Cubs Rumors: Jeff Passan thinks Jed Hoyer should push his chips in on this player

The Chicago Cubs continue to defy the odds, winning even without their two top starting pitchers in Justin Steele, who's done for the year, and Shota Imanaga, who has been out since early May with a hamstring injury. Even so, there's no doubt in anyone's mind that adding to the starting rotation will be Jed Hoyer's top priority this summer.

Over at ESPN, Jeff Passan broke down all 30 teams' position with the July 31 trade deadline less than two months away - and he made it abundantly clear that, in his eyes, the Cubs need to be bold and make a high-risk move at the deadline. What should that move be? Acquiring former NL Cy Young Award winner Sandy Alcantara from the Miami Marlins.

Sandy Alcantara has struggled mightily since returning from Tommy John

If you aren't keeping tabs on the Marlins' right-hander, you might be asking yourself: "What's so risky about trading for a Cy Young winner?' Well, through his first 11 starts this year, Alcantara has allowed more earned runs than any other pitcher in baseball and carries an 8.47 ERA and -1.5 bWAR.

That's a far cry from what he did during his 2022 Cy Young campaign, when he was worth a league-best 8.0 bWAR while throwing nearly 230 frames of 2.28 ERA ball for the Fish. In other words, teams interested in his services will have to decide which pitcher they believe they're getting: the near-unusable pitcher of 2025 or one of the game's most dominant arms, who, by the way, is under team control through 2027.

In his piece, Passan acknowledges that risk, but believes Alcantara's upside makes him worth rolling the dice, especially for a team like the Cubs. If he gets back on track and Chicago can throw Alcantara, Imanaga and Matthew Boyd/Jameson Taillon in a postseason series, you feel pretty good given what this offense has done to this point in the season.

Other names to keep an eye on include Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen and Astros southpaw Framber Valdez. But the big takeaway from Passan's piece is that the Cubs have to be big players at the trade deadline - and need to attack their obvious weakness. With few slam dunks available (at least right now), gambling on Alcantara looks like a likely course of action for Hoyer and the Cubs.