Chicago Cubs: Five players to keep, trade or dangle

As the trade deadline approaches, Chicago Cubs’ fans have been clamoring for trades. The real question is, who would they give up to get what they need or want?

The Chicago Cubs have been movers and shakers at the trade deadline or during waivers in every year of the “window of contention.” The June signing of free-agent closer Craig Kimbrel served as one big splash. It remains to be seen what kind of moves the Cubs will make as the July 31st trade deadline looms on the horizon.

As there is no other avenue to trade after the deadline this season, one would think that the next couple of days could be pretty crazy in the baseball world. Both buyers and sellers will be forced to make decisions with two full months left in the season and only eight teams more than seven games out of contention for a playoff spot.

As all the MLB clubs grapple with what they want to do, there’s no doubt that the Cubs are buyers, but there is the caveat that they may not want/be able to spend a whole lot. That being said, the price for prospects or big-league talent may go up to keep costs down. With that in mind, it becomes a reasonable and pragmatic exercise to figure out which assets the Cubs feel are available, not available, or possibly available.

As Theo Epstein has stated several times before, “no one is untouchable” given the right price. But we know certain guys are not going anywhere. There’s also no way Kyle Schwarber, Albert Almora, and Daniel Descalso are going to net you Mike Trout.

While there are many Cubs players fans don’t want to see go, you have to give something up to get something in return- let’s see who could be available and who definitely won’t be. For the sake of this hypothetical scenario, I’ll stick to MLB players only.