Thanks to the Brewers’ win in Game Three of the World Series, it is possible that the MLB offseason begins as soon as tonight. And, with a lockout looming on December 1 when the Collective Bargaining Agreement expires, it’s conceivable we could see more early action on the market than we’re used to. Teams and players that want certain deals in place before the lockout will have only a little over a month to make things happen – and, in the world of baseball offseasons, that’s a relative blink of the eye.
So will the Chicago Cubs be aggressive early in the offseason, given their robust set of needs on the pitching side (plus some questions in the corner outfield spots and behind the plate)?
Let history be our guide.
In typical offseasons of recent vintage, the Cubs make a minor move or two pretty early in the offseason, particularly if there’s a lower-tier internal free agent they want to retain. Their biggest signings tend not to come until around the Winter Meetings or later (which, of course, will be during the lockout this year). Then, as Spring Training approaches, they pounce on some opportunistic moves at all possible tiers of the market – wherever they can find value.
How different would the setup be in a world where the club is staring down the barrel of a lockout?
The last time this happened, the Cubs did their normal fringy early stuff (claimed Wade Miley and Trevor Megill off of waivers, a bunch of minor league signings), and then pulled off a trio of signings nearer to the pseudo deadline: Yan Gomes, Clint Frazier, and, of course, Marcus Stroman at the zero hour. The biggest move of the offseason didn’t wind up coming until after the lockout ended and the Cubs were able to finalize a deal with Seiya Suzuki. From there, the Cubs very quickly filled out the rest of the roster with rapid Drew Smyly, Mychal Givens, Daniel Norris, Chris Martin, and Jonathan Villar signings, among other minor moves.
That is all to say, if we assume deals like Gomes, Frazier, and Stroman would’ve otherwise been finalized right around that same time in a typical year (because, again, that’s often when the Cubs make those kinds of signings – late-November through mid-December), then I’m not sure the 2021 offseason was really all that different from a typical Cubs offseason.
So if history is our guide, either throughout the last five to ten offseasons, or even just in reference to the other lockout-influenced offseason, it would tell us the Cubs are probably just gonna do what they usually do?
If that’s the case, what you’d look to happen over the next couple weeks – outside of procedural moves like making Seiya Suzuki a Qualifying Offer – is some waiver moves, minor league signings, and maybe one or two internal retention signings. Then, you’d expect a lull, during which there would be other procedural moves and lots of rumors. Then, in the final week of November, you’d expect things to heat back up with a significant signing or two – hopefully the Cubs lock down an impact starting pitcher at that time, for example. Then, the lockout comes, and everything shuts down. Whenever it is resolved, we’d see another very accelerated conclusion to free agency, during which time the Cubs will pick off multiple guys on contracts they hope prove to be deals.
One caveat here comes on the posting side, where it’s conceivable guys like Kaima Taira, Teruaki Sato, Hiromi Itoh, etc. could push to get a deal done before the lockout begins, and that could, in theory, nudge other parts of the market forward a little faster, too. Thus, if the Cubs are going to be in on those guys, their own maneuverings in related markets may have to accelerate.
Otherwise, though, I’m not sure I see this being a fundamentally different offseason for the Cubs, in terms of how they structure things. It would be nice for them to have three starting pitcher deals and an outfielder deal and a couple reliever deals completed by the end of November, for example, but history tells us that would be a massive deviation from their usual process.
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