Injuries Straining Depth of a Cubs Organization That's All-In, Whether They Know It or Not

[Matthew Trueblood]

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images

Quietly, without making a grand show of it (or, perhaps, going as far as they should have, if this was the goal), the Cubs have spent the last two seasons stacking a lot of chips onto the table for 2025. This is the hand on which they were ready to go all-in, and not just because they might only have Kyle Tucker for one year. Indeed, Tucker was as much capstone as cornerstone, in their eyes. Their big expenditures on Seiya Suzuki and Dansby Swanson; the extensions they gave to Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner; and their steady investment in the pitching staff (bringing in Marcus Stroman, Jameson Taillon, Shota Imanaga and Matthew Boyd in successive offseasons) have all led them in this direction.

When Jed Hoyer felt the pressure beginning to mount at the end of 2023, he got more willing to trade the future for a better present, dealing Jackson Ferris and Zyhir Hope for Michael Busch and Yency Almonte; then Christopher Morel, Hunter Bigge and Ty Johnson for Isaac Paredes; then Paredes, Cam Smith and Hayden Wesneski for Tucker. At each turn, he's tried to slightly mitigate the way those moves have drawn him toward commitment to this single campaign, with fringe maneuvers like swapping out Mark Leiter Jr. to restock the team with upper-level reliever depth last July and spending a rare Rule 5 Draft selection on the upside of Gage Workman this winter. That was also one motivating factor for the Cody Bellinger trade: to get back a pitcher whom the team felt would offset the loss of Wesneski.

Here's the problem: the other half of the motivation for the Bellinger deal was to free up money to be spent on high-profile supplemental talent. Then, Hoyer couldn't get anyone to take his money. He made offers with higher net present value than the ones the players eventually signed to both Tanner Scott and Alex Bregman. He had two trades that would have supplemented the team's starting rotation at the goal line, but each was thwarted by medical concerns. The Ricketts family should be more willing to let Hoyer get irrational in bidding wars for key free agents, but Hoyer had enough freedom to land either Scott or Bregman. He simply didn't get it done. He also couldn't scramble well enough to complete a more robust upgrade of the team's starting rotation. Having to settle for Colin Rea, Ryan Pressly, Ryan Brasier and Justin Turner was not Plan A, or even Plan B—though, to various extents, those guys have been ok, and the players who might have held their jobs in alternate universes have had their own travails.

Now, with Justin Steele out for the year and medium-term injuries really piling up, Hoyer is in a pickle. Trading Hope, Ferris and the rest over the last two years has thinned the farm system, especially in the middle levels. So has drafting in the middle of the first round each year, after too many respectable but unexciting seasons and without the benefit of any extra picks from the competitive-balance pool. Re-signing Bellinger (although to a deal that had little chance of actively hurting the team) cost them a chance to get a pick and restock themselves a bit last year. This year, they'll have a below-average bonus pool yet again. 

This roster is good enough to win the NL Central, but they need to do more than that to get the lasting surge of fan engagement (and the attendant revenue) the Rickettses crave. To make a deep run in October, they need outside help, which Hoyer has already acknowledged—but it's not clear that they can actually execute their plan and acquire that help. Hoyer's track record for pulling the trigger on the big move in July is spotty. He doesn't have a deep farm system from which to trade, and some of the pieces he might be willing and able to move would erode the team's depth even as it raised their ceiling. Already, they're seeing the dangers of diminished depth, anyway, with the likes of Reese McGuire and Chris Flexen having been called upon to take on significant roles as the guys they thought they'd be leaning on have gone down.

Hoyer said last week that reinforcements would have to wait, because moves involving notable players simply don't happen very often before mid-July. That's true, to some extent, but if the team were in a stronger overall position, they could force the issue. If Brandon Birdsell were healthy, or if they were having more success with the final polish on Kevin Alcántara, Owen Caissie and Moisés Ballesteros, or if their big-money international amateur free agents didn't have a nasty tendency to run into a wall when they get to High A, the Cubs might be able to make a June trade, be it for a big name or for someone they merely believe they can turn into a star in short order. Instead, they'll have to sit patiently at their table, seeing what's on offer when the auction begins. Even when that happens, they won't have the heaviest purse in the room, so they're unlikely to bag the most coveted items.

The 2025 Cubs are all-in, but they probably also have to get as far as they can with (more or less) what they already have. It's exciting that they're in position to make the postseason for the first (real) time since 2017, but they've had to stretch themselves thinner than they meant to to get this far.

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[Development DL]

You stated precisely, where I think they are at. They are in a position to be nimble . Will there talent identification machine , make the pick , that can be optimized by the pitching Infrastructure?

Awesome piece.  It reminds me some of the Joy is in the yet to be determined.  Including how many “ edge wins or more , PD can foster.    Shaw looks solid .