Before you read the facts and figures about the Cubs’ payment of luxury tax for the 2019 season, please keep this in mind. The primary reason the Cubs are among just three teams paying this tax is that their 2019 payroll increased by $22 million over 2018.
So whatever else you wish to call Cubs ownership, you cannot call them “cheap.” It’s true that some of that money was not spent wisely, one of the reasons the Cubs are in the payroll bind they claim to be in at the present time. It is true that the Cubs could get out of that bind by crashing through the top level of luxury tax, but they have apparently chosen not to do so.