For personal reasons, I have stopped being the regular every-day person on Cubs coverage on the weekends. Among other things, our youngest kiddo’s extra needs have continued to grow over the years, and it had become increasingly difficult to be as present in both places as I felt I needed to be. So, for the weekend, the family wins out.
That said, it’s not as if I stop being a Cubs fan on the weekends, or stop obsessively following the news and rumors when I sneak peeks at my phone. I’ll probably never be able to stop that. It’s a disease that infected me too long ago.
So, this past weekend, I observed as the infield market around baseball took some meaningful turns, all of which are relevant to what I continue to hope will soon be a full and final resolution of what will or will not happen with the Cubs’ infield group. I don’t particularly want to be mulling departures once Spring Training gets fully in swing.
For one thing, we had Luis Arraez electing to sign a one-year deal with the San Francisco Giants because they are letting him move back to second base. I get why he would want to try – we’ve talked at length about how his overall value gets chopped to just about nothing if he’s a bat-only guy – but historically, he was a fairly bad defensive second baseman, and hasn’t started there as an everyday guy for three years. He turns 29 in April, so he’s still reasonably young, and maybe with an offseason to train at the spot (supposedly this was his intention and focus all along) he can become passable enough to be a valuable player overall, and then hit the market again pre-age-30 as a much more enticing free agent.
As for the Giants, though, this is pretty clearly them waving the white flag on a second base trade. I actually commend them for pulling the trigger, even if I don’t know about the actual player fit they chose. At some point, you have to decide that you’re better off taking WHATEVER upgrade is available rather than waiting for a trade that almost certainly wasn’t going to materialize at this point. There were other rumored options, but I tend to think Nico Hoerner was always their dream target, and the trade return was just never going to match up. I expect they’ll plan to go HEAVILY after him in free agency after this season, though, so watch out for that.
Meanwhile, the Reds signed Eugenio Suarez as a DH/1B type, but who nevertheless was a presence on the third base market. That particular market has always been related to the second base market by way of various trade possibilities and positional versatility out there, so it matters that he’s now off the board – and without going to a team like the Mariners or Pirates, who may have actually used him at third base.
Of course, there was the other team we thought was in on Suarez for third base, and that’s the Red Sox. Per reports, they weren’t actually in on him that much, though the timing of the Jordan Hicks salary dump trade with the White Sox was certainly interesting. Many out there believed the Red Sox were doing it to save some cash to throw at Suarez. But then Suarez almost immediately signed with the Reds. Awfully coincidental if the timing was entirely unrelated, no? Makes me wonder if the Red Sox decided to finalize the Hicks deal so they could at least make a formal offer to Suarez, and there was some time pressure associated with that decision. So Suarez made his decision on that timeline, but went with a preferred deal/home with the Reds. All my speculation, of course.
As for those Red Sox, though, what now? If they weren’t going to push hard for Eugenio Suarez, it seems like they are still in a trade-or-bust situation. There are plenty of options out there that they could play at either second or third (Isaac Paredes and Brendan Donovan being two of the big non-Cubs ones), but they are making arrangements to cover the spots without a move. Kristian Campbell is reportedly getting more work at second base, and Red Sox manager Alex Cora has suggested that Marcelo Mayer and Romy Gonzalez can take the bulk of ABs at third base and second base, respectively, but Mayer is far from established at the plate, and Gonzalez, 29, has just a half-season breakout to his name. And neither is necessarily a great defensive fit at the place the Red Sox plan to play them.
That is all to say, yeah, the Cubs-Red-Sox-Hoerner-Shaw speculation probably isn’t about to slow just yet, especially with Suarez going to the Reds.
As Alex Speier at the Boston Globe this weekend wrote:
“According to sources, the Cubs have been open to conversations on both [Nico Hoerner and Matt Shaw], and the Sox are among the many teams that have checked in about the two players. Chicago doesn’t feel a need to move either player given the possibility of having Shaw — a 23-year-old Worcester Academy alum whom the Cubs drafted in the first round in 2023 — bounce between the infield and outfield in a super-utility role. Still, as the Cubs look to build short- and long-term rotation depth, the Sox do have the well-regarded young pitching to create a potential match.”
The word “open” is probably doing a lot of work there, because our understanding is that the Cubs are “open” to trade offers on these guys in the sense that they’ll listen if a team wants to do something crazy. With the Red Sox, that would mean sending the Cubs either of two top young starters, Payton Tolle or Connelly Early, plus more. As we’ve discussed at length, that just seems very unlikely.
Matt Shaw and Nico Hoerner are mentioned at The Athletic, too, in connection with the Hicks trade, where there is a discussion of how it could be a precursor to a move on the infield (talk of Hoerner’s salary, of rekindling things with the Diamondbacks on Ketel Marte, etc.). Nothing all that new there, with the Red Sox considering options, and the communications there with the Cubs seemingly closer to a one-way street than any kind of negotiation.
If I’m the Cubs, that’s where I leave things: Nico Hoerner is our starting second baseman, and Matt Shaw is our top utility option with a long-term future as a starter. If you make us a crazy offer, we’ll consider it, but we’re not shopping these guys, and we’re not going to do a big negotiating back-and-forth.
And then I go about the business of preparing for Spring Training in that way, which is what I think the Cubs do intend to do.
You would like these conversations to stop swirling soon so that the players, too, can more fully keep their heads down and focus on the season ahead. I don’t know that Nico Hoerner or Matt Shaw are the type to be too distracted in any case, but still. It’s preferable for there to be a definitive ending point, even if none of this is necessarily within the Cubs’ control, since it’s all coming from the outside.
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