Ivy League Cubs

By: Jacob Zanolla

The Cubs deadline was interesting to say the least. First Jed Hoyer traded for reliever Nate Pearson, which I was a fan of due to his high upside. He gave up a home run in his Cubs debut, and was then ejected after hitting Tyler Stephenson with a pitch. Quite the random start to his career in Chicago, but nonetheless I was a fan of the move. 

Sunday was the biggest day of this past week, with the Cubs shipping Christopher Morel to Tampa for Isaac Paredes. It’s not the fact that it wasn’t a good deal for the Cubs, because it was. The sheer surprise of this move is what sticks out the most. In an article that is quite negative, I will say I like the rare boldness from Hoyer in moving Morel for an upgrade corner infield wide. Morel did end up hitting a home run in his first at bat with the Rays, which seemed inevitable. 

Jake wrote on Tuesday about the Mark Leiter Jr. trade, which was expected, although I wasn’t sure where he would land. The Yankees sent over Ben Cowles and Jack Neely. Neely was the 22nd ranked prospect in the Yankees system, drafted in 2021 in the 11th round. Cowles was ranked 29th, chosen one round earlier, in the 10th round of the 2021 draft. Cowles broke his hand a few days ago after getting hit by a pitch, which will lead him to most likely miss the rest of the minor league season, but Hoyer still saw enough in him so hopefully that works out. I won’t get into this move too much, other than the fact that I was hoping for a little better of a return, but make sure to check out Jake’s piece for a more in depth dive on the return!

The worst part of this deadline is that that’s it. Mike Tauchman stayed, along with Hector Neris and Jameson Taillon. I figured Nico Hoerner and Seiya Suzuki would stay, but I did have my eye out for them to be moved as well. Hoyer had told us he wouldn’t be conducing a major sell-off, but would look to improve the team for 2025 and beyond. Basically, he would sell some and buy if it helped the future of the organization. In a way he did buy for the future, but not really. 

Nate Pearson has a lot of upside, as I mentioned earlier. I see Isaac Paredes as a clear upgrade to Christopher Morel at third base, so that helps for sure. Mark Leiter Jr. gets us some prospects that Hoyer and Carter Hawkins apparently liked, so that’s fine. The problem is that they didn’t do anything else. Drew Smyly has been doing really well as a reliever, but instead he has to rot away on a team that is not going to compete this year. If Hoyer thinks the 2024 Cubs can complete a miraculous comeback this season, good for him. I’m afraid that would be classified as delusion, but maybe he knows something other fans do not. 

Taillon has been really valuable, but with that value where it is, I’d have liked for Hoyer to move him and get some more prospects, especially with the starting pitching depth we have at the moment. The crowded outfield has been hard to understand, and trading Tauchman to a contender would have made a lot of sense. Same with someone like Hector Neris or Tyson Miller, as everyone needs more bullpen help. 

After the deadline, Hoyer said “A lot of players were asked about, a lot of deals bounced around, some casually, some more seriously. But commenting on guys we didn’t trade or why doesn’t make a lot of sense because it leads to speculation” (Montemurro). I get that it takes two to tango. If no one wants a player, how do you trade them? I doubt this was a case with some of these players, as I have to assume someone was interested in players such as Tauchman and Neris. My quote about Jed ‘waiting too long and letting the buyers fill their needs’ seems to be true. IF that’s the case, this has happened with Hoyer before. Being patient is fine, I never want to drastically overpay for a player(s) and seriously hurt the team. At a certain point though, there was a lot of improvements that weren’t taken advantage of, and that’s really frustrating to see. 

If you had said that Mark Leiter Jr. would be the biggest Cubs move of the deadline day, I would have laughed at you. I am in Alaska at the moment, so I was without service for the six hours leading up to the deadline (and a few hours after) as well. When I turned my phone back on, and saw they really hadn’t done anything else, I was stunned. In no way did I expect us to get someone like Vladimir Guerrero Jr., although that would have been awesome. I did, however, expect us to take advantage of the sellers market that I mentioned a few days ago, and boost our farm system to take it to a higher level than it already is. Instead, some of these players that might be playing better than they truly are, or are better fits elsewhere, get to waste their talents for a last place Chicago team. 

One general negative is that there isn’t really any big baseball news until the offseason. Some small moves will happen, but for now Cubs fans have to get ready for football (save us Caleb) and enjoy whatever wins we can get. There is no reason we can’t compete next season, and make several moves this winter to put us in excellent shape for 2025, but at this point I’m not sure how much I trust Jed to get us there. A deadline that was shaping up to be rather exciting in terms of moves and bolstering the farm system ended up being one of the most disappointing and confusing deadlines I can remember. 

Photo Credit: The Pantagraph