NEWSLETTER
The 2022 MLB Draft begins in under an hour and the Cubs have a top-10 pick. That means we can’t dig as deeply as we’d like into the barrage of rumors that have popped up in the wake of Ken Rosenthal’s bombshell report that the Nationals are now open to trading Juan Soto. That is to say, there is much more coming – and a very important discussion to be had.
But for now, we do have time to recognize the increasing possibility that the Chicago Cubs are at least considered (within the industry) to be among the potential suitors in any such deal.
Andy McCullough canvassed some of his peers at The Athletic to get a sense of the likelihood of their team’s involvement, and the Cubs are given the full treatment by Sahadev Sharma, who makes a case for their involvement.
Is this the perfect time for Jed Hoyer to be aggressive and buy? Of course not. But there are only a handful of players who are young enough and talented enough who make sense to take a chunk out of a farm system that’s significantly improved over the last two years and will only look better after this week’s draft.
… Soto is exactly the player a team should acquire and then extend for an exorbitant amount of money, if you’re in a big-market that needs a superstar to build around. It doesn’t matter where you are in your contention cycle. The Cubs probably don’t have a deal that makes sense, but this is the type of player they need to put a jolt in this franchise.
Sharma also gets into the theoretical outline for a deal (as in what it might take to get it done), but like I said … we’ll get into that stuff another time. For now, I just want to point out his belief that the Cubs could/should become involved, especially because this was not the only place they were mentioned today.
At The New York Post, Jon Heyman includes the Cubs as one of only eight teams categorized as “likely hopefuls.” He doesn’t see the Cubs as particularly likely — apparently because they’re not contending this year (which should arguably not be a major factor) — but they are included among a very narrow field for a reason.
Here are all the teams mentioned between the two reports:
Given (1) how much it will cost to pay Juan Soto in his final two years of arbitration, (2) how much it will cost to extend him thereafter, and (3) the belief that any acquiring team will ALSO have to take on salary in the form of a bad contract, I think we will quickly see that the only actual, plausible landing spots are limited to big market clubs.
We can recognize or joke about the Cubs lack of spending right here, but the truth is they are one of the only organizations that could actually afford to get something done, setting the likelihood of any such deal aside. And that’s probably why they’ve been included in these two places at all.
Okay, stopping there for tonight, so much more coming.
