With rising revenue and a cheap young core, there’s no excuse for the Chicago Cubs not to have a payroll near $240 million in 2026.
Chicago Cubs fans have every right to raise an eyebrow at ownership and the current offseason spending pace.
Yes, relative to most of Major League Baseball, the Cubs are far from cheap. They consistently sit in the tier of teams willing to spend, and their payroll has regularly been high enough to compete for at least one major free agent every winter.
The Cubs almost always make a splash, even if that splash doesn't make many waves.
Kyle Tucker arrived via trade before 2025. Shota Imanaga signed ahead of 2024. Dansby Swanson and Cody Bellinger came in before 2023. Seiya Suzuki and Marcus Stroman were the marquee additions before 2022.
This is not a tortured fan base when it comes to spending. But that doesn’t mean ownership is immune from criticism.
When you look at payroll relative to revenue, the Cubs clearly cut some corners. Chicago pulled in $584 million in revenue in 2024, yet their 2025 payroll of $213 million put them among MLB’s bottom five in percentage of revenue invested back into the on-field product.
Some of that is explainable. Wrigleyville development and ballpark improvements have been massive undertakings for ownership—those projects soaked up a lot of annual revenue.
But the Cubs should never be in the same spending neighborhood as the White Sox, Pirates, or Rays. Full stop.
So what’s a realistic payroll for 2026?
Chicago’s current projected payroll for 2026 sits just above $171 million. That includes Shota Imanaga accepting the qualifying offer (just over $22 million for 2026) and early arb/pre-arb estimates.
For context, the Cubs’ adjusted payroll in 2025 was a little over $214 million. Given the team’s success and a tangible surge in attendance—Chicago drew 108,189 more fans than in 2024, a bump of more than 1,300 fans per game—there should be more spending power available.
With an average ticket price of just over $55 last season, that attendance spike alone accounts for nearly $6 million in additional revenue before you even factor in concessions, postseason gates, or increased merchandise sales.
Combine that with the team trending upward, the strong likelihood of an even higher ticket price in 2026, and the fact that the Cubs are squarely in a contention window… what better time is there to push chips in?
If ownership simply dedicates a slightly larger percentage of revenue to the roster, the Cubs could easily justify adding $25 million to payroll. That would land them around $240 million in 2026—giving the front office roughly $70 million in AAV to work with this winter.
The timing has never been better
With Imanaga on a one-year qualifier and not a long-term deal, the Cubs don’t have many veterans locked up through the late-2020s.
Ian Happ is a free agent after 2026. Seiya Suzuki and Jameson Taillon are as well. Matthew Boyd has only a mutual option for the 2027 season.
Meanwhile, the core is cheap and controlled: Pete Crow-Armstrong, Michael Busch, Cade Horton, and Justin Steele are all under club control without big free-agent salaries attached. This is the exact moment to layer in another wave of multi-year cornerstone pieces.
If Dylan Cease lands five years and $145 million ($29M AAV), and Kyle Schwarber lands four years and $128 million ($32M AAV), the Cubs could sign both and still have around $9 million left to address the bullpen while staying in that $240 million payroll range.
That’s not unrealistic. That’s not reckless. That’s exactly where expectations should be.
And whether the Cubs operate in this spending lane—or fall short of it—will tell fans everything they need to know about how serious this organization is about winning championships.