The (It's Not a) Life and (So It Can't Be a) Death of That Wild Garrett Crochet-to-Cubs Trade Rumor

[Matthew Trueblood]

For a day on which nothing actually happened, a lot sure did happen on Thursday, eh? Let's clean up a mess.

Image courtesy of © Paul Rutherford-Imagn Images

On Thursday afternoon, all hell broke loose for a bit on what is left of Cubs Twitter. Most of the good baseball talk these days is happening at Bluesky, but because Jeff Passan hasn't yet defected, those of us who want to instantly catch important news when it breaks are forced to spend some time on Twitter. And if you're one of those people, you surely encountered at least one of several reports that spilled out on Thursday afternoon and evening about a discussion between the Cubs, White Sox, and Mariners, on what would be a three-way trade involving Garrett Crochet coming to the Cubs and Nico Hoerner going to Seattle.

Our own Jacob Zanolla was one of the first to report what he was hearing.

Others chimed in with similar scraps, and pretty quickly, a speculative deal came into focus for the lovers of tea leaves and intrigue hovering around the hot stove. Because it was out in the social media atmosphere, the rumor took on a tangibility that made it feel very real and urgent for a lot of people. Alas, within a few more hours, there were multiple reports that the "deal" was "dead."

Ok, let's unpack all that a little bit.

Firstly, let me say: Jacob was not making things up, and I have no particular reason to think anyone else who tweeted seemingly corroborating reports was, either. I can confirm that those talks took place, not merely Thursday or late Wednesday night but in pieces over the last few weeks, and that the three teams were circling toward a potential deal by Thursday afternoon. It would, indeed, have involved Crochet and (most likely) Hoerner, with one headline prospect going from the Cubs to the White Sox, another going from Seattle to Chicago, and a few ancillary pieces changing hands along the way to balance things out. That much is true.

If you follow me on Twitter or on Bluesky, you'll note that I neither tweeted nor skeeted on the subject. However, we did do some background work on it in the North Side Baseball Slack channel. For me, the available information did not rise to the level of reportability, but something was close enough that we started getting ducks in a row. Crucially, I think, fans should understand that it's not especially uncommon for a deal like this to get this close. When I say the rumor didn't quite feel reportable, I don't mean that there was any uncertainty about the existence of the discussions. I just didn't have something that met my own standard for newsworthiness, because trade talks get as far as I believe this one to have gotten happen all over the league, every week. Some of them never even escape the biome of the teams involved, but plenty of them do, and at that point, the external holders of the information have to decide what merits public mention.

This is not a criticism of Jacob. I want to make that very clear. He and I don't consult on these subjects anyway, and while his contributions are highly valued and welcome, we would not lay claim to a report by Jacob the same way (say) The Athletic would claim and back one by Ken Rosenthal. He is free to speak with his own voice on Twitter and make his own calls about newsworthiness, as long as he's reporting accurate information. I believe he did just fine here. I just want to start by highlighting the fact that this trade was not especially close. The Cubs, alone, have been closer to another notable deal this winter than they were to completing this one. As far as I know, no one ever publicly reported even the possibility of that trade. Some of our perceptions about trade possibility and activity are distorted, if we ever assume we're hearing about everything—or even that there's a reliable difference between what is reported and what isn't, in terms of how real it got before fizzling out.

Now, let's talk about how the deal "died," beginning with whether or not it actually did. As the headline probably tells you, that's not how I would characterize the situation, though my quibble is as much with our language for such situations as with the particulars of this one.

Once you understand that this trade was never more advanced than a dozen others that will not-quite happen over the next week, you can see part of my nitpick easily enough. Did it really "live," exactly? Or was it just a gleam in someone's eye, noticed from across a room by an unrelated third party? (Let's, er, abort this metaphor right here. But you get my point.)

My second issue is the larger one. Is the deal "dead," as some said? I wouldn't put it that way. Obviously, nothing has happened—no players have changed teams in some other fashion, for instance—to preclude the teams resuming talks. When discussions like these collapse, they tend to be hard to pick back up, because someone has shut something down and it might be a (literal) dealbreaker for someone else. But minds can change, and so can circumstances. I regard it as highly unlikely that the semi-reported deal goes on to get done, but it's not fully scuppered. I would say, instead, that it's been thwarted for now, by two separate problems:

1. Getting the Mariners involved was meant to fix a stall reached by the Cubs and White Sox, rooted in the fact that the Cubs were unwilling to give up any combination of two top prospects the White Sox found satisfactory. They had already talked to Seattle about Hoerner, and folded them into the discussion with the idea of sending Hoerner there and having Seattle supply a second piece the White Sox would accept. 
   
   Two problems sprang up in the attempt to make that work. Firstly, of the three or four names discussed as that second piece, the Sox and Mariners never came to an agreement on one. I won't divulge the names of any of those young players, but I think each side was being reasonable there. Secondly, the Cubs didn't want to send much in other value (either a supplemental, lower-tier prospect to the Sox, or money to the M's, or both) beyond Hoerner and one top prospect to satisfy the other two teams. As we have often discussed here, the Cubs front office does not like paying transaction costs. They would have had to step up in a significant way to bridge the gaps that existed.
2. The Cubs are also distracted, in a way. Yesterday, we discussed how trading for Eli Morgan and signing Matthew Boyd has started to sharpen the positions on Hoyer's winter chess board. In truth, though, he still has multiple potential strategies available, and this move would have committed the Cubs to one path a bit too soon—at least in one reading of the facts. As was also reported Thursday, the team has plenty of irons in lower-tier free-agent fires, and they're juggling discussions about a possible Cody Bellinger trade (though no, it doesn't seem like Bellinger being part of this trade was much of an option; he would land in Seattle only under a totally different set of scenarios) as well as the pursuit of a high-ceiling player like Crochet.

The World Chess Championship is happening right now, in Singapore. World Champion Ding Liren and challenger Gukesh Dommeraju have faced off in nine games, so far, of a possible 14, and I've watched a good amount of their match via various streaming platforms. Each has put some creative and dangerous ideas on the board over the last several games, but they've drawn each of the last six. In that entire run of play, there have only been two or three moments when one of them could have taken decisive control and found a win. They've missed them, even then, not because they weren't good enough at chess, but because they had to consider a wealth of options and remain cognizant of the risk of counterplay, all under the tick and tock of a clock. That's a bit like the situation the Cubs are in right now.

As frustrating as the last two seasons have been, any baseball fan (and even some chess fans) can see that the Cubs entered this winter in a strong position. Hoyer has to find the move that can be decisive, at some point, or else his team won't get over the hump and back into the postseason next year. The clock is ticking on him, too. Right now, though, he can see multiple paths to victory, and his opponent—the rest of the league, basically—has some turns yet to play. The timing of this deal wasn't right, or at least, it didn't seem so yet to the parties involved. I wouldn't say it's dead, although it can certainly die in the coming days. Juan Soto will soon sign somewhere; that's a big turn for the other pieces on the board. There will be more, too. It's still possible for the board to rearrange itself a few moves down the road in such a way that these three teams face the same options under more conducive circumstances, or that their appetites for risk have risen. In any game of chess or MLB offseason, though, that circling back is unlikely. Thus, the Cubs have to look for other ways to seize the same kind of initiative, be it through direct negotiations with the White Sox on Crochet (giving up that richer prospect package, and hoping to make up the losses via a separate Hoerner trade) or with the Mariners and others on Bellinger (giving them access to more of the free-agent market again).

In the meantime, keep taking reports from anyone but Passan with a grain of salt—not because everyone doing the reporting is a huckster (they're not!), but because a high standard for reporting rumors like these might be the only thing keeping any of us sane. If you really want to put yourself in Hoyer's shoes for a while, grab a chess board and a friend, and keep notifications turned on for Passan until he starts skeeting.

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[LBiittner]

Beautifully written Matt.                      This is by far a well structured narrative. Complete with realism and a little satire sprinkled within.

[Development DL]

“The Berlin defense “  it is not .  But the chess analogy plays well . Along with acquiring with undervalued assets, driven by Developmental possibilities.  This landscape of fluid, game theory based   interactions , seems to explain how Hoyer and many value driven , roster builders operate .  
 

You are 3 moves ahead of me as usual .