Matthew Trueblood

Mastro, Mancini, and Wisdom in right! Yes, they’ve done some wild horsefeathers that way. The difference is that I think they felt they had no choice in those situations, but they *are* fairly comfortable with Wisdom, Mastro, and Madrigal as defensive 3B even while still trying to contend. Again, I’m with you. I just see a distinction they might be drawing there, between being cornered and proactively choosing a risky alignment.

In the latest episode of the weirdest Cubs podcast on the web, we gain a sponsor (kind of) but lose (most of) our hope. It's live, it's thrilling, and it's very much a rebuild. Check it out. Image courtesy of Matt Trueblood via Spotify for Podcasters This is the long-awaited special episode, recorded from the unofficial podcast headquarters in bucolic Homewood, Ill. It's a late-nighter, and it shows. Let's get weird. Together in one room for the first time in the podcast's short history, the four co-hosts discuss whether Marcus Stroman, Justin Steele, Cody Bellinger, and other Cubs should be traded before next week's MLB trade deadline; bemoan the frustrating Thursday night loss they attended together; and try to widen the lens to take better stock of the long-term position of the organization. Within that are questions of who is to blame for the team's disparity between talent level and record; the relative merits of various minor-league replacements for Patrick Wisdom or Julian Merryweather; and the best players to wear the number 39 in Cubs history. It's a bit contentious, a bit bizarre, and very much a circuitous conversation. We had fun, though, and so can you. View full article

Mmm. Except the Cubs didn't do that until 2022, when they were bad and knew they would be bad and the focus was solely on that kind of development project. They won't (and I think shouldn't) do the same as they did with Happ unless or until they fall out of contention, I would guess. I do agree that that's what you'd need to find out about Morel once and for all, and you need the data that that stability would generate about his offense, too. I'm just not sure they feel like they're in a position to take the risk that comes with it at the moment. Much could change in a week, though.

Depends on a *lot* of things, right? I think it’s clear that the Cubs have deep and well-founded reservations about Morel’s defense at third. Candelario, by contrast, is more or less reliable there, though without plus range. Offensively, he’s way, way more of a sure thing, but we’ve seen Morel’s upside and it’s tantalizing. I do think it’s telling that even now that Swanson is back, the default seems to be putting Morel at DH and using Wisdom or Mastrobuoni at 3B. We don’t have to agree with them, but if either the FO or the coaching staff simply don’t trust Morel at third, then he’s not a solution or an option at that position.

Oh for sure. To be clear, if it’s Herz, that’s as a secondary piece in a package of three guys, probably, but yeah. This is the benefit of a deep farm system. The Cubs can better part with that crop of guys than many teams can.

In finishing a must-win homestand 6-4, the Cubs gained little clarity about next week's MLB trade deadline. That they avoided becoming outright sellers constitutes that win they needed, though, and it gives us cause to talk about what acquiring a valuable rental bat would look like. Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-USA TODAY Sports Cody Bellinger hit so well over the last week and a half that he has simultaneously cemented himself as the best impending free-agent hitter who could be traded at this deadline, and decreased the likelihood that he actually will be. If we nix Bellinger (at least for the purposes of this discussion) as a trade candidate, then the guy who emerges as the top rental bat on the market is former Cub (and especially Cubs prospect) Jeimer Candelario. Non-tendered by the Tigers after a miserable 2022, Candelario has regained the form he showed in 2021 this year with the Nationals. The Cubs saw just how dangerous he can be last week. He only collected three hits in 14 plate appearances during Washington's stop at Wrigley Field, but two of them left the park. On the year, he's hitting .254/.333/.474, with 27 doubles, two triples, and 15 home runs. In over 800 plate appearances in 2020-21, he batted .278/.356/.458, so this isn't a new level for him. It's just a return to what he's demonstrated the ability to do in the past. Candelario's defense is always a bit of a Rorschach test. He gives you things to like and things to dislike, and even defensive metrics tend to give mixed or contradictory reports on him. In that way, he's not dissimilar from the Cubs' incumbents at the hot corner, Nick Madrigal, Patrick Wisdom, and Christopher Morel. By and large, though, he's looked better this year than in the last two, and he wouldn't in any way compromise the defensive phalanx the Cubs have strived to create. Nor is it hard to see how Candelario would fit into the lineup. He's been consistently better as a left-handed batter, against right-handed pitchers, but he's not bootless against lefties, either. The batting orders in the wake of a trade for Candelario could shake out something like this: vs. RHP vs. LHP 1 Tauchman - DH Hoerner - 2B 2 Happ - LF Suzuki - RF 3 Candelario - 3B Candelario - 3B 4 Bellinger - CF Swanson - SS 5 Suzuki - RF Bellinger - CF 6 Swanson - SS Happ - LF 7 Mervis - 1B Gomes - C 8 Gomes - C Wisdom - DH 9 Hoerner - 2B Mancini - 1B The improvement in each of those, relative to the team's current options, is obvious and immense. Candelario isn't the transformational masher Cubs fans would most love to see the team find somewhere, but he's a superb lengthener of a lineup like this one. He'd give the Cubs the occasional home run, but also fit well into their perpetual plan to draw walks, hit doubles, and apply pressure by stringing together hits. Of course, even after that encouraging weekend against the lowly Cardinals, it feels a bit odd to talk about the team landing a player who would be a true rental. Candelario will hit free agency after this season, and the Cubs would probably have to give the Nationals something commensurate with the value of a compensatory draft pick, because (like Bellinger) he's played his way from being cut by one team to being worthy of a qualifying offer from another one in less than a year. That's just to enter the bidding; the final price would have to beat the offers likely to come in from a handful of other contenders in need of an offensive boost. Part of the price for Candelario could be one of the third basemen the Cubs have already used this year: Wisdom, Madrigal, or Morel. If it were the latter, surely, that would be all Chicago would be willing to give up, and even it would feel awfully rich. Morel's lack of a clear defensive home and his streakiness during long exchanges of adjustment with MLB pitchers make him risky to keep, but his power, speed, and overall upside make him risky to trade, especially for a short-term asset. He has five years of team control left after 2023, and won't reach arbitration eligibility until 2026 because of the Cubs' choice to keep him in Iowa for almost six weeks to start this year. Wisdom, believe it or not, has some trade value, because he'll still have three years of team control (albeit as an over-30, arbitration-eligible slugger whose homers might inflate his earning power past his usefulness) left when this season ends. So might Madrigal, despite his ups and downs and even despite his relentless battles with injuries. Neither could carry a trade for Candelario on their own, though. The Cubs do have a laundry list of players who make sense in a deal like this one, though. This winter, they face tough decisions about whether to add several players to their 40-man roster, or expose them to the Rule 5 Draft. These include Triple-A hitters Jake Slaughter, Luis Vazquez, and Yonathan Perlaza, and Double-A arms DJ Herz, Kohl Franklin, Richard Gallardo, Carlos Guzman, Porter Hodge, and Luke Little. The Nationals would have to add any of those guys (or Michael Arias, whom I mentioned in yesterday's post about trading with the woebegone Royals for starter Brady Singer) to their roster this winter, too, of course, but they have much more deadweight and space on their projected roster to fit them. The Cubs could pair one of their controllable big-league pieces with one of those guys to put together a competitive offer, or go a step further and include B.J. Murray--a kind of mini-Candelario, who seems to be passing the Double-A test with flying colors in his second full pro season and who looks like an imminently useful big-league hitter. Murray doesn't need to be added to the 40-man until after next season, and would be an appealing trade chip for a Washington team trying to assemble a more competitive roster in the medium term. That Candelario is only a short-term addition will hold his price down, even as teams vie for the right to land him. The Cubs wouldn't need to part with any of their top-tier talent to get him. Giving up Morel would really sting, but a package of Wisdom, Hodge, and Murray has some chance of getting the deal done. Again, it's bizarre to talk about trading for a rental player while trade rumors still swirl around Stroman, Bellinger, and others, but the Cubs earned themselves and their fans the right to think about it for (at least) a couple more days. View full article

Obviously, the return for him would be basically zilch. BUT: Carson Kelly since the start of 2022: .207/.271/.321. Tucker Barnhart since the start of 2022: .215/.287/.265. And he hits lefty! They genuinely might be helped by having him, however incrementally.

The Arizona Diamondbacks are reeling, and they took another painful hit Sunday. Rookie catcher Gabriel Moreno, the prized acquisition of their offseason and a key part of their strong first half, landed on the 10-day injured list with shoulder inflammation. Moreno has been playing through that problem for a while now, and his diminished performance has been one small part of the team's major slide throughout this month. The D'Backs could be an interesting fit for a trade involving Yan Gomes, or even one for Tucker Barnhart, depending on Moreno's prognosis. Because it's been a while since they were relevant in the Dodgers-dominated NL West, Arizona will try to make the most of the opportunity this season presents. They feel a bit like the 2015 Cubs: loaded with talent, but skidding the wrong direction at the deadline and not inclined to sell the farm in order to get this particular club over the top. They're just entering what they hope will be a years-long winning window. However, GM Mike Hazen did say they would be aggressive in their search for upgrades, and they've been creative traders in the past. Zac Gallen came to Arizona in a challenge trade for Jazz Chisholm, Jr. The deal that brought Moreno to the desert this winter in exchange for Daulton Varsho was similarly bold and (in an era of boring, buyer/seller, value-focused dealing) unusual. Could that mean that this emergent need creates an opening for packaging Gomes with a pitcher like Michael Fulmer or Marcus Stroman to give the Diamondbacks help on two fronts, in exchange for one of the more exciting prospects in their strong system? I already wrote about what trading Fulmer to Arizona could look like last week, and I also covered the possibility of packaging Stroman and Gomes. This one bears watching, even as the Cubs walk the line between buying and selling. View full rumor

The runs allowed would, in a vacuum, suggest that the Cubs' pitching plan didn't work well against the Cardinals Saturday. Considering how bad a matchup the Cardinals are for Drew Smyly and the Cubs bullpen, though, it was par for the course. Next time through the rotation, it's time to try something more like a real solution. Image courtesy of © John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports It's been a steady but inexorable tumble for Drew Smyly, since his strong start to the season. His seasonal ERA is up to 4.69, but that doesn't even begin to tell the full tale of his woes. Over his last 10 appearances, he's thrown 48 1/3 innings, with an ERA of 7.08. Opposing hitters are hitting .327/.397/.599, When Smyly takes the mound, the whole league is hitting like likely NL MVP Ronald Acuna, Jr. Smyly still flashes the ability to get outs. He's not completely washed up. In fact, he has 12 strikeouts and just two walks over his last two appearances. He's just not able to get through entire outings without breaking down a bit and getting hit hard. Whether the Cubs can stay in contention for the balance of this month or not, then, it's time to demote Smyly to the bullpen. By using Michael Fulmer for the first full turn through the St. Louis order Saturday, the Cubs signaled that they're aware of that fact--even if the primary motivation for doing it was really the Cardinals' uniquely deep and platoon-capable bench, which gave David Ross trouble Saturday in a game started by fellow southpaw Justin Steele. Just as the Cubs finished their rain-disrupted win at Wrigley, Hayden Wesneski took the mound in Iowa. He twirled five scoreless innings, allowing just four hits and striking out eight, without walking a batter. For Wesneski, it was the next in a line of starts in which he's been as good as Smyly has been bad. Going all the way back to when he was first optioned to Triple A in mid-May, Wesneski now has 12 appearances between that level and the big leagues. Over that span, he's fired 41 1/3 innings, and he's running a 2.83 ERA. He's fanned 49 batters and walked 14, and opponents are hitting .182/.261/.338. He's had some good batted-ball luck, but when he's right, he manages contact quality well, anyway. Right now, he's very much right. One major adjustment for Wesneski has been turning into primarily a four-seam fastball guy, rather than the primarily sinker guy he was last year and to open this season. He's still utilizing slightly different release points for his four-seamer and cutter than for his sinker, sweeping slider, and changeup, but he's found better ways to be deceptive and effective while doing so. For one thing, he's slid back toward the first-base side of the rubber, after trending toward the third-base side early this year. For another, he's getting more comfortable shaping his slider, using it more as a true sweeper against righties and getting more depth on it against lefties. Perhaps most helpfully, though, Wesneski is starting to use the top of the strike zone with that four-seamer. Because his heater lacks elite rise, he'd been very reluctant to do that in the past, but the result was that hitters could cover his whole arsenal without having to commit to one offering or another. He's creating better contrast with better location now, and it's made a huge difference. Regardless of whether the rest of the Cubs' season needs to be spent evaluating players for the future or whether they become surprising contenders with another surge through the deadline, Wesneski is the right man for the fifth spot in the starting rotation. The team won't need to get cute or creative every fifth day. They just need to make Smyly the lefty reliever missing from their bullpen, and promote Wesneski back to the majors. View full article

And if the project didn’t take, Singer would be a potentially killer reliever, too, with that two-pitch mix and the possibility of his stuff playing up in shorter bursts. A nice fallback plan if you invest in him.

The velocity is a limiting factor for him, no doubt. Worth noting. I think you probably unlock an extra tick if you get him throwing a four-seamer, but that’s speculative. I think I agree with your note about the prospects who’d be involved, too. It’s tough. I didn’t want to list off the entire Tennessee rotation, and I didn’t dig into position players, but yeah, guys like Herz, Hodge, McGeary could just as easily be parts of the discussion.

The upside to being stuck in the gray area between buying and selling is that the Chicago Cubs can be open-minded and flexible as the MLB trade deadline approaches. Even as they shop Marcus Stroman and Kyle Hendricks, for instance, they could look to acquire a controllable starting pitcher to take their place. Singer has a slider that he commands brilliantly, and which can miss bats consistently. He has one of the game's heaviest sinkers. Right now, he doesn't have a third pitch, and he's been oddly stubborn about adding one. He's also not using the upper half of the zone much at all, making it too easy for hitters to lock in on his favored locations and pummel the ball. The Cubs can do more to fix those problems than can the Royals, though, not only because they're better at pitcher development, but because the trade itself would force Singer to accept the fact that he's no longer a prized asset. They also seem like a good organization to help him better conceptualize his sinker usage. He seems more comfortable locating that pitch to the glove side (the first-base edge of home plate), which is very unusual for a sinker from a right-handed pitcher, and speaks to some latent skills that match beautifully with the Cubs' organizational strengths. Because Singer has two minor-league options left, the Cubs could send him to Iowa while they tinker with his arsenal and try to unlock his best self. That's what they did upon acquiring Jake Arrieta in 2013, and while the ceiling is lower here, the concept is the same. Then, he would still be optionable in 2024, adding flexibility to a rotation that has rarely enjoyed that advantage over the last several seasons. Trading for Singer would not proscribe trading Marcus Stroman or Kyle Hendricks. In fact, it would be a logical tandem maneuver. It would slightly cushion whatever hit the Cubs' remote playoff odds would take by trading one of those guys. It would relieve the aforementioned crunch in the minors, which trading either of those guys would only exacerbate. It would also give them more leverage and more cost certainty as they head into the offseason, including leverage in negotiations to bring Stroman back via free agency. This is the kind of risky acquisition from which Jed Hoyer habitually shies, but sooner or later, the Cubs need to take a few more chances. Singer would be a good target, because while he's superficially unattractive and unlikely to come at an intimidating cost, he could improve tremendously under better instruction. View full article

The MLB trade deadline looms, and while the Cubs hung on to win a tough game Friday against the Cardinals, they still look like sellers. That's a bummer, but whichever way things break, the front office needs to be aggressive and creative. A recent injury for a top contender might have opened the door to that kind of move. Image courtesy of © Ray Acevedo-USA TODAY Sports We already know that Marcus Stroman has drawn interest from the Rays this month. He'd be a good fit, because despite being famous for their pitching depth, the Rays have suffered so many injuries that they need more help in the starting rotation. The Rays are an extremely rational buyer in trades like these, though, and wouldn't give up any of the prospects the Cubs might truly covet in a straight-up deal for a rental player like Stroman. On Thursday, though, Rays catcher Francisco Mejia sprained the MCL in his left knee. Mejia was in a timeshare behind the plate for Tampa, with Christian Bethancourt. Now, the Rays are dependent upon Bethancourt, who was splitting time with Mejia for a reason. They're thin at catcher overall. That could create an opening to package Yan Gomes with Stroman and send both to the Rays. Gomes has that very attractive $6-million club option for 2024. He's a good contributor to the run prevention effort, and he's having a terrific year at the plate, too. The Rays would love him, and the price the Cubs could extract for a Stroman-Gomes pairing would be much higher than the one they could get for Stroman alone. This is akin to the deal the team struck with the Mets in 2021, in that they threw in Trevor Williams (who was under team control through 2022, and filled a glaring need for optionable starting pitching depth) along with Javier Baez in order to get Pete Crow-Armstrong. The Rays have an entire tier of prospect talent that could come into play once the Cubs agree to include Gomes and Stroman, though any deal would probably need to include some insurance for the Rays against Stroman getting hurt and exercising his $21-million player option for 2024. While Junior Caminero has become too good and too heralded a prospect to acquire even for both Stroman and Gomes, putting both of them on the table would make it at least plausible to discuss Curtis Mead, Kyle Manzardo, or Jonathan Aranda. Mead is an Australian, with some of the rough edges that come with going through the process of amateur development in a context much different than the one that produces prospects in the Northern Hemisphere. However, he's an absolute monster at the plate. His 2022 season ended early due to an elbow injury, and his 2023 has been interrupted by a broken wrist that occurred when he was hit by a pitch. Despite that, he's hitting .306/.370/.493 as a 22-year-old in Triple A. He might end up at first base, but even if he does, he projects to be the kind of hitter who can be valuable in that role. If he sticks at third base, he would solve a lot of problems for the Cubs in a short time. Manzardo, 23, is a pure first baseman, and has been since college. It was a mild surprise to see the Rays spend a second-round pick on him in 2021, because they usually favor athletic, versatile players, but Manzardo has made it clear why they took the chance. He's a left-handed hitter with a patient approach. He gets the ball in the air, but doesn't strike out often. His numbers at Triple A this year reflect the need for him to slightly adjust his approach to use the big part of the field more, but he's likely to bat .300 a few times in the majors before all is said and done, and he should have 20-homer power based on his ability to elevate. While no longer technically a prospect on the big lists, Aranda, 25, still has six years of team control left, and he's wasting away in Durham behind the stacked Rays infield group. He has his warts--including lousy defense, no matter where he plays on the infield--but he also shows an excellent, all-fields approach. He's struck out far too often in his very limited exposure to MLB pitching, but that hasn't been a problem for him in even the high minors, and his swing doesn't suggest that whiffs should be a long-term problem. He's put up stupid numbers in Triple A over the last two seasons: .328/.419/.552, with 45 doubles, a triple, and 35 home runs in 802 plate appearances. Acquiring Mead would be a bet on solving third base with a plus bat for the long term, even if there's a lot to smooth out defensively. Landing Manzardo or Aranda would be something more on the order of ensuring that first base is solved, by adding one of them to Matt Mervis and knowing that the odds favor one or the other panning out sometime very soon. If it were Stroman and Gomes in the deal, the Cubs should also be able to get some low-level lottery ticket from Tampa to go with Manzardo or Aranda. Moving on even from Stroman would be painful for Cubs fans. Gomes is valuable, not only for his right-handed bat and veteran presence, but because of that year of cheap team control remaining. Last week, we saw the Braves extend the contract of Travis d'Arnaud, making it even tougher on teams who will be hunting for catching help this winter. If the Cubs can bear it, including Gomes could let them grab a lineup-altering bat for the long term. It would mean a real reconfiguration is ahead for this roster, but that's necessary anyway. View full article

Now 3-4 on a 10-game homestand in which they needed at least six wins to avoid becoming sellers, the Cubs are 10 days from the trade deadline and almost sure to be trading away short-term pieces. Some of those will be high-impact moves, if done correctly, but there are also small moves that need to be undertaken. Here's one of them. Image courtesy of Peter van den Berg-USA TODAY Sports It's been an up-and-down season for Michael Fulmer, but from the perspective of a team trying to get a little bit of value for him in a trade, it's taken the right shape. After a brutal start, Fulmer has been brilliant since the start of June. He's made 17 appearances in the last month and a half, totaling just over 20 innings pitched. He's running an ERA of 1.33 during that span, and allowing opponents to bat just .141/.240/.234. He's fanned 20 of the 75 batters he's faced, and fixed the home run problem he had early in the season. That said, the Cubs should get a solid (if small) return for Fulmer, who will be a free agent again at season's end. He's not only effective, but affordable, and it's easy to see why. After tinkering with his new sweeper and trying to make things work with both a four- and a two-seam fastball, a changeup, his primary slider and the sweeping one, he's acknowledged that much of that wasn't working and stripped things down. He's now, primarily, a four-seamer and slider guy, and it's both allowed him to execute more consistently and helped him find success against left-handed batters, which eluded him early on. Since everyone wants to boost their bullpen at the deadline, the Cubs should have plenty of suitors for Fulmer. He's not an elite arm, and there will be clearly superior relievers available, but the team should still be able to find a modestly valuable return for him somewhere in the marketplace. Where, though? Well, the most obvious place might be the Arizona Diamondbacks, who lag the Dodgers by two games in the three-team fight for the NL West. The upstarts in the desert have a surprisingly strong lineup, but need help in both the rotation and the bullpen. Fulmer would be one of the best hurlers in their pen as soon as he arrived. The Diamondbacks also have a fairly deep farm system, with plenty of players who might constitute fair value for a player like Fulmer. That means that they'll have warts. The most talented players the Cubs might acquire in a deal like this would be far-off young hitters in Low A, and the team should be open-minded about that. Despite the perception that the Cubs will need to contend in 2024 and should focus only on players who can clearly help them do so, the bigger-picture truth here is that the team needs to acquire talent and make progress. Whatever shape that takes, it needs to be done, and the Cubs aren't in a strong enough position to draw lines between the young talent they want and that which they don't. However, considering the risk involved, I think the best scenario for a trade sending Fulmer to the Diamondbacks would bring back a starting pitcher in Triple A. In fact, there are two arms at Arizona's Reno affiliate who merit some discussion here. One is soft-tossing, lanky five-pitch lefty Blake Walston. He's working with a fastball much more about movement and location than about velocity, and it's uncomfortable to imagine trying to bring along a clone of Rich Hill in the pitching environment of 2023. That Walston is running a dangerously low strikeout rate and posting an ERA north of 4.50 in Reno speaks to that. On the other hand, Walston has a very Cubs kind of vibe, and his repertoire is evolving nicely as he tries to weaponize his good command. More conventionally attractive, by modern standards, is Slade Cecconi, a hard-throwing 6-foot-4 righty with a plus slider. Arizona has cleaned up his delivery a bit, but they haven't yet gotten him over the Reno hump, either. Both guys become eligible to be taken in the Rule 5 Draft this fall if not added to the 40-man roster, so they're just the kinds of players teams like Arizona try to move in deals like these in July. That doesn't mean they're trash that would simply be dumped on the Cubs, though, and if the front office spots things they could work with on either hurler, they could become instant candidates for the back end of the rotation next year. Unlike some of the others who will crowd that competition, too, they're each good candidates to move to the bullpen if needed--especially Cecconi, whose stuff could play up enormously. There might be a deal packaging Marcus Stroman with Fulmer that would allow the Cubs to target the higher-ceiling players in the Arizona farm system, but that feels unlikely. Fulmer is more likely to yield a player with some work left to do, and that's ok. The Cubs can still use whatever they get in return, be it as further trade capital this winter or by seeking out players whom they can develop better than their current teams have done. View full article

Pete Crow-ArmstrongJordan WicksJames TriantosCade HortonKevin AlcantaraMatt ShawMiguel AmayaOwen CaissieBen BrownAlexander CanarioMoises BallesterosDaniel PalenciaMatt MervisHaydn McGearyJackson FerrisJosh RiveraCristian HernandezJaxon WigginsJefferson RojasWill Sanders

In 2019, the Mets stunned baseball by being the team who traded for Marcus Stroman ahead of the trade deadline. At the time of that trade, they were 49-55. They were eager to demonstrate their commitment to winning, though, and they viewed adding Stroman as a key step toward contending in 2020. Can the Cubs pull off an even bolder stroke? Image courtesy of © Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports One year ago, the San Diego Padres beat the rest of the market and hauled in Juan Soto from the sinking ship of the post-2019 Washington Nationals. Soto was in the midst of an off year, but it was broadly understood that he was still one of the game's three or four most brilliant young hitters, and he had two and a half years of team control remaining. With Soto in the heart of their lineup, San Diego came within two wins of their first pennant since 1998. Alas, the magic has not lasted into 2023. Soto is having a more typical season. Fernando Tatis, Jr. is back at the top of their lineup, doing dynamic things on both offense and defense. They have as deep a roster of stars as any team in baseball. Yet, they enter play Wednesday at 45-50. They're 10 games out and in fourth place in the NL West. They're seven games out of the final Wild Card spot, currently held by the Phillies, and the Marlins and the Reds are both between Philadelphia and San Diego in the standings, too. Yes, this is a "the Cubs should trade for Juan Soto" post, in 2023. By no means are the Padres ready to blow up the huge and expensive experiment they began a few years ago, when general manager A.J. Preller started trading for every good player who became available, especially if they had multiple years of team control remaining. To borrow a poker term, the Friars are pot-committed. However, the aforementioned expensiveness of this gambit might already be catching up to them a bit. They look unlikely to generate the buzz or the fevered ticket-buying for which they'd hoped, for the balance of this year, and while tickets sold last winter are already locked in, the team can't even afford absenteeism on the part of paid ticketholders based on their current model. That's because the local TV rights bubble has popped, and the Padres were the first victims. Bally Sports walked away from their obligations to broadcast Padres games, and while MLB has won enough in court to secure the majority of the payments that were due to the team (in addition to picking up the slack in actually producing the games), the short- and long-term costs are enormous. The Padres suddenly face extraordinary uncertainty in a part of their budget in which teams have become accustomed to lucrative certitude. That's not to say that Soto will hit the market at all, and certainly not to say that Preller will sell him cheap. It's just an important foundational fact. Soto is making $23 million in 2023, and that's just in Year Three of his four seasons of arbitration eligibility. He'll push close to $30 million in salary for 2024. He's a hefty line item on the bloated Padres payroll, and if the talent coming back were sufficient, Preller would be derelict if he didn't listen. How could the Cubs be the ones to land Soto? It starts with either Ian Happ or Seiya Suzuki. Much depends on which of those two players the Padres value more highly, and some depends on which of the two the Cubs could convince to waive their no-trade clauses, but that's how the trade begins. Both players are good, and both should be even better than they've been thus far this season. Either would slide nicely into Soto's place on the Padres, hitting lower in their much stronger batting order but playing his vacated left field better and saving San Diego substantial money. The Padres' hopes for 2023 are dim, but they remain a potential favorite for 2024, and Happ or Suzuki could keep it that way. Just as importantly, from Preller's always-hungry perspective, both Happ and Suzuki are under team control through 2026. The Soto acquisition last summer was typical of Preller, not only because it was big and splashy, but because it prioritized long-term control. Preller spent almost as lavishly, in terms of prospect capital, for the likes of Mike Clevinger, Austin Nola, Joe Musgrove, Blake Snell, and Yu Darvish, at various times. He doesn't like acquiring rentals. He wants to acquire players with medium-term team control. Obviously, though, neither that love of lengthy commitments nor the Padres' mild financial crunch will make Preller jump at a straight-up swap of Soto for Happ or Suzuki. Those two just get a different, more productive conversation started between the teams, relative to a team who might call and offer only prospects for Soto. The Cubs would have to add a prospect of significant value, like Kevin Alcantara or Cade Horton, in order to make a potential trade come into clearer focus. Pete Crow-Armstrong's inclusion would really grease the wheels, but that's likely to be anathema to the Cubs front office, and even to fans. Giving up one of the anchors of the current roster and one of the tentpole talents of the farm system would sting, and the Cubs might even need to include more to finish off a deal for Soto. Even so, it'd be worth it. In a scenario in which the Cubs did this, they'd probably retain at least one of Marcus Stroman and Cody Bellinger, too. They'd give themselves a markedly better chance of catching the Reds and Brewers in the NL Central, just as the Mets nearly caught up in the playoff hunt four years ago. New York was even further from a playoff berth than the Cubs are when they made that Stroman trade, but as it turned out, they acquired him just a few games into a streak in which they won 15 of 16. Were it not for a late swoon, the team might have made the postseason that year, even though the concept of the trade was to gear up for 2020. Soto would be a transformational acquisition for the Cubs. He'd alter their lineup overnight, augmenting their grinding, patient offense (first in MLB in pitches seen per plate appearance) and adding major power thereto. He's the superstar outsider who can accelerate a slog from rebuilding to contention--the mirror image of the Jon Lester signing from 2015. He's hitting .265/417/.491, with 17 home runs and 23 doubles this year, and as always, he's leading MLB in walks. He'd replace Happ's or Suzuki's patience, but with better contact skills and more consistent pop. He'd only be under team control through 2024, but that's fine. The Cubs need to be focused on winning in 2024, right now, and that might not mean trading away valuable players at this deadline--which could yield the most talent only if the team is willing to take guys who might not contribute for another two or three years. Rather, it might best be achieved by adding someone who could also help them make a desperate run in 2023, and then gearing up to make them the centerpiece of a 2024 winner. View full article