8 Starting Pitchers Cubs Have Discussed as MLB Trade Deadline Draws Near

Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins have reached out to front offices of several teams tipping toward selling in the days since the resumption of the season after the All-Star break, sources with knowledge of the talks indicated this week. They're looking for help in the bullpen, but the team's top priority is to shore up its starting rotation. More depth there would allow them to backfill the relief corps by demoting Colin Rea and cushion them against the risk of further injuries to the incumbent options.

However, the team hasn't talked (yet, at least) about what it would cost to acquire Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers, said one league source. Instead, their preferred targets appear to be hurlers who offer either team control beyond this season or an opportunity to swing a deal without surrendering their top prospects.

The Miami Marlins are on a nine-game losing streak, and their apparent status as buyers is now very much in jeopardy. The Cubs could feel a bit sour about the disappointing early returns on the Edward Cabrera deal or the previous winter's scuppered Jesús Luzardo trade, but the team has sounded the Marlins out on their willingness to move Sandy Alcantara. Though no longer a Cy Young-caliber power arm, Alcantara is as reliable a workhorse as any starter in the league, and if Miami continues its spiral, they could be open to moving Alcantara to save the substantial money left on his contract.

One reason for the Cubs' interest is that Alcantara's unimpressive numbers and high salary put a cap on what the Marlins can demand from him. The same goes, in one form or another, for Clay Holmes of the Mets, who made a rehab start Thursday with Triple-A Syracuse as he works his way back from a broken leg; Seth Lugo of the Royals, who's owed $21.5 million next season and has ceased to miss bats the way he needs to; and Michael King of the Padres, who (like Holmes) can become a free agent at the end of this year but (unlike Holmes) is still due over $8 million for the balance of the year. 

Alcantara, Holmes, Lugo and King are each high-volume starters who lack front-line upside. Each could end up being with the team beyond the end of this season, but none are guaranteed to be. They're the arms the Cubs might land on, but it feels like early contact with the teams in question is as much about establishing a good fallback plan as about prioritizing any of them.

Not so for Joe Ryan, about whom the Cubs contacted the Twins recently, according to a source informed of the discussion. Right now, the Twins aren't selling, and they'd have to be blown away to move Ryan, who just went to his second All-Star Game and is under team control for 2027. Ryan is an obvious fit for the Cubs, though, in that he manipulates the ball masterfully; doesn't throw especially hard; and racks up strikeouts despite that dearth of raw power.

Ryan would be a great pickup, but it's not clear how the Cubs would match up with Minnesota on a deal. Matt Shaw could be a fit for the Twins, for whom Shaw would instantly become the best defensive second baseman on the team and where he would have multiple paths to regular playing time. The Cubs' farm system is weak and top-heavy, though, so piecing together the right package around Shaw might be tough. To be sure, Minnesota is in a position where they'll balk at any move that doesn't make them better right away in 2027, so even if Chicago were willing to part with Jefferson Rojas or Josiah Hartshorn in a Ryan trade, it wouldn't get them over the hump.

The Angels and Mets are more obvious sellers, and the Cubs have been in touch about multiple players on each club's pitching staff. As they did last summer, the team has checked in on Jose Soriano, but even under interim baseball operations head John Mozeliak, the Halos are setting a higher price on Soriano than on Reid Detmers, league sources say. That works out fine for the Cubs, who prefer Detmers to Soriano since the lefty's reemergence this spring. 

A report Thursday at The Athletic seemed to suggest that the Angels might accept catcher Owen Ayers as a centerpiece in a deal for either hurler. I asked around about that; it's a mischaracterization. Ayers is a prospect with rising stock, but not one with much ceiling, and the Angels' interest in him would be as a co-headliner, at most. If the Cubs deal for Soriano or Detmers, it's more likely to be the latter—and it's likely to hurt. Rojas is one player the Angels have liked when scouting the Cubs system in the recent past; the newly promoted James Triantos is another. However, it's not clear to anyone I talked to how much Mozeliak will try to put his own stamp on the team via the moves he makes at this deadline, as opposed to trusting the scouts and staffers who were there under previous GM Perry Minasian.

The final starter I can confirm the Cubs have checked on is Freddy Peralta, a teammate of Holmes and (formerly) of David Peterson, whom the team already acquired from New York this summer. Peralta, of course, also has major familiarity with Craig Counsell. He's the most obvious happy medium among the choices the team has actively explored so far, with rough numbers that have forced Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns to lower his expectations in a deal; impending free agency, further curtailing his acquisition cost; and a low salary for this season, but also with major upside that shows up with even a glance at his Baseball Reference page.

A rough order of the impact these eight hurlers would have, if the team landed them, might go:

1. Ryan
2. Soriano
3. King
4. Detmers
5. Peralta
6. Alcantara
7. Holmes
8. Lugo

Ordering them from most to least costly to acquire probably looks like this:

1. Ryan
2. Soriano
3. Detmers
4. Alcantara
5. King
6. Peralta
7. Holmes
8. Lugo

With a deadline coming, it's always a good idea to cross off the first couple of names on a list like this one. The team is doing due diligence, but it's extremely unlikely they get a deal done if a player is both obviously good and coveted by their current team. The bottom two names on the list, by contrast, are a little too available; you're settling. In between, here, the value plays would seem to be King and Peralta. Alcantara will cost more to pry loose than he's worth. Detmers is a fine little dream to dream, but it's important not to get carried away. 

Over the next week, the Cubs will talk seriously about another eight or nine starters, putting out feelers to rival clubs and trying to gain leverage or exhaust their options before making a move. They'll also work to reinforce the bullpen, and how high they end up aiming in that pursuit might determine which way they go when it comes to bolstering the rotation. It's possible that they even upgrade both parts of the pitching staff in a single, package-style deal, with multiple players going in each direction. For now, though, King and Peralta stand out as the fits who could survive the friction and frenzy of the deadline and end up with the Cubs most easily. 

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