Chicago Cubs: Hoyer offers harsh reality check on trade deadline expectations

The Chicago Cubs are in a tough spot. At the moment, they’re a half-game out of qualifying for the last National League Wild Card spot. They’re also six games behind the Milwaukee Brewers in the NL Central Division (and just a half-game ahead of the third place St. Louis Cardinals).

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But one can’t look at the team—given the talent they have and the gumption they’ve shown— and say that they aren’t a legitimate playoff-level team, capable of doing big things.

All of this leaves Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer with some difficult decisions to make when it comes to trades before the August 3 MLB trade deadline.

The team absolutely needs pitching. Their ability to compete for postseason play hinges on a much-needed fortification of a staff decimated by injury. But given the realities of this team and its upside possibilities in the face of an avalanche of injuries, is it smart to deal away important prospect capital? Will one or two pitchers acquired at the deadline merely make this Cubs squad a first or second round playoff team en route to being crushed by a much more well-rounded contender?

Hoyer on trade deadline realities

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“It has been a really up-and-down season,” Hoyer told The Athletic on Friday. “There’s no reason to think that’s the way the rest of the season is going to go. It could go that way, or we could just proceed to level things out, and I hope we do. But, yeah, this is a really important stretch. The market will dictate a lot of those things. But, of course, our play is going to dictate a level of aggressiveness.”

That last sentence was the important part of Hoyer’s statement. It also makes it pretty clear that Chicago’s aggression at the deadline will totally depend on how well the team is playing and, therefore, how realistic are their chances of doing anything in the postseason.

“You have to look at how your team is playing,” Hoyer added, “how you are relative to .500. How are your underlying numbers? How is your health? You have to understand your own team.”

The harsh reality may be that ‘understanding’ his own team means understanding that there are so many holes—specifically in the pitching department—that there may be no point in spending too much to try and patch them up.

Disappointment ahead?

The end result may be a small handful of smaller pickups and a crossing of the fingers that Jameson Taillon, Edward Cabrera, Ben Brown, and some of the other injured Cubs pitchers can come back and contribute.

For now, playing small ball with acquisitions is definitely the plan until closer to the deadline.

“It’s not like there’s tons of teams that are looking to move players at this moment,” Hoyer commented. “Everything is so bunched together. I think that’s what’s going to happen. We’ll keep making small moves and keep trying to patch holes and do those things. The hope, every time, is that you churn through and you find a guy or two that can really help you over the long haul.”

All of this means that Cubs fans better brace themselves for some real disappointment come trade deadline.

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