5 Trades the Chicago Cubs should make at the deadline if they continue to struggle

This is not going to be an article that has the Chicago Cubs receiving top prospects in return for aging veterans on rental contracts (mostly). We won’t see any trades within the division regardless of how badly the Cardinals need pitching, because it is exceedingly rare. The idea here was to focus on a couple of things:

1. Who are players the Cubs don’t view as part of their long-term plans? 
2. Who are teams that could use the players the Cubs would be looking to deal at the deadline?
3. Who are players the Cubs might covet as pieces that can help them during their contention window, which they expected to open this year, on the teams that could match up as trade partners?

With that being said, here are five trades that the Cubs should be ecstatic to be offered at the trade deadline if they continue to play like one of the worst teams in baseball.

Trade 1: The Chicago Cubs trade LHP Drew Smyly to the Toronto Blue Jays for RHP Hagen Danner, LHP Jimmy Burnette, and INF Riley Tirotta

The 33-year-old Smyly is under contract through 2024 and has a mutual option for 2025 making him a valuable piece to a team in contention. He’s enjoying his best season in about a decade and if not for Yan Gomes spear-tackling him in the 8th inning against the Dodgers, he may have thrown the 24th Perfect Game in major league history earlier this year. 

That being said, while he could be a valuable piece for the Cubs moving forward as well, he is likely more valuable to them in terms of what they can get in return. The Cubs have Jameson Taillon and Justin Steele under team control through 2026 and 2027 respectively, along with Kyle Hendricks through 2024 and players like Hayden Wesneski, Ben Brown, and Jordan Wicks that could join the rotation as early as later this season. They also hope to be bidders in the Julio Urías/Shohei Ohtani sweepstakes this winter and therefore a player like Drew Smyly becomes a little superfluous.

Insert Hagen Danner and Jimmy Burnette. Both are 24 in AA right now, both have over 15 K/9, and both have incredible mustaches. Danner is a RHP that ranks as the 22nd best prospect in the Blue Jays system while Burnette is not currently ranked in the top 30 according to MLB Pipeline. The Cubs biggest problem with the bullpen this season has been an inability to miss bats, and these two solve that problem.

The last piece doesn’t bring a ton to the table as a 24 year-old in High A but he’s currently carrying a slash line of .317/.424/.573 with three homers and five stolen bases. He’s never played a level of minor league baseball where he was younger than the average player for that level and yet has also never had an OPS over .775, so there’s not a ton going on here, but a player with defensive positional flexibility in the infield has benefits.

Trade 2: The Chicago Cubs trade RHP Michael Fulmer and INF Edwin Rios to the Texas Rangers for INF Thomas Saggese and INF Maximo Acosta

Michael Fulmer has frustrated Cubs fans for much of the season. His continued trust in his cutter against David Peralta in the Dodgers series to start the year reminded me of Ricky “Wild Thing” Vaughn in Major League 2. But the Vaughn from the beginning of the movie when he sucked and Parkman hit a 5,000-foot home run off of him, not the Vaughn at the end of the movie that had his velocity back and struck Parkman out. 

The only way this trade makes sense is if Fulmer has a Vaughnian comeback and rediscovers the movement on that pitch. If he can do that and can get the expected outcomes to finally align with the on-field results then the Cubs have the ability to take advantage of a Rangers team in contention for a playoff spot with a terrible bullpen outside of LHP Will Smith. 

Right now Fulmer carries a 7.58 ERA over 19 innings and has only converted one out of three save opportunities. That doesn’t look like a player that is worthy of a bag of baseballs, much less two top-30 prospects in a good Rangers system. That being said, Fulmer has been unlucky, to say the least. 

He has a .385 BABIP which is significantly higher than his .293 career average. He has a strand rate of 54.3% which is significantly lower than his 71.5% career average. Basically what that means is that hitters are getting on base against Fulmer in a way that shouldn’t be expected to continue and to exacerbate problems, when they get on base Fulmer has had a more difficult time getting out of the inning than he’s had before. I don’t expect that to continue, and baseball is very much a “what have you done for me lately” kind of game, so if he can string together a month’s worth of strong outings then the suitors should line up. 

The other piece the Cubs would be including here would be a good left-handed bench bat with playoff pedigree in the form of Edwin Rios. It won’t help the trade value that the Cubs chose to send him to AAA instead of DFA’ing Eric Hosmer earlier this season, but if the Cubs can get him some meaningful at-bats over the next couple of weeks he could be a nice cherry on top to a trade like this.

In return, the Cubs would receive two infielders from a system known for developing major league-caliber players in that area. While MLB Pipeline has Thomas Saggese as the higher-rated prospect (15), the crown jewel of this deal (and the piece the Rangers are unlikely to want to move) would be Maximo Acosta (25). 

Acosta signed for $1.65 million out of Venezuela in 2019 and his profile had scouts salivating. After a couple of down seasons while playing as one of the youngest players at each level due to an aggressive promotion strategy the Rangers are known to employ, he’s found his footing this year. At the time of writing, Acosta is hitting .281/.336/.430 as a 20-year-old at High A, more than two years younger than the average player in the South Atlantic League. He’s found his power, as he’s hit as many home runs in 32 games this year (4), as he hit in 108 games last year, and he’s also stolen bases significantly more efficiently going 10-11 on the base paths. 

Thomas Saggese is in a similar position to Acosta even if he joined the system in a very different way. Saggese was drafted in the 5th round of the COVID-shortened 2020 draft and has also been moved through the system extremely aggressively, finishing the 2022 season at AA, more than four years younger than the average player at the level. He hasn’t been overmatched there this year as he’s slashed .296/.343/.428. He strikes out more than you want to see and has more of doubles power than home run power, but he’s a solid player and would be a tremendous high-floor return in this deal.

Trade 3: The Chicago Cubs send 1B/OF Trey Mancini and RHP Michael Rucker to the Los Angeles Angels for RHP Coleman Crow and RHP Jose Soriano 

Matt Mervis, for his part, followed the 2022 season that saw him bat .309/.379/.606 with 36 home runs across three levels of the minors, with a line in Iowa of .286/.402/.560 and nearly as many walks (18) as strikeouts (19). Since calling him up, Mervis has appeared overmatched, especially by strong left-handed pitching which exists more at the major league level than at AAA. However, the Cubs have seen what happens when you let players learn in the majors. Justin Steele looked like a decent reliever a couple of years ago and is now one of the best pitchers in the league. A little over a decade ago, the Cubs let another left-handed first baseman come up and struggle at the major league level to the tune of .233/.323/.419 with 127 strikeouts. The following season Anthony Rizzo was an all-star and the rest is history.

Now the Cubs have to do the same thing and clear the way for consistent playing time for Mervis by dealing Mancini. The Angels are in a playoff run and have one of the lowest WAR for first base in the league. Even if they believe in Jared Walsh, Mancini would represent a good right-handed bat to platoon with him and play the outfield on other days. 

The Angels would also be adding one of the most dependable arms in the Cubs bullpen so far this season in the form of RHP Michael Rucker who would instantly improve a bullpen in LA that has dealt with injuries and general ineffectiveness for years. 

In return, the Cubs would receive two top 30 pitching prospects from a system that is not known for producing them. 

Coleman Crow was rated as the 20th best prospect in the Angels system to start the season but he appears to have figured something out this year. The 22-year-old former 28th-round pick had a decent year last year, throwing 128 innings at AA with a 4.85 ERA. That being said, he’s not only cut his ERA down to 1.88 this year, but he’s also cut his WHIP in half from 1.313 to 0.625 and has increased his K/9 by nearly three. The Cubs have done a better job developing pitching over the last couple of years, but there is no such thing as too many pitchers in the system and Crow would be a great addition.

Jose Soriano is an interesting case. MLB Pipeline has him rated as the 26th best prospect in the Angels’ system but there’s more to him than that. He’s bounced between levels since signing with the Angels as a 17-year-old in 2016 and he’s currently getting his first taste of AA as a 24-year-old. The Angels have seemingly given up on him as a starter as he’s pitched 13 games this year but only started twice, and they’d previously given up on him altogether as they didn’t protect him prior to the 2021 Rule 5 Draft when they lost him to the Pirates only to have him returned later that season. Soriano is another intriguing piece to combine with Danner and Burnette from the Blue Jays trade to help the Cubs start to build bullpen pieces from within rather than having to roll the dice on the free-agent market.

Trade 5: The Chicago Cubs trade RHP Marcus Stroman to the Los Angeles Dodgers for RHP River Ryan, C Dalton Rushing, INF Eddys Leonard

This is the big one. Maybe the Cubs look to include Stroman in a deal with San Diego to even the scales a little bit in a pursuit of Lesko and maybe they try to squeeze out top prospect Jackson Merrill in that deal as well. Personally, I don’t see it. I think the Cubs are looking to maximize the number of players that they can get that will help them in a playoff run as early as next season and the Dodgers have a deep enough system to send three players outside of their top five that leave both teams feeling like they’ve won the deal.

The Dodgers would be receiving one of the top expected pitchers in the trade market this summer, with the only name coming to mind that might be more valuable being Eduardo Rodriguez from the Tigers. If the Cubs move Stroman early and jumpstart the market though, this is a reasonable return for a pitcher that has the kind of mentality that Stroman does. Not only is he a great pitcher, he’s a great pitcher on the biggest stage. He is the reason the US won the World Baseball Classic back in 2017 and he won the MVP for it. The Dodgers are unlike every other team in this article because they aren’t chasing the playoffs. They want a World Series and Stroman helps them accomplish that goal.

In return, the Cubs would be getting MLB Pipeline’s number 7, 12, and 16-rated prospects in what is arguably one of the best minor league systems every single year.

Dalton Rushing is considered the highest-rated prospect in the deal and at High A this year he’s hit for good power and drawn a ton of walks on his way to a .259/.447/.526 line. He’s walked nearly as often as he’s struck out this year and that has always been his MO: in three seasons at Louisville he walked 62 times and struck out 89, and in his two seasons so far in the minors he’s walked 57 times and struck out 59. That level of production behind the plate is exceptional and the idea of pairing him with Miguel Amaya is enticing.

River Ryan has been exceptional at AA Tulsa so far this season. He’s thrown 29 innings, struck out 28, and currently has a 2.17 ERA. He has a career 2.35 ERA and while the more advanced pitching metrics don’t love him as much, he would still represent another pitching addition that could see time in the majors as early as the 2024 season.

Finally, Eddys Leonard has the kind of enticing power/speed combination that teams look for, and plays up the middle which we all know the Cubs look for. He can play all over the diamond defensively, but not especially well. He’s probably easiest to hide defensively as a second baseman and there are shades of Willie Calhoun in his game, but Calhoun’s upside was always tantalizing and he’d represent a good get for the final piece in this deal for a half-season rental.

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