Cubs will trade these players before this summer’s trade deadline

Next summer, the Cubs will undergo a dramatic transformation at the deadline.

In an ideal world, the Chicago Cubs would be spending like the big market team they are. Instead, they’re poised to tear this roster down to the studs, extracting value wherever they can – as evidenced by this week’s trade of Yu Darvish.

That deal netted four prospects and big leaguer Zach Davies, who is heading into his final year of team control in 2021. Cubs fans were seemingly caught off-guard by how far off the minor league talent that came over in the deal is and it sent a pretty clear message: the future is the focus.

While we’ve seen new president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer already make some big subtractions to the roster, there has been little in the way of additions. That could only get worse as the 2021 season gets underway. With (hopefully) fans in the stands and revenue streams opening back up across the league as the COVID-19 vaccine is distributed, teams will be more apt to make big moves – and the Cubs will be right in the thick of it.

The first guy I suspect will be on the move? Davies himself. Teams in the postseason hunt always want more pitching and given he’s affordable and in the last year of his deal, the soft-tossing righty checks a lot of boxes.

He’s coming off the best season of his career with San Diego, in which he made a dozen starts and complied a 2.73 ERA and 1.067 WHIP. Davies allowed just 55 hits in 69 1/3 innings of work, keeping hitters off-balance with his mix of off-speed stuff. He brings short-term value to the Cubs in an arm that can fill some of the void left by Darvish – and could pay off big-time if he picks up where he left off in 2020 and Chicago can flip him at the deadline.

Cubs desperately need Craig Kimbrel to be lights-out next season

The signing of Craig Kimbrel hasn’t played out the way Theo Epstein and the Cubs had hoped for. Once seemingly destined for Cooperstown, the seven-time All-Star has been a shell of his former self since coming to Chicago.

But late last year, something seemed to click. Heading into the postseason, I wrote about his resurgence and how it could make the Cubs a dark-horse contender in October (clearly that wasn’t the case, but it was in no way Kimbrel’s fault).

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Across his final 12 2/3 innings of work, the 32-year-old allowed a diminutive .342 OPS. Opposing hitters batting just .045 against his heater and he worked his way back into manager David Ross’ circle of trust, even late in ballgames.

His fastball velocity ticked up over the course of the 60-game schedule and once he was back where he’s been for much of his career, the results spoke for themselves. Now, heading into the final year of his three-year, $45 million contract, he could end up being one of Chicago’s most valuable trade chips.

Assuming you deal him at or around the deadline, the price tag for another team would drop to call it $8 million – more or less. That’s certainly not cheap, but if you’re a club that looks like a lock for October and what you’re missing is a power arm at the back end of the bullpen (hello, 2016 Cubs) – all of the sudden, that number feels pretty doable.

Again, like the next guy we’ll talk about, it’s all about Kimbrel’s first-half performance. He can’t take three months to figure it out if the Cubs are going to get any real value from trading him. Kimbrel will need to come out guns blazing this spring for a trade to net anything significant.