Craig Counsell's biggest offseason splash has already taken bleak turn for Cubs

When Craig Counsell left the Milwaukee Brewers to manage the Cubs, it was understandably viewed as a betrayal. Any manager jumping ship in search of a payday feels bad, but this was a unique painful situation as Counsell left a good Brewers team for a hated division rival because they were dangling a wad of money in front of his face. It is safe to say that Brewers fans have relished all of his failures in the time since the move.

Counsell leaving Milwaukee has since had some trickle down effects. Not only did it make the Brewers-Cubs rivalry even more heated, but Counsell has repeatedly attempted (and at times succeeded) to pillage the Brewers coaching staff. In short, there is little in the way of affection from Milwaukee fans left for Counsell these days.

Those celebrations of Counsell's Cubs seem like they have a chance to continue in the aftermath of the arbitration filing deadline. With the word that Kyle Tucker is headed to an arbitration hearing against Chicago with a $2.5 million gap, the start of the tenure of the Cubs' biggest offseason acquisition is off to a rocky start.

Brewers have to loving how Kyle Tucker's tenure with Cubs is going so far

Objectively, a player and a team going to an arbitration hearing isn't that strange or necessarily bad. Sometimes there is just a gap in talks and instead of banging heads against the wall, having a third party decide and being fine with the result either way can be an adult way to go about things.

That said, the gap between the Cubs' biggest prize this offseason and the club is pretty significant. While we don't know exactly what the two sides were asking for before the filing deadline, we know for certain that the Cubs are filing at $15 million while Tucker has filed at $17.5 million and, in all likelihood, one of those two numbers will be what Tucker is paid next season.

Not only does this create uncertainty as to how much payroll the Cubs have to play with the rest of the offseason which is just terrific, but it makes all the more likely that Chicago will struggle to get an extension done with Tucker. If the two sides are not on the same page now when it is just one year of arbitration control to sort out, coming to an agreement on a six or seven year deal seems pretty tough.

For the Brewers, there is some consolation to take from all of this. Unfortunately, Tucker is likely to be pretty awesome in 2025 as he is a really good player and he makes the Cubs better on paper. However, that they are already having to deal with drama with him (probably of their own making) and may not be able to keep him could work to Milwaukee's advantage especially given what the Cubs gave up to trade for him. One wonders if Counsell may start to regretting his shameless money grab before too long.

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