Although Chicago Cubs previously said that they would try to tie-up the players on options to long-term deals this offseason, it seems like first baseman Anthony Rizzo won’t be included in the bunch. Marc Pollack, Rizzo’s agent, recently told the media that his client isn’t engaged in negotiations about an extension with the Cubs at the moment.
Cubs exercised the 2020 option on Rizzo’s contract in November, while holding the option for 2021 as well. The 30-year-old will earn $16.5 million on the option next year.
Rizzo himself repeated numerous times that he would like to stay in Chicago for years to come, but the organization doesn’t seem eager to sort that out right away.
“The Cubs have informed us that they will not be offering Anthony an extension at this time,” said Pollack. “Anthony has let his desire to be a Cub for life known to the organization. Although we do not know what the future holds, a deal to make that happen will not be addressed now.”
On the other hand, Cubs claim that they approached Rizzo for extension talks, but that his demands were too much for them.
“I think in this case, Rizzo’s agent decided to talk about it and we did have some conceptual talks about what an extension would look like, and I think that, candidly, we were pretty far apart in terms of length, and so he decided to come out and say that,” said Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer during his appearance on NBC’s SportsTalk Live.
Anthony Rizzo was one of Chicago’s best players in recent years. Rizzo played 146 games in the past season, having a batting average of .293 while hitting 27 homers and having 94 RBIs.
