Panic All You Want, The Cubs Move At Their Own Pace

The good news is that the Cubs aren’t the only team that has sat out the free agent market entirely so far; by mid-December, they are one of eight teams not to spend a guaranteed dollar on a free agent. It is worth noting, however, that many teams in that bunch have participated in the trade market, like the Yankees and Padres in their blockbuster Juan Soto trade.

Rarely has a Cubs’ transaction over the last half-decade been perfunctory. Not all moves work out, of course. That’s the nature of the game, and why retrospectives exist in the first place; the goal is to be right as often as possible, rather than being perfect. 

At this exact moment, both in the 2023-2024 offseason and the general baseball zeitgeist, it feels like the Cubs aren’t getting enough done. While the Dodgers flex their financial muscles by shelling out over $1 billion to two (exceptionally and uniquely talented) players and the Yankees trade a king’s ransom for Soto, the Cubs are being patient. So far, the only moves the Cubs have made have been of the minor-league free-agent variety, with the most notable being Jorge Alfaro’s signing, designed to shore up the depth at catcher. 

The Cubs, as has been lamented by fans all offseason, are in a unique position to add to their team aggressively: the accounting books are relatively clean for the foreseeable future, and the division is wide open for the taking. As each subsequent Cubs’ target comes off the board, the desperation grows, the anxiousness in the fanbase becoming more and more palpable. 

For better or worse, the constant clamoring from fans won’t sway the front office. Last offseason, when rumors began to spread that the Cubs may target TWO of free agency’s “big four” shortstops - Xander Bogaerts, Dansby Swanson, Carlos Correa, and Trea Turner - the team held firm, sticking to their internal valuation of each player rather than adjusting on the fly to the market’s sudden preference for longer-term, lower average annual value deals. Eventually, the Cubs got Swanson at their preferred price point, and the move worked out pretty well for them in year one of the deal. 

Of course, there comes a point where monetary values for players shift irrevocably, and limiting the franchise’s willingness to pay at yesterday’s prices means the Cubs won’t get today’s product. Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto were so unique in their profiles for a myriad of reasons (not the least of which was that both reportedly wanted to go to the Dodgers all along), and blaming the Cubs for securing neither is an exercise in futility. 

However, missing out on Tyler Glasnow is a little less acceptable, even if his extension with the Dodgers was quite generous. Not acquiring Shane Bieber, Dylan Cease, or some other high-upside arm will be an abject failure in the face of the current roster’s needs. The team also needs consistent, run-producing bats at first base and designated hitter. Another year of an Eric Hosmer or Trey Mancini-style experiment would cause a mutiny on social media. 

The offseason is far from over. Plenty of players are still on the board, both in free agency and on the trade market. The Cubs have a consensus top-three farm system with which to dangle bait, and they have upwards of $50+ million to shell out. There’s no reason to expect the roster to remain as it is today, even if it feels more like blind faith than empirically backed confidence. 

How the Cubs recover from a disappointing first half of the offseason is anyone’s guess, but the team knows there’s an impending clock. Jed Hoyer may be as patient as any executive in baseball, but even he can’t wait out the market forever. The team is on the cusp of breaching into the second-tier of contenders in the National League (behind the juggernauts on the coasts, the Dodgers and Braves), and as many teams before them have shown, anything can happen once you make the playoffs. 

The offseason is still young, but it won’t last forever. 

Tick, tick.