Chicago Cubs identify fallback options if they miss on Shohei Ohtani

Late last night, Jon Heyman released a piece mentioning several things at the winter meetings. The big news for the Chicago Cubs is that they are now connected directly to Matt Chapman, Rhys Hoskins, and Cody Bellinger. The catch is that they are all Scott Boras clients. That doesn't necessarily mean anything wrong; it's just a coincidence. It may be a good thing, signifying that the Cubs have checked in with Boras on multiple names.

"The Cubs are looking at Matt Chapman and their own Cody Bellinger, but waiting on Ohtani first.

The Cubs also have interest in Rhys Hoskins since Pete Alonso probably isn’t going anywhere."

- Jon Heyman

How much smoke there is regarding these three remains to be seen. We have yet to find out how much of a hot pursuit there is or if this was a recent general check-in. Hoskins makes a lot of sense for the Cubs in 2024. A one-year prove-it for next year's free-agency deal, with hopes of a significant bounce back to help the team compete, seems like the ideal fit for Hoskins.

Chapman and Bellinger are a little more challenging to fit onto the roster. For one, bringing in Chapman essentially gives Christopher Morel nowhere to play, but even more so, completely blocks off one of their top prospects, Matt Shaw, who is already in the midst of a position change, so he has a path to MLB in the first place. You're making it very hard on two of your young players who have the potential to be part of your future.

As we know, Bellinger is asking for an extremely high, believed to be $250MM. That price will come down, and it's not much of a surprise the Cubs inquired about him, given that we already knew the team wanted him back if they could land him. We've had reports of a general interest in Hoskins, and the Cubs should do what they can to snag him as soon as possible. Given that they need power, a first baseman, and multiple bats in general, he checks all the boxes the Cubs need in 2024. That is one rumor I expect to ramp over over the coming days.

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