Sources: Cubs Attempting to Land Starter and Reliever in Package Deal

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The Rays acquired Mets right-handed pitcher Freddy Peralta Sunday, according to multiple reports. After Luis Castillo and Tarik Skubal were dealt Saturday night, this trade makes three that constrict the market for starting pitchers as the clock ticks down toward 24 hours to the 5 PM CT Monday MLB trade deadline. The Cubs continue to prefer acquiring a controllable starter in a significant deal, sources familiar with the team's thinking say, but they're rapidly developing alternative plans.

The Mets, Blue Jays, Cardinals and Tigers have all expressed a willingness to trade a rental starter and a relief pitcher in the same package deal, league sources said, and the Cubs have talked to all four about that possibility in the last few days. A trade with St. Louis is unlikely, because the Cubs will be loath to send the kind of package Chaim Bloom would demand for starter Dustin May and relievers JoJo Romero or Riley O'Brien to a division rival. However, the other three teams make easier fits, and there's mutual interest in a deal in each case.

New York has already sent David Peterson to the Cubs, A.J. Minter to the Twins, and Peralta to the Rays this summer, but they're looking to trade Clay Holmes and willing to move Luke Weaver. In exchange for a strong package, they would move both together, a source with knowledge of their strategy said. Holmes is finishing up a rehab assignment, and should be ready to start again in the majors next week. Weaver is under contract for 2027, making him an especially tempting pickup for a Cubs team that expects to contend next season, too. Tying the two together would force the Cubs to open up their second tier of prospects to the Mets, but that's possible.

Ditto for the similar but (arguably) stronger Blue Jays pairing of Kevin Gausman and Jeff Hoffman. Gausman is in the final year of the five-year deal he signed with Toronto and will be a free agent this fall, but in the meantime, he looks ready to pitch at the front end of a playoff series for a team like Chicago. Hoffman, like Weaver, will make an eight-figure salary as a short reliever next season. That's a hefty price tag for a Cubs team that likes to cobble together bullpens on the cheap, but like Weaver, he has a track record of dominating even in October and can miss bats at a level unmatched by any current Cubs reliever. The money involved in taking on both Gausman and Hoffman would mute the prospect return slightly, which the Cubs would welcome, but they'd still have to give up at least as much as for Holmes and Weaver.

The wild card is the Tigers. Though they tried to talk about Tarik Skubal with former Cubs employee Scott Harris, the Cubs knew all along that they were better positioned to aim for Casey Mize. They were interested in now-Tigers reliever Kyle Finnegan both at last year's trade deadline and during the offseason, and could snap up both Mize and Finnegan (or Kenley Jansen, if they opt for more experience at the back end of a game) in a deal now that Skubal is off the board and out of the way.

There's an almost inevitable overlap between what the Cubs would surrender to get both a starter and a reliever in the same deal and what they would trade to acquire a controllable starter like Reid Detmers. That creates a dilemma for the team: Should they hold out for a bigger prize, and risk not landing them? Or should they pay the freight to get their major shopping done in one swoop, knowing it means waiting until the winter to address the holes in their 2027 rotation? The answer could come down to whether they find an alternative on the relief market whom they can acquire cheaply enough to preserve their depth for a Detmers-or-similar trade—a tricky thing to figure, given the lack of depth in their farm system and the profundity of their need for a high-leverage reliever.