I Bet All That Gold Makes the Chocolate Taste Terrible: With Juan Soto Dream Dead, What's Next for Cubs?

The Chicago Cubs, specifically, were never in on Juan Soto. It’s a hideous truth—he’s exactly the type of player that a team in this market, with this notable an offensive need, should have written a blank check for—but one to which we collectively resigned ourselves some time ago. Nevertheless, the signing does bear significant ramifications on the organization, both in the short and the long term. 

The first affected party is the most obvious: Cody Bellinger. The New York Yankees have reportedly long been hot for the Cubs’ outfielder/first baseman. Now that they have a glaring hole in their lineup wrought by Soto’s departure, he is perhaps the easy candidate to slide in as a new left-handed bat. With an existing void at first base and now one in the outfield, they are the team that could utilize him in the most effective ways, with Bellinger's power likely to benefit from playing half his games at Yankee Stadium.

We’ve heard that the Cubs have shopped Bellinger heavily to date this offseason. But we’ve also been cautioned that the return could be minimal. Dumping Bellinger for the sole sake of creating payroll flexibility and giving a clearer path to some of your upper-minors bats isn’t entirely logical on its own, given the safety net he provides for the Pete Crow-Armstrong-Michael Busch-Seiya Suzuki portion of the roster. But it stands to reason that the Cubs could have gained a bit of leverage—on the Yankees, or on someone else—in the wake of Soto’s Mets signing. The team won't trade Bellinger unless they see a way that it can make them better; maybe the number of possible deals that satisfy that criterion just got larger.

There’s also a similar angle here that provides a challenge for the Cubs. We don’t have a deep-rooted knowledge of other bats who could be had on the trade market. But with the organization seemingly preferring that route of adding talent to the roster, does this create competition for the Cubs in their own pursuit of an offensive upgrade? This component of the fallout is far murkier given that lack of knowledge, but it’s possible that the same leverage the Cubs might’ve gained in attempting to trade Cody Bellinger now exists elsewhere when they go asking.

Ultimately, the transactional components of the Soto fallout run pretty deep. The markets have been largely busy on the pitching side thus far in the offseason (save the Willy Adames deal), but this was seen as the move that would open things up on the positional side. Whether it’s a trade of Bellinger or some other maneuver, we should expect some activity there that both involves and impacts the Cubs in the coming days.

At the same time, we shouldn’t underestimate the impact this has on 2025. The Mets were a surprise contender in the run they were able to make in ’24. They’re not a surprise anymore, and are even less so with the Soto addition. That means you’re looking at the Mets, Philadelphia Phillies, and Atlanta as surefire contenders in the National League. Washington could make some inroads toward contention with supplements to their young roster. Out west, you’ve got the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Diego Padres, and Arizona Diamondbacks, with the Giants also lurking. This is to say nothing of the NL Central, with Milwaukee the established contender and both Cincinnati and Pittsburgh on their way. 

This creates a massively complicated playoff picture on paper—one that could very well create a sense of urgency for Jed Hoyer and the front office that might not've been there before. Sure, the expanded Wild Card Series has opened up additional postseason opportunities. That picture runs so deep that the onus is now on the front office to not only make marginal improvements to the roster, but genuinely meaningful ones. Does Hoyer have that in his arsenal? We’ve heard buzz of potential trade talks and various activity. But Soto’s return to the National League puts the Cubs in a position where they have to pursue meaningful changes, which is a good thing for us, I suppose. However, it will also push Hoyer & Co. beyond their typical comfort zone.

Of course, the Bellinger aspect comes first. Whether it’s the Yankees, Phillies, or any of the handful of other teams we've heard connected with them, one imagines that the Cubs will pivot to immediately pursuing their desired move in the coming days. But the impact runs far deeper in terms of the quality of additions made to the Cubs’ own roster in the impending stretch of time. It’s created a challenge for the organization to generate an actual presence in a massively crowded National League. Can they rise to it?