NEWSLETTER
As soon as the Miami Marlins and San Diego Padres super-duper jumped the market on a Luis Arraez trade, pretty much everyone started scouring the Marlins’ roster for any other useful players they might look to move sooner than anyone would anticipate in a normal season (i.e., before late-July).
For the Chicago Cubs, that means one very obvious thing: the bullpen.
And I’m glad to hear from Dave Kaplan that the Cubs could be talking to the Marlins about exactly that.
Here’s what Kap said: “It’s incumbent on Jed Hoyer to make a move, and go get some bullpen help. And I’m hearing from a little birdie, who’s got his nose to the ground and his ears always listening, the Cubs and Marlins COULD – could – be working on a deal for a reliever.”
Kap goes on to suggest that the Cubs should do it, maybe get their closer (Tanner Scott), maybe get a starter like Jesus Luzardo (to move someone else into the bullpen). Luzardo is on the shelf right now with what is believed to be a minor elbow injury, but he’s been quite good the last two years, finally living up to the promise of his prospect hype. Lotta injury risk there, though, and a steep price.
Scott, though, makes a ton of sense both as someone the Marlins should move (free agent after this season), and as someone the Cubs should target (he’s got some down peripherals right now, but he’s trended back toward normal the last few weeks). Scott, 29, is a hard-throwing lefty who REALLY broke out last year with the Marlins (2.31 ERA over 78.0 innings, 33.9% K, 7.8% BB, 50.9% GB, 3.4% barrel). Get him the 9th inning on a good and competitive Cubs team, and I think he’d do really well. Want.
There are other interesting relievers there, too, like Andrew Nardi, Calvin Faucher, Bryan Hoeing, Declan Cronin, and Burch Smith, but they all strike me as either less compelling than Scott or far less likely to actually be traded. Scott just seems like a very logical target for the Cubs right now (and probably some other teams, too).
I’ll note here that Kaplan’s comment was not EXACTLY that the Cubs and Marlins are in active talks. It was, instead, that he’s heard they COULD be working on a deal, and he really emphasized that “could.” So I won’t necessarily start thinking this is on the doorstep or anything, only that it’s very logical and maybe possible, even though you wouldn’t usually think about trades in early May.
I’ll embed the video at the bottom of this post so that you can watch and hear the intonation for yourself.
