Jed Hoyer's Cubs trade deadline will be complicated, but his goals are simple

Trying to get inside the mind of Jed Hoyer these next few days will be a challenge of labyrinthine proportion. That said, here goes.

The goal is simple: To emerge from July, if possible, with a team capable of winning the World Series.

How Jed Hoyer can reinforce Cubs at MLB trade deadline

As currently constituted, the Cubs sort of approach being such a team. Absent a fully functioning third baseman and anticipating the imminent return of their full catching platoon, the offense is both solid and versatile.

The bullpen is as reliable as bullpens can be, which is a nice way of saying: who the heck knows? The major liability, obviously, is with the starting pitching. That’s what Hoyer really needs to fix.

Shota Imanaga is solid, but that’s about as far as certainty goes. Matthew Boyd has been very good, but he’s already worked 92 innings, his highest total since 2019. What will he have left a month or two from now?

Jameson Taillon has no plausible innings ceiling, but he’s been shelled in two of his last three starts. Does giving up 13 earned runs to the Brewers and Cardinals represent a blip or a trend? Like Taillon, Colin Rea has been inconsistent. In his seven starts since May 25, he’s allowed six or more earned runs three times.

The rookies are behaving like rookies. In Cade Horton’s nine starts, he’s produced four Game Scores above 50 — that’s decent — but two below 35, which is awful… and they were the two most recent. Between Iowa and Chicago, he’s now pitched 74 innings against a career high of 88. Is he wearing down? As for Ben Brown, let’s leave it at this: perhaps there’s a long-term future.

To be viewed as serious championship contenders, the Cubs need at minimum two more reliable starters. They can be rentals — Horton and Brown have future potential — but they need to be here fast.

Why then, Hoyer may be wondering, is so much of his time occupied by third base?

The Alex Bregman trade rumors are a mixed bag. Given Bregman’s $40-million-per-year contract through 2027 (assuming he picks up his expensive player options), they only make sense if Hoyer sent Shaw to Boston and picked up at least those two starters along the line. That’s a big dollar commitment for a Cubs ownership that believes first and foremost in profitability.

Having acknowledged that, Hoyer certainly knows that nothing is as profitable as winning a championship. If doing so would lock up the World Series, it would make total sense to pick up Bregman’s contract and add two frontline starters at whatever cost.

If the Bregman discussions are back-burnered, other third base names are surfacing, notably Ke’Bryan Hayes in Pittsburgh and Eugenio Suarez in Arizona. The Hayes name is puzzling, both because he is only marginally more of an offensive threat right now than Shaw, and also because Hayes is under contract through 2030.

It is, however, a relatively team-friendly contract, paying him $42 million for the five seasons between now and then. The inducement to look at Hayes is that he might bring starter Mitch Keller along for the ride. That would not only give the Cubs a full monopoly on pitchers named Keller, it would sort of, maybe, with luck, fill one of those roster gaps. Keller has a 3.90 ERA in 17 starts this season.

His record is 2-10, but nobody pays any attention to that statistical antiquity anymore. His 17 starts have resulted in 11 Game Scores above 50. That’s how many Brown and Horton have between them in five more starts.

For my money, Suarez may make more sense. He has better offensive numbers than Shaw or Hayes (.253/.323/.565) and he’s a free agent next year. If he can be had for a prospect or two, you can let Shaw marinate for serving in 2026.

Less can be more at MLB trade deadline

That still leaves the Cubs short at least one starter spot, but they have the prospects to find somebody among the litter of available in Miami, Baltimore and elsewhere.

From Hoyer’s standpoint, the real problem is that there is no move he can make that guarantees post-season success. It’s simply too ephemeral a standard. Cubs fans remember the 2016 deadline, when the team picked up Aroldis Chapman from New York. Theo Epstein paid a high price that included Gleyber Torres, but winning the World Series is worth any price.

But, it's easy to forget 2017. At that trade deadline, the Cubs were two and one-half games ahead in the standings and on their way to a second consecutive NL Central title. And, like this year, they needed pitching.

The solution? A trade with the cross-town White Sox that added Jose Quintana at a steep cost: prospects Dylan Cease and Eloy Jimenez.

Down the stretch, Quintana did his job, going 7-3 in 14 starts with a 3.74 ERA. But, in the NLCS against Los Angeles, he ran afoul of Kike Hernandez, and the Cubs lost in five games.

There is simply no guarantee attached to even big-name deadline acquisitions. In 2022, the San Diego Padres hit the trade deadline a distant second to the Dodgers in the NL West, but solidly in the wild card mix. The Friars went for it in over-the-top fashion, snaring slugger Juan Soto and pitcher Max Scherzer from Washington in exchange for prospects Mackenzie Gore, C.J. Abrams, Robert Hassell and James Wood, all of whom are now Nationals regulars.

The deal got national headlines and the Padres did indeed get into the postseason, where they took out the Mets and Dodgers. But, against Philadelphia in the NLCS, Soto’s .944 OPS wasn’t enough, and the Phils won in five.

The team that won the World Series in 2022 — the Astros –—picked up nobody more meaningful than Trey Mancini at the deadline. He hit .048 in 24 postseason plate appearances. They won anyway.

One year later, the Texas Rangers marched to a World Series win. Their big deadline pickup was Max Scherzer, whose three post-season starts lasted a total of 9 2/3 innings with seven earned runs allowed. Go figure.

Jed Hoyer has a tough job this month. He has to find two good starters, maybe improve third base and the bench, persuade Tom Ricketts that doing all that will yield a World Series win and make the cost worth it. And then, he'll have to hope the most important element of all — luck — is on his side.