Offseason Handbook: Top Needs for the 2025 Chicago Cubs, and 10 Big Free Agents They'll Pursue

[Matthew Trueblood]

In the second installment of our coverage of the 2024-25 Chicago Cubs offseason via our Offseason Handbook, we'll build out our understanding of Jed Hoyer and company's task ahead. We know what they have to spend; how should they spend it?

Image courtesy of © David Butler II-Imagn Images

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When a team finishes 83-79 in consecutive seasons, inertia and central tendencies are the most dangerous enemies. It's hard to articulate what separates the club from its hoped-for levels of success, because they're right there, within reach—yet, paradoxically, unreachable. There aren't glaring, easily mended weaknesses, or at least, there aren't many of them. Most of the teams who have such obvious shortcomings finish more like 73-89, or even 63-99. If you don't carefully and critically assess every aspect and layer of the team, though, you end up finishing 83-79 again. It's best to assume there are more weaknesses than the actual results suggest, because after all, what's been happening hasn't been working.

That's Jed Hoyer's remit this November, December, January, and February. He has to build a new foundation around a core that is already locked in place. He needs to overhaul a roster that is extremely overhaul-resistant, which probably doesn't mean wrenching key pieces out of it by force. Rather, it's likely to mean assiduously improving at the margins, as Hoyer discussed at this week's GM Meetings in San Antonio, plus making a small but high-impact number of additions that merely push existing pieces of the roster into new roles or positions, rather than displacing them altogether.

The 3 Big Needs for the 2025 Chicago Cubs
Hoyer's job is not really solely about identifying needs, at this stage. It's also about prioritization. With Cody Bellinger opting back in for 2025 and the other high-price, high-profile pieces already in place, Hoyer will probably face some degree of resource pinch before he's done trying to build this team into a juggernaut. He has to know, and keep straight, which of his team's faults need to be addressed most strenuously and urgently. Let's simulate that process for him, because understanding it will also help us frame the team's behavior in coming weeks.

1. A top-of-the-rotation starter. After a campaign in which we saw Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon, and Shota Imanaga post ERAs south of 3.30 and some encouraging performances by back-end guys like Javier Assad and Ben Brown, this might seem a counterintuitive top need. In reality, though, the pervasively pitcher-friendly conditions at Wrigley Field in 2024 made those hurlers look better than they really were, just as they made some Cubs hitters appear to have rougher seasons than they did. The team needs to shore up its run prevention at least as much as it needs to improve its ability to score, and that starts at the front of their rotation, where they didn't miss enough bats last year and have to keep the durability questions attached to Steele in mind as they look forward.
2. A middle-of-the-order slugger. It's hard to say whether a team that thinks itself so close to being playoff-caliber having these as their top two needs going into an offseason is ludicrous, or perfectly sensible. On one hand, how close are you to competing with the behemoths of the league if you have neither a true ace nor a true lineup centerpiece? On the other, though, it's a testament to the Cubs' middle-tier depth that they've posted winning records in consecutive campaigns, without being carried by any kind of superstar. Most importantly, it does feel true. Imanaga and Steele are each great options as your second-best starter, but not as your best. Seiya Suzuki is a great hitter to have anchoring the lineup, but there has to be another player as good as he is or better, and right now, the Cubs don't have one.
3. Stout, consistent, bat-missing relief ace. Though the 2024 Cubs continued their recent tradition of finding success almost from nowhere at midseason with a cobbled-together cast of relievers, much damage was done before they hit their stride. They have to be a bullpen capable of dominating all year this time around, and that means going outside the organization and spending some money to get better at the back end of the bullpen. Traditional closer or not, some new, elite or near-elite reliever needs to round out this roster.

This winter's free-agent class is fairly strong in all three of these demographics. There will be no dearth of paths to the specific improvements the Cubs need to make. But which of the array of options are realistic, and which should the team pursue most ardently?

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