Chicago Cubs fans, and really baseball fans around the league, were devastated over the weekend in the wake of some moves for the defending World Series champions.
After getting the weekend started by securing a signature from Japanese sensation Roki Sasaki, the Los Angeles Dodgers then brought in the top reliever on the market by signing Tanner Scott to a massive four-year deal worth $72 million.
The move from the world champs was particularly devastating to the Cubs as a team who was looking to add to the bullpen and was very much in on Scott from the start.
According to MLB Network insider Jon Morosi, Chicago had put forth an offer worth $66 million over four years, an AAV of only $1.5 million less than the deal he signed with the Dodgers.
Choosing Los Angeles over the Cubs with contracts so close in value could indicate that Scott simply wanted to play for the Dodgers, but subsequent reporting is enough to make the fan base absolutely irate.
In the wake Morosi's report, Pat Ragazzo of Sports Illustrated said, according to sources, Los Angeles had a four-year deal on the table to Scott for weeks and Chicago - who was actually Scott's top choice - was unwilling to go to four years until the very last second when they went from three to four years.
If Ragazzo is correct and the Cubs truly did wait until the last second to up the offer even being Scott's top choice, it can be questioned just how serious they were as compared to the Dodgers in the pursuit of the All-Star lefty.
On the other hand, if the report of a $66 million offer from Morosi is accurate, it's hard to blame Jed Hoyer for not being willing to offer more than that.
Scott would have been the new centerpiece of Chicago's bullpen and had a strong argument going into free agency that he was not just the best reliever available, but maybe even the best in all of baseball.
With a 1.75 ERA this past season both for the Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres, it was the best campaign of Scott's eight-year career thus far and there's reason to believe the there's more still to come for the 30-year-old.
Seeing him land with Los Angeles only widens the gap between a Cubs team, which has finished with back-to-back 83-win seasons, and the class of the National League they have to chase down if they're going to get back over the hump and become a true championship contender once again.
Signing Scott would have been a major step towards making that happen, but Chicago will now have to look elsewhere if they want to make meaningful bullpen upgrades.
