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Chicago Cubs: Bold predictions for the upcoming offseason
By Ryan Davies
Oct 9, 2015; St. Louis, MO, USA; Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein in attendance before game one of the NLDS against the St. Louis Cardinals at Busch Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Curry-USA TODAY Sports
The Price will be wrong, and Theo won’t land an ace
The talk at the trade deadline was all about David Price. His link to manager Joe Maddon, his tweets back and forth with Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta, the need for another ace in Chicago all led to the speculation he would someday be a Cub.
Now that Price and his Jays are eliminated, the question is where will he land?
Any Chicago Cubs fan would love to see Price on the North Side next season and many even feel not signing Price would mean the offseason would be a failure. In addition to the potential AL Cy Young award winner for last season, the NL Cy Young co-favorite Zack Greinke (in a coin flip with the Cubs’ Arrieta) will also be a free agent – as will Jordan Zimmermann, Johnny Cueto, Scott Kazmir.
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The Cubs know they need a starting pitcher or two in order to take the next step but keep in mind, they already have two aces in their hand in Arrieta and Jon Lester. Add to that the deep crop of second tier starters including Hiroshi Iwakuma, Yovani Gallardo, the emerging Marco Estrada, ex-Cub Jeff Samardzija, to name a few.
While the biggest names while have massive price tags attached, the next tier won’t be as prohibitive and signing two of those makes much more sense than signing one super ace. While a Price-Arrieta-Lester top 3 looks incredible, a full rotation of Arrieta-Lester-Estrada-Fister would give the Cubs a ton of options going forward. The Cubs also love reclamation projects (see Cahill, Richard, Turner, etc) so don’t discount the thought of going after Tim Lincecum, Brett Anderson or Ian Kennedy.
There are just way too many options as far as pitching goes to bet the farm on Price taking the Cubs to the promised land.