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At $700 million (even given massive deferrals), Shohei Ohtani was not a fit for the Cubs. I would argue that he's not even a fit for the Dodgers at that number, but they have it to spend and he's an extraordinary player, so now, he's a Dodger. The Cubs didn't land Ohtani despite their second earnest effort to court him, but if it was going to cost anything like this much money, they made the right choice by not overextending to win the bidding war. Perfect rationality is no way for a baseball team to live, but this contract represents a degree of irrationality that was always going to be insupportable.
With that roadblock out of the way, though, the Cubs can now begin their offseason, for real. Over the next 10 days (before things begin to wind down for the holidays), there will be a flurry of moves throughout MLB. Chicago's chances of landing Yoshinobu Yamamoto are very slim, just as they were with Ohtani. It feels very much as though Yamamoto will end up with the Yankees or Mets, on a deal that could reach $400 million in total expenditures after accounting for the posting fee. There are plenty of other stars who will soon change teams, though, and the Cubs figure to be in on several of them.
Tyler Glasnow's name keeps coming up in connection with the Cubs, but the Dodgers just gained about 700 million more reasons to be aggressive about a deal to bolster their rotation for exactly one year, so the competition there will be stiff. The Cubs' best bet to upgrade their own starting staff might yet be a Japanese phenom, because they're still being mentioned as a suitor for Shota Imanaga, and Imanaga has a chance to be the sneakily low-priced ace on this increasingly crazy market.
Remember, a week ago, we heard rumors of the Cubs being interested in Jordan Montgomery. They could now get serious in pursuit of him, although you'd figure it's either Montgomery or Imanaga, rather than both. The fit with either makes sense, and probably more sense than the one with Glasnow, but any of the three would be a boon to the rotation. The team does need that, and would have even if they'd signed Ohtani.
At the moment, though, the next move I would bet on from the Cubs is a trade with the Guardians. They've been linked to Shane Bieber, Emmanuel Clase, and Josh Naylor, and all three of them make sense for Chicago. They will not acquire all three, but various combinations of them have been kicked around by the two sides, and there are other interesting pieces who could flow each way. While Cubs fans all agree on the need for more swing-and-miss from the rotation, and while Bieber doesn't exactly promise to deliver that, we have to keep in mind that the Cubs have concrete preferences in their starters, and reasons for those preferences. Bieber fits those preferences.
Clase would be an interesting pickup for the bullpen. He's obviously one of the game's best closers, but just as obviously, he pitched his arm off for Terry Francona at times during the last few seasons. I don't think Francona was consciously trading Clase's future for his own present, but the aging skipper turned to his All-Star relief ace so often to hold thin leads cobbled together by an anemic offense that Clase did wear down under the burden as last season progressed. When he's right, though, he's overpowering, and building a bullpen in front of him would feel like a breeze, compared to the difficulty of assembling a usable committee each year over the last few.
Naylor is a brilliant fit for the Cubs, but the Guardians aren't yet clearly ready to trade him. He's such a heartbeat of that team that they can't easily let him go, even if they have pressure coming from the farm system in the form of top prospect Kyle Manzardo. The idea of Naylor's slashing left-handed offense and solid glove at first base is highly appealing, though.
There are all of those options, and plenty more. The Cubs could pivot to trying to trade for one of the Marlins' controllable starting pitchers, although whether any of them represent a sufficient short-term upgrade over the team's options of Ben Brown and Cade Horton to justify their cost is a reasonable question. They could try to sign a player they did once woo as a coveted international free agent, in Jorge Soler, or swoop in to collect the Dodgers' jetsam after J.D. Martinez's time as the designated hitter in Los Angeles was semi-officially ended by Ohtani's signing. They could engage with Rhys Hoskins on a short-term deal, or Matt Chapman on a longer one.
There might be a couple of interesting trade targets in Minnesota, where the Twins need to unload the salary of either Jorge Polanco or Max Kepler and want starting pitching. Ryan McMahon could be a really nice complementary piece and long-term addition, if trading for him were only the third-biggest move of the winter. He'd only be disappointing as a headline move for the team. The Padres might look to offload even more salary, before they go about reassembling a competitive team. The Mariners have Logan Gilbert, who might be available for a deal centered on young hitters. Opportunities abound.
Jed Hoyer is just getting started, after this chance slid by. He might have a slightly narrower road to success from here, but he has multiple forms of currency with him and there are still jewels to find. Which direction do you want to see him go?
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