must feel like that guy in front of you in the convenience store. You know him well. Every day he has a list of specific lottery numbers to have the clerk process, and he never wins. Six weeks ago now, roughly, the Chicago Cubs reportedly offered Cobb $42 million for three years of his mound work. He refused that. Surely, he must have calculated, someone would make him a better offer before spring training camps opened.

In actuality, we all have little idea where Cobb is in his negotiations with any club. Perhaps he and his agents, the Beverly Hills Sports Council, are still working on reuniting Cobb with his first manager, Joe Maddon, with the Cubs. Six weeks is a lot of talk, however. Other teams? For what it’s worth, Yankees manager Aaron Boone says New York isn’t interested. So that would seem to say two of the wealthier teams, both likely to compete for the postseason, are now out of the discussion.

Salaries of the higher level free agent starters last year indicated the minimum yearly salary for those pitchers would be around $11 million in 2018, so the reported Cubs offer of $14 million a year would seem reasonable in most people’s eyes. In the esteemed view of MLBTradeRumors.com, the folks who reported the Yankees’ latest view, Cobb was worth $12 million a year “at the outset of the off-season.”

Now here’s the thing about all this: Cobb does have something to offer to a lot of teams. The Phillies would seem a sensible destination for the 30-year-old, for example. So would any other team need a number two or three starter, with a little money to spend and some distance from the luxury tax threshold (the Yankees’ apparent problem)? He could be a fit for many teams for a couple of reasons.

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First, Cobb is well past a Tommy John procedure in May 2015. He is healed. He has pitched since then, posting a pretty bad batch of stats in an abbreviated 2016 campaign comprising only five games, but a pretty good bunch in 2016 (12-10, 3.66 ERA, 179.1 IP). Sometimes players undergoing this procedure are stronger than ever a couple of years out of it.

Second, Cobb has seemingly tested that strength in moving to a greater reliance on his curveball recently. While baseball swoons over “launch angles,” expect more and more pitchers to work on their curves. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that launching may not work that well against a good curve.

In the second half of 2017, Cobb’s strikeout percentage moved up to 20 percent from 15.8 in the first half as he relied more and more on his curve. Yes, there was a spike in home runs allowed, but questions are begging. Why won’t someone offer this guy $12 or 13 million for four years? Is he poorly served by his agents?

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Alex Cobb is closing in on being unemployed for a couple of months, which means he could lose $5-6 million. Is this a matter of his stubbornness? Should his agents be renamed the Beverly Hillbillies Sports Council?

Cobb will probably be signed soon, but maybe he should have taken that offer from the Chicago Cubs.