NEWSLETTER
For a few days, at least, the Chicago Cubs were aggressive. They locked down Japanese lefty Shota Imanaga on a creative contract, and then traded for Dodgers slugging prospect Michael Busch and righty reliever Yency Almonte. In a couple days, the Cubs had done vastly more (infinitely, strictly speaking) than they’d done in the first two months of the offseason.
But what now? Will this aggression stand?
Bob Nightengale suggests he’s heard it will, from multiple places: “GMs and executives widely predict that the Cubs will easily be the most aggressive team the remainder of the winter.”
Now, the question is, are these GMs and executives predicting on the basis of things they’ve heard behind the scenes, or is this just a repeat of the week after the Cubs snagged Craig Counsell and everyone was “predicting” a very “aggressive” offseason for the Cubs?
It’s certainly still possible that the Cubs go out and have what you could describe as an aggressive remainder of the offseason. They could re-sign Cody Bellinger. They could sign two impactful relief arms. They could land an additional starting pitcher. These things are all possible, individually or all together, and the front office’s patience seems designed to pull this kind of thing off. Would that series of moves make the Cubs “easily the most aggressive” team the rest of the winter? I don’t know. It’s just language. The moves are what matters, not how they are perceived.
For his part, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer said this weekend that the Cubs were in the 4th or 5th inning of their offseason, which would seemingly leave many significant moves yet to come. Hoyer confirmed that, of course, there are more moves coming, but he wasn’t going to go into detail on the level of impact they’re eyeing at this point. So you still have to do a whole lot of speculating and dot-connecting.
Maybe I’m just reticent to set myself up for disappointment if the Cubs don’t add multiple impact pieces from here. We know the Cubs WOULD do it if they can get “good deals,” but that doesn’t necessarily strike me as being “the most aggressive team.”
Ultimately, I don’t think any of us care what the Cubs are called. Just get the moves done that make this the best on-paper roster in the NL Central come March. There remains zero excuse for not getting to that point, given the way the rest of the division is shaking out.
