Last night, the Cubs gave the infielder an option Nico Horner, Report to ESPN’s Jeff Passon and Jesse Rogers (Twitter link). It sets the stage for non-roster invitees Eric Sogard To create an early roster of the season, add Passan and Rogers. Before the opening day, Sogard’s contract will need to be formally selected on a 40-man roster.
Passan and Rogers suggest Cubs ’decision not to break camp with Horner is irritated by the desire to gain extra control over the 23-year-old team. Horner has 1,021 days of MLB service time, so the cub will need to keep him in the juvenile for 36 days to reach its full two-year service in 2021. Horner is currently in control during 2025, so demotion could keep him in Chicago. Until the 2026 season.
If giving Horner a choice is really motivated by service time concerns, that’s a bit of a weird decision. The Cubs are coming a year after they won National League Central and are part of a four-team group with a reasonable chance to claim the division in 2021. Accepting Horner’s contract rights for 2026, accepting a suboptimal second base situation for more than a month this season, would not seem a fair trade.
Sogard- From a field-turning point of view, Cubs is a case in point.David Bote Platoon on Keystone above Horner. While Horner flew to Major after being selected in the first round of the 2018 draft, he hasn’t been productive there yet. During the introduction of the 208 MLB plate, the Stanford product has only reached .247 / .309 / .333. He didn’t run a single home run on 126 plates last year, including a punchless snail.259.
Of course, Sogard is coming out of a disappointing season of his own, hitting .209 / .281 / .278 with just one homer in a 128-plate presentation with the Brewers. Sogard was pretty good in 2019, but he hadn’t approached the .457 snail percentage or 13 homers that year before, so it doesn’t look like he’ll be able to sustain that level of production. Both Horner and Sogard have had a good impact in spring training.
