The Chicago Cubs had a very active offseason, adding as many free agents as any other club. They had a steep hill to climb from where they were last year to “competitiveness” this year, and we’ll see if they got there. But I can’t deny that a lot of solid moves were made.
And the Cubs still might not be done, even here a week into Spring Training games:
For Jed Hoyer to say something like that – that he wouldn’t be shocked if someone new came to camp – I can safely tell you that it means the Cubs are in active negotiations with someone. Maybe even have a tentative agreement in place. Hoyer simply doesn’t say things like that if there is ZERO predicate for it. He’s about as close-to-the-vest as it gets, and you can usually read his “yeah maybe” as “yeah probably.”
I’m not saying for SURE that some additional deal is in place, but Mooney has been hinting at a reliever signing for the Cubs (even after Michael Fulmer) for a while. So him getting this quote from Hoyer, and prefacing it with the lefty reliever note, I’m thinking there’s some serious smoke here.
Now here’s where we do some really specific speculating: the one remaining lefty reliever whom we’ve heard attached to the Cubs multiple times, and whom we know the Cubs have scouted, is Zack Britton.
Let me put it in Hoyer’s words: it would not shock me if the Cubs wind up landing Britton in the coming days. And that would be cool.