NEWSLETTER
We’ll just call this some Friday fun, as the Chicago Cubs are mentioned prominently:
a baker's dozen of teams that could play for manny machado as a free agent. includes the 9 teams that tried to trade for him, 3 others, plus the o's, course. https://t.co/fOnzaKNv6J
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) April 12, 2018
Yes, the Cubs are among those teams, having previously talked to the Orioles about a trade for Manny Machado before this season (can you imagine how things would look right now if something like that had happened? Certainly weird to mull, and that whole era of rumormongering was just so strange). Jon Heyman has the Cubs behind only the two most obvious landing spots – the Yankees and Phillies – in the race for Machado, who, like Bryce Harper, will be a rare 26-year-old superstar free agent after this season.
Like I said: at this point in the year, this is mostly just for fun.
I do think it’s fair to include the Cubs in these kinds of speculative write-ups, though, for a number of reasons:
Heyman recently performed this same exercise with Harper, whom he actually had as a longer shot to the Cubs than Machado. The mathematical reality of either of these players is that the Cubs are far more likely to get neither one than to get one of them. The contracts they receive will be otherworldly, and, although the Cubs certainly have the money available to support that kind of deal, that doesn’t mean they’re a lock to be the team that does it.
Moreover, you’ve got so many large market teams either in a competitive window or just about to emerge from a rebuild that I could think of a ton of immediate potential suitors for these guys – Angels, Rangers, Astros, White Sox, Yankees, Red Sox, Phillies, Nationals, Cubs, Cardinals, Dodgers, and Giants possibly among them.
Yes, it’s realistic that the Cubs could be in on these guys. I’m just saying, keep your expectations that they actually land one in check.
