Chairman Tom Ricketts: Cubs waiting for Cody Bellinger and agent Scott Boras to 'engage'

MESA, Ariz. — The Cubs have had discussions with free agent Cody Bellinger’s representatives, but chairman Tom Ricketts said he wouldn’t describe them as ‘‘negotiations.’’

‘‘We’re just waiting,’’ Ricketts said Monday, the Cubs’ first day of full-squad workouts. ‘‘Waiting for whenever he and his agent are going to engage. And it could be at any time now, or it could be a few weeks. We’ll just see where it goes.’’

Bellinger is one of four top free agents represented by Scott Boras who still are surveying the market. Reigning National League Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, 2023 World Series winner Jordan Montgomery and four-time Gold Glove third baseman Matt Chapman also have yet to sign deals. Bellinger was the NL Comeback Player of the Year in 2023 with the Cubs.

Teams often try to leverage the calendar in free-agent negotiations, but Boras has a reputation for remaining unfazed.

‘‘Until they’re ready to really negotiate, then there’s not much that we can do,’’ Ricketts said.

Assuming negotiations do pick up, it will be president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer running those talks from the Cubs’ side. Boras and Ricketts don’t have the relationship to push through a deal. And even if they did, that’s not the way Ricketts operates.

‘‘I don’t talk to Scott,’’ Ricketts said. ‘‘One of his signature moves is to go talk to the owner. But I think when you do that, you undermine the credibility of your general manager. And so inserting yourself into that negotiation, I don’t think that helps.’’

Ricketts holds the purse strings and lets Hoyer handle the rest. But the rest is affected by budget, one matter Ricketts doesn’t seem ready to budge on.

‘‘The way it works is [that] we generate all the revenues that we can, we take out our expenses and basically give everything to the baseball guys to spend,’’ Ricketts said. ‘‘And so we have a pretty simple model. And we let Jed make all the decisions on where he’s going to allocate his resources.’’

Ricketts said he isn’t moved by the timeline of a championship window or the talent available in free agency. Those factors won’t motivate him to inject extra cash into the payroll budget.

‘‘The budget is determined as we boil out the expenses, effectively,’’ he said. ‘‘So it’s not like we say, ‘OK, now we’re going to spend a bunch and go for it,’ or ‘championship window.’ We’re trying to be consistent. The goal is to be one of the teams that is always trying to win the division and every year has that opportunity. And so I try to look at the budget much more consistently than, ‘Let’s just go for it one year.’ ’’

So what would it take to expand the budget?

‘‘Effectively, more revenue,’’ he said. ‘‘You kind of forget, we do have a lot of revenue, but we pay a lot in taxes. We pay 20 million bucks a year keeping the ballpark together. We have a lot of expenses other teams don’t. And so right there around [competitive balance tax] levels is kind of a natural place for us. And that should be enough to win our division and be consistent every year.’’

Don’t forget the first part: The Cubs generate a lot of revenue, even if they won’t reveal exactly how much.

The first CBT threshold is set at $237 million this season. Cot’s Contracts and Spotrac estimate the Cubs’ current tax allocations to be around $205 million. Citing leverage considerations, the Cubs never disclose their specific budget.

Sticking strictly to a budget based on previous revenue, however, ignores the financial boost that comes with going deep into the playoffs. A team could sign a big free agent that puts their payroll over their budget, improve their playoff odds with the move and make up for the extra spending in the postseason. It isn’t a guarantee, but it’s a bet big-market teams can afford to make.

The Cubs, regardless of being in the third-largest media market in the country, are more likely to have those conversations leading up to the trade deadline, when they have a better sense of the roster’s potential, rather than leading into the season. But the door isn’t closed yet on the Cubs signing a hitter this spring, even Bellinger.