Two things are true at the moment: (1) The Cubs need pitching — specifically, front-end starting pitching — as badly as any team in baseball. They’re not only contenders, they’re contenders with a better pitching staff on the injured list than their actual active roster. And (2) because they’re FAR from a lock to win their division, the prospects of trading for a rental starter, let alone maybe the most expensive rental starter ever, are fraught.
Even if the Cubs win their division, there’s no guarantee they finish with one of the NL’s top two records, which means they’d still land on a three-game Wild Card series to open up October. Skubal obviously increases the odds of winning a series like that dramatically. But for the Cubs, once they hit that brutal losing streak and gave up their once comfortable position in the standings, that particular deal has not felt like the right use of resources.
Instead, it seems eminently wiser to me to use the same prospects to try acquiring a controllable starter who can help fill in some starts next year, as well, when Shota Imanaga, Matthew Boyd, Jameson Taillon, and David Peterson will all be free agents *and* Cade Horton will be out.
But obviously, acquiring Tarik Skubal would be exciting. And in one of his latest articles at The New York Post, Jon Heyman identified the Cubs as one of his “prime players,” alongside the Yankees (who have him as their No. 1 target), Rays, and Braves.
Now, to be very clear about what was actually said, Heyman writes that the non-Yankees teams are merely “expected to be among” those prime players. So maybe it’s a little softer than an initial read. But this is the first time in a long time (that I can remember, at least) the Cubs being so clearly mentioned in connection to this particular trade.
So here’s where I stand: There are basically only two scenarios where I think this could make sense for the Cubs. And they’d be even better if they happened together.
(1) The Cubs come out of the All-Star break hot as hell, making up serious ground not only on the Brewers for the division, but as a potential first or second seed. Given where the Braves stand (just 1.5 games ahead of the Cubs), that is sort of the same thing. At least, for now, if you catch the Brewers, you catch the No. 2 seed and the bye.
(2) They intend to go ALL IN at the deadline. As in, you acquire Tarik Skubal, but you also acquire a sure-fire, dominant, shutdown, elite closer plus another pretty good reliever at the minimum. Give yourself a MUCH better chance at winning the Wild Card series, perhaps even in two games, and you can maybe decide it was worth going for it.
Again, if the first happens, I kind of hope the second does too. But neither of these is particularly likely in my estimation.
I think, no matter what, the Cubs will get a starter and a reliever this deadline. Failing to do so would be a mistake. To me, that’s basically them thinking small. Likewise, I think if they decided to “go big,” it’ll be for a controllable starter, not Skubal. But the deadline is later than usual this year, and the Cubs have been playing well lately. They’ll also get Jameson Taillon, Edward Cabrera, Daniel Palencia, and Matt Shaw back soon enough. So some reinforcements are on the way. Maybe they can make up some ground and force Jed Hoyer to do the unthinkable. Will be interesting to follow and to see if Jon Heyman is the only one who connects the Cubs to this particular possibility.
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