Cubs Will Focus on Draft This Week, But Then Spotlight Swings to Two Trade Candidates

[Matthew Trueblood]

As they begin a weeklong road trip to close out the first half, the Cubs are two months removed from their last series win on the road. The front office won't plot its trade market course until after these two series, but when they do, expect a couple of infielders to become focal points.

Image courtesy of © Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

When Cubs executive Jed Hoyer joined broadcasters Boog Sciambi and Jim Deshaies in the broadcast booth Saturday afternoon, the mess below them made clear the writing on the wall before them. Hoyer's frustration with a season full of bad injury luck and sloppy play was evident, as he gave an update on more bad injury luck (lower back soreness for Kyle Hendricks) and the team's sloppy play put them deep in a hole from which they were unable even to begin climbing out.

During that interview, Hoyer used his favorite euphemism--"hard decisions"--a couple of times. He talked about how difficult it has been, on a couple of occasions since he took over the time, to feel pressed up to the trade deadline before he was able to confidently select between the courses of buying or selling at that deadline. He also mentioned, with a rueful chuckle, the crunch created by the league's decision to permanently move the MLB Draft into mid-July, forcing teams to wait until after the All-Star break to turn their full attention to the trade market.

By laying out those threads, Hoyer all but invited fans to braid them up into a narrative that reads like this: The Cubs haven't fully committed to a single direction for this month's trade deadline, but they're heavily leaning toward selling. They'll make that determination for sure after this weekend's draft, and moves could start happening just after the All-Star break. In talking to members of two front offices who have been in contact with the Cubs recently, it sounds like that's exactly how things stand.

This is largely a resource allocation thing, for the moment. The Cubs are closely watching a handful of farm systems belonging to rivals with whom they might match up on a trade soon, but many of their top staff in scouting and R&D are focused on the draft for the next week. Once that event takes place (starting Sunday), they and their potential suitors can start to match up and have more serious conversations.

When they do, expect two names to come up with more frequency than you might have guessed: Nico Hoerner and Christopher Morel. For very different reasons, those two have drawn teams' interest, and the Cubs might feel that capitalizing on their trade value now is the best way to shake up their medium-term positional corps.

Hoerner, of course, has two and a half years left on the contract extension he signed last spring. He's making $11.5 million this year and next, and $12 million in 2026. Compared to most extensions signed by arbitration-eligible players, this one is fairly frontloaded; that's how the Cubs got such a good deal on Hoerner's would-be free-agent season, the last one in the deal. That very characteristic will ensure that he retains some trade value, as long as some other team believes that his long recent slump (he's hitting an anemic .221/.295/.282 since missing a week in mid-May) belies a true talent level better reflected by he did before that (.269/.361/.391 through May 13) or even by what he did down the stretch last season (.297/.377/.391 after the 2023 All-Star break).

The Cubs extended Hoerner successfully because his skill set (good defense up the middle, excellent contact skills, but very limited power) is one they value more highly than most of the other 29 teams. That said, there are a dozen or so teams who would have active interest in Hoerner, especially because of the affordability of the last two years of this deal. The Cubs will be unlikely to willingly eat the money attached to him this year, because they're very close to the first luxury tax threshold, but they could include a few million dollars in 2025 in order to ensure a solid return in a trade.

Obviously, Morel is about as different a player from Hoerner as can be. He's had a difficult season, with some things to like but a lot of frustration. The team tried to help him transform from a low-OBP, high-strikeout slugger with 35-homer power into a more complete hitter, and eventually, that evolution could still play out. Right now, though, he's only benefited in one way (fewer strikeouts) and has seen both his raw hit tool and his game power take huge steps backward. By giving him a long audition at third base, too, the team has only confirmed to themselves and all potential suitors that he has no business playing there.

Unlike Hoerner, though, Morel has a profile the rest of the league values (if anything) more highly than the Cubs do. His raw power is still impressive, and he's a good enough athlete to move back to second base (the only defensive position at which he's ever looked remotely at home) or settle into a corner outfield spot and acquit himself. Whereas the Cubs were unrealistic about his value as a headliner in trade talks this winter, they're now more clear-eyed about what he can be, what he can't be, and how he would fit into various trade scenarios.

He's under team control for four more years beyond this one, and is likely to reach arbitration for the first time in 2026. While he can't command a controllable star as the centerpiece of a trade, Morel could be a secondary piece in such a deal. Alternatively, if the Cubs feel a need to get creative and clear some money, Morel could be attached to Cody Bellinger to make an acquiring team both more willing to surrender its own young talent and less wary of the poison pill that is Bellinger's pair of player options for 2025 and 2026.

If you believe in the Cubs' player development staff at all, it makes sense for the team to open some space in its infield right now. Matt Shaw hasn't played since Jun. 27, and was briefly rumored to be promoted to Triple-A Iowa last week, but one way or another, he's knocking on the door. Shaw is undersized, and he has some work left to do, but in the right hands, he projects to be a better big-league hitter than Hoerner or Morel have been recently, and soon. It's fair to wonder whether the Cubs constitute "the right hands", but they believe they do, which is why they're increasingly open to moving one of their incumbents around the infield dirt.

Even an undefeated week going into the All-Star break would not drag the Cubs up to .500, and since they're visiting two superior teams (the Orioles and Cardinals), a 3-3 or 2-4 trip is much more likely, anyway. A very strong surge into and out of the break could give Hoyer pause, but the team is positioning themselves as sellers behind the scenes, which is the only rational choice and an important one for them to maintain. They'll get one infusion of young talent beginning Sunday evening, and they need to focus on securing another one within the fortnight or so thereafter.

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