CHICAGO – After missing more than one-third of this MLB season while waiting for the right offer, Craig Kimbrel found a home with the Chicago Cubs.
“Am I disappointed at where I am? No, not at all. I’m very happy where I am,” Kimbrel said Friday after the Cubs finalized a three-year contract that guarantees the closer $43 million.
Kimbrel helped the Boston Red Sox win the World Series last fall, then turned down a $17.9 million qualifying offer from the team and waited.
And waited.
“I don’t think waiting around trying to find out who I’m going work for the next year has really been the hardest thing I’ve been through,” he said. “If anything, there’s blessings as well. Good to be home, spend time with family.”
Spring training came and went. And still the 31-year-old right-hander did not get an offer he liked.
“We kind of understood kind of how the lay of the land was going throughout the offseason – the offers we were getting, the offers we were not getting,” Kimbrel said. “I obviously had a lot of players reaching out, asking, ‘Hey what’s going on?’ I kind of had to stay in my shell a little bit and let this thing ride out.”
Signing Kimbrel before this week’s amateur draft started would have cost his new team at least one amateur draft pick and possibly international signing bonus allocation.
Kimbrel gets $10 million this year – a prorated share of his $16,173,913 listed salary – and $16 million each of the next two seasons.
Chicago has a $16 million option for 2022 with a $1 million buyout, and the buyout price would increase by $1 million each for 53 or more games finished in 2020 and 2021. The option would become guaranteed if he has at least 110 games OVERSET FOLLOWS:finished in 2021-22 combined, including a minimum 55 in 2021, and he does not have a non-temporary injury.
He has a full no-trade provision this year and a limited no-trade provision for 2020 – by this Oct. 31, he must designate eight teams he can’t be dealt to without his consent.
Kimbrel was optioned to Triple-A Iowa and will report to the Cubs’ training facility in Mesa, Arizona.
“We’re not going to rush it,” Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein said. “It’s going to be tempting to get him here as soon as possible, but we’re trying to plan this thing the right way so that he can be in a position to succeed not just immediately but all the way through October.”
Kimbrel was 5-1 with a 2.74 ERA and 42 saves last year, although he struggled in the playoffs, compiling a 5.91 ERA in 10 2/3 innings. He has 333 saves and a 1.91 ERA over nine MLB seasons with the Atlanta Braves, the San Diego Padres and the Red Sox, averaging 14.7 strikeouts per nine innings.
The Cubs’ bullpen has 11 blown saves this year, yet the team began Friday leading the NL Central standings.
“It gives you that playoff vibe a little earlier,” Cubs manager Joe Maddon said of the addition of Kimbrel. “When it comes to players in the clubhouse, when they feel that support from upstairs, it really matters a lot to them.”