Jed Hoyer, Cubs will focus on the future at the MLB trade deadline

When the Chicago Cubs and Milwaukee Brewers met at the end of June, Jed Hoyer was noncommittal about the direction his team might go leading up to the trade deadline.

When he spoke in the visiting dugout before that June 28 series opener at American Family Field, the Cubs’ president of baseball operations wouldn’t declare the team buyers or sellers. With still roughly a month left before the July 30 trade deadline, he wanted to see if the team could right the ship.

A little less than month later, before the two teams kicked off their last meeting of the season at Wrigley Field on Monday, Hoyer was as definitive as he’s been about where the Cubs are headed this next week before the deadline.

“I think the next seven games obviously matter. Certainly, we saw what can happen last year, so you sort of never firmly plant your feet. You have to be able to be nimble,” Hoyer said. “But I think where we are right now, I would say that moves only for ’24, unless things change over the next week, I think we probably won’t do a lot of moves that only help us for this year.

“If moves help us in ’25 and beyond, I think we’re still exceptionally well-positioned. I think that’s what our focus will be, but just helping in ’24, I think that probably won’t be our focus unless things change dramatically.”

The Cubs managed a 10-9 record (entering Monday) since Hoyer spoke in Milwaukee, which included an 8-3 stretch heading into the All-Star break. However, after dropping two of three to the Arizona Diamondbacks to begin the second half, they were 48-53, 10 games back in the National League Central and 3 1/2 games back in the NL wild card standings as Hoyer spoke in the home dugout Monday.

It’s just not been the improvement the front office has needed to see. Hoyer did give the caveat that a long winning streak, similar to the one the Cubs put together at this time in 2023, could cause a change of course, and perhaps they started that Monday night with a 3-1 win over the Brewers.

But the likelihood that a streak that long happens is low — they’ve only won five games in a row twice this season — so it just makes sense for the front office to go into this last week before the deadline making preparations to sell some pieces.

“This is not the conversation I expected to be having, but you gotta react to it and make the best decisions possible,” Hoyer said. “… The only thing I would say definitively is that I think making moves simply for ’24, given where we are, is probably not what we’re going to do.”

That’s not to say the Cubs are headed for a major sell-off at the deadline.

Hoyer remained confident that the team will be ready to compete again in 2025. Even when presented with the hypothetical of a full-on rebuild to allow some runway for debuting prospects in a lower-stress environment, Hoyer said “that’s not going to be an option.” His expectation is that the group they put out there next season and beyond will be contenders, and the moves he makes at this deadline will go toward helping the Cubs get there.

Plus, there’s also the fact that most of the contracts for their top players aren’t so easy to deal.

That means you may see relievers like Mark Leiter Jr., Héctor Neris and Tyson Miller get moved, as contending teams always want to add good arms to their bullpen. Maybe someone like Jameson Taillon, who’s got a 10-team no-trade clause and and two years and $36 million left on his deal after this season (per Spotrac), gets dealt to a buyer looking for rotation help for this year and beyond.

Heck, even the likes of Justin Steele and Nico Hoerner have gotten trade buzz, and though the Cubs would at least listen to interested teams, it’d probably take an offer that blows them away to make that sort of deal.

Regardless of what moves are ultimately made, Hoyer is looking at how they can benefit the Cubs in the immediate future. So instead of deals like the ones that brought in young prospects early on in the rebuild — and of course instead of deals to add rental pieces — you’re more likely to see ones along the lines of the José Cuas/Nelson Velázquez swap with the Kansas City Royals last year or the Hayden Wesneski/Scott Effross trade with the New York Yankees in 2022 — deals to acquire players who can quickly help at the major league level.

The Cubs could always opt to stand pat, of course, but doing that just goes against what the team has done with Hoyer in the front office. And it also would seem to present a missed opportunity.

“There’s very few times of the year that people actually transact,” Hoyer said. “Deadlines force action in this business, and I think that when you have a deadline, people are willing to have more serious conversations. We’re always in conversations, but with no deadline, it’s not a lot of pressure. So, the idea of both teams coming to an agreement is hard, and when you get a deadline, it really helps that.

“That’s part of how we’ve always looked at it is that it’s a time of year when people do deals, and therefore, at some level, you have to take advantage of that. You have to be in that marketplace, because if you’re not, if you sit that out, you missed that opportunity to, if nothing else, find out how people value your players in some way.”

As Hoyer said, this is not the conversation he and many others expected him to be having, but it’s just the reality of the situation.

Even with Monday’s win, the Cubs are still only a 1/2-game out of last place in the division (and nine games behind Milwaukee) and remain 3 1/2 games back in the wild card race. They’ll likely lose some major league pieces at the deadline, and Hoyer will then reflect on what went wrong as he looks forward to next season.

That doesn’t mean the players and coaches are giving up on the season right now.

There’s still a few games left before the deadline, and even Ian Happ said postgame Monday that the team’s job is “to make it tough on Jed.” Plus, with so many of their key players being the ones with bigger contracts or no-trade clauses (or they’re out with an injury, like Cody Bellinger), they should still have most of the core group intact that was expected to help the team contend this season.

So, even if Hoyer does make moves with 2025 and beyond in mind, is he still keeping the playoffs this year as a goal?

“We have [now 60] games left,” he said. “Obviously, if we have back-to-back months where we play like we did in April, that’s a possibility. You never want to rule that out. … The only thing that I would say definitively at this point — and it’s not that definitive, because we can win seven in a row — but the only thing I would say definitively is that I think making moves simply for ’24, given where we are, is probably not what we’re going to do. But if there are moves that make sense that help us in ’24, we’d certainly look at those things.”