What Will The Chicago Cubs Do At The Trade Deadline?

The mid-season trade deadline is just over a month away, which means that some teams are still determining their approach to it. This year’s deadline of August 1 is only slightly later than previous seasons, but it is looming close enough that though there are some clear buyers and sellers, it might take a few weeks for other teams to make up their minds.

One of those teams is the Chicago Cubs.

They have been sellers the last two deadlines, especially in 2021 when they shipped out most of the core of players who helped them win the 2016 World Series. But this year, it’s less obvious what their approach to the trade deadline will be.

Much of that looks like it will depend on how they are playing, according to the Cubs front office. Though they have lost their last three games, the Cubs have gone 13-10 in June and a series loss against the Phillies this week marks their first series loss since being swept by the Angels June 6-8.

“If this stays consistent and we continue to win at the rate that we’ve been winning, that’s where we’ll be,” general manager Carter Hawkins told reporters Wednesday. “And certainly, we’ll be looking to contend if that continues to happen. And that’s our plan to make that happen.”

As things stand now, the Cubs are 37-41 and in third place in their division. But even four games under .500, they are only 4.5 back from NL Central leaders Cincinnati. Their division might be a weak one, but the Cubs are still very much in the race for it.

“You want to evaluate the division, you also want to evaluate yourself,” team president Jed Hoyer told reporters in London. “And having us play the way we are, certainly, this is the team that we felt like we were in April, in spring training. And let’s continue to play like this. We did this for 25 games to start the season, but let’s continue it.”

The Cubs being within reach of the top of the NL Central only muddies the waters when trying to guess at how they will handle the trade deadline. In general, the fanbase is not likely to have the appetite for another sell-off this summer, especially not after the Cubs went out and added to their roster substantially last winter.

However, there are at least two names on that roster to watch closely as the trade deadline gets closer.

Cody Bellinger signed with the Cubs on a one-year, $17.5 million deal last winter, and they are going to have decisions to make about the 27-year-old’s future no matter what. He has a $25 million option for 2024 and would require an extension beyond that. If he plays well in the second half of the season, the former Rookie of the Year and NL MVP will be expensive to retain. But if he is a part of the team’s success going into the trade deadline, it will be hard to justify parting with him at that point.

Mark Feinsand of MLB.com speculates that the Cubs will wait until that very last week of July to make a decision about how they handle the deadline, but if they do decide to sell, Bellinger will draw significant interest, particularly from the Yankees.

Another name to watch closely is Marcus Stroman. He is in the last year of a three-year, $71 million contract. Stroman has a player option worth $21 million for next season, but he has made it clear that his desire is to stay in Chicago longer than that. He tweeted on June 10 that the organization hasn’t done much to make that happen, at least not lately:

And he repeated to reporters that there have not been talks with the team when asked about the tweet afterward. The Cubs have not traditionally done much in-season negotiating, even to the frustration of the players. Stroman is not the first to express exasperation at the process. But Hoyer and Co. have been consistent in their stance on this front.

“I’m just not going to talk about it,” Hoyer told reporters. “This is one where we don’t talk about negotiations outside our four walls. We talk to the agents and we talk to the players. In this particular case, he tweeted it out, which, I guess, changes the dynamic. But it doesn’t change our stance on it. We’re just not going to comment. There’s zero benefit for the relationship with them to comment on it. There’s zero benefit from the negotiating stance to comment on it.

“We don’t benefit and we’re just not going to do it. We’ve done that with every negotiation.”

This certainly presents a wrinkle in Stroman’s case. And as all of this is happening, he is putting together a Cy Young-caliber season. He has the second-lowest ERA in the National League and is among the leaders in fWAR. The Cubs are in position to contend in part because of him, but at the same time, he would be an appealing trade piece if that’s the direction they choose to go.

To get a sense for what might happen with the Cubs, the next week and a half could be telling. They finish a series against the Phillies Thursday night, and then play Cleveland, Milwaukee, and New York before the All-Star break. Next week’s four-game series against the Brewers is the biggest in that stretch. The Cubs could propel themselves to the top of the division or make the trade deadline picture even less clear.

The one thing that does appear certain is that the Cubs need to keep winning if they are going to be buyers on August 1. It’s probably as simple as that.