We don’t know if the Chicago Cubs will be buyers or sellers at next week’s Trade Deadline. We do know that the odds much more strongly favor selling. I can be honest with myself about that, even if it’s not what I wanted to be talking about again this year.
HOWEVER. Since there is still a chance that the Cubs will be buying, I wanted to at least LIGHTLY dip my toe in the “whom might the Cubs acquire?” waters while I have a chance to do it.
I won’t go unrealistically nuts – ALTHOUGH THE CUBS SHOULD TOTALLY GO GET OHTANI – and I’ll start right now with a very modest possible target: Rockies first baseman C.J. Cron
Right now, the Cubs don’t have an overwhelmingly great offense, but they do have solid starters at most spots. But we all know where the production has continued to lag: first base and DH.
That means acquiring a pure bat at the deadline is an obvious possibility for the Cubs, though I don’t know that I see them going WAY over the top, paying a HUGE price to acquire a top-tier rental bat (if one even winds up available).
If everyone stays healthy, I suspect we’ll continue to see Mike Tauchman draw starts in center field at times against righties, with Cody Bellinger playing first base in those instances. But when the Cubs face a lefty, and Bellinger is in center, we continue to see Trey Mancini drawing starts at first base. I know that Mancini is great in the clubhouse, is on a two-year deal, and has a history of very solid production. But this year – .237/.300/.342/76 wRC+ -he’s simply not hitting. And the defense at first base … don’t get me started. Let’s just say it would be nice if the Cubs gave themselves another option there.
So that’s where Cron comes in. The 33-year-old righty bat is a pure rental, making $7.25 million this year before hitting free agency. He missed time this weekend with back stiffness, so you’d have to keep an eye on that before making a trade, but Jon Heyman reported that it’s not seen as serious (and the Rockies have every reason to be overly cautious right now). Cron also missed time earlier this year with a back issue, for what it’s worth.
Cron is underperforming this year, hitting just .255/.299/.480/92 wRC+ (though that would still be an upgrade over what the Cubs’ 1B/DH options have collectively averaged this year). But coming into this year, he was a career .255/.299/.480/111 wRC+ guy, usually good for 25 to 30 homers a year. He’s been hot lately (.319/.347/.681/159 wRC+ in July), and the peripherals suggest he’s actually been pretty unlucky this year (second best barrel rate and hard contact rate of his career, xwOBA 36 points higher than his actual wOBA).
In other words, this could be a nice buy-low situation on a guy whose numbers probably don’t reflect what you’d expect him to do the rest of the season. Cron is also fairly split-neutral for his career, and rates out as a pretty good defensive first baseman. This is a fit. A clear fit.
The Cubs have shown no indication that they would be willing to bring up any of their Triple-A veteran righty bats at Iowa – Nelson Velazquez, Yonathan Perlaza (switch), David Bote, or Jake Slaughter – for a boost against lefties in the second half, and even if they did, there’s obviously no guarantee they would out-produce Trey Mancini, much less a trade acquisition like Cron.
The flip side here is that if Nick Madrigal returns healthy-ish soon-ish, you might see him locking down third base, which would impact this discussion in two ways: (1) it would mean Christopher Morel has to keep finding his at bats in other ways, and that probably means a lot of DH’ing, reducing a spot for an acquired righty bat against lefties; and (2) it would mean the Cubs could look to give Patrick Wisdom some starts at first base if his resurgence at the plate continues.
But the thing about the deadline is … it’s your last chance. You can’t add from outside the organization for the stretch run after the deadline anymore. No more August trade waivers. This is it. So even if you’re hopeful that Thing X or Thing Y will happen internally, you kinda have to prepare now in case it doesn’t.
Throw in the fact that the Cubs are overloaded with the kinds of prospects you’d typically see moved in a deal like this (guys you know, but whose loss wouldn’t necessarily hurt the farm system at this stage, especially given the roster limits), and this makes a lot of sense.
