NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer is nostalgic about the days when teams would host each other in their winter meetings hotel suites, going through a tried and true protocol to knock out a trade.
“[Now] you do most of the stuff on the phone,” Hoyer said Wednesday. “But it forces some action. And we definitely leave here with a lot more information about things we think we might be able to accomplish than when we got here.”
The gradual trend away from face-to-face meetings paired with Shohei Ohtani’s market-stalling free agency made for a trickle of moves rather than a spike. Finally on Wednesday, the Yankees made a splash, agreeing to a trade for Padres slugger Juan Soto.
As the winter meetings came to a close, the Cubs had yet to make a major acquisition. But they have “lines in the water,” as Hoyer put it. And they have several areas to improve.
“Now that they’ve gone through this period of building up their minor leagues,” MLB super agent Scott Boras said in his annual winter meetings news conference, “I think they’re ready to look into major free-agent talents that allow them to take a step above where they’ve been in the last year.”
The pitching market started to move early, so there’s more clarity on Cubs pitching targets than hitters.
The Cubs are in discussions with the Rays about a potential trade for Tyler Glasnow, sources confirmed, but contrary to some earlier reports, they had not discussed young utility player Christopher Morel. They’re also not the only team interested in the 30-year-old right-hander.
Trading for a player in his last year of club control such as Glasnow makes sense from a cost-control perspective. It allows the Cubs to allocate money to other areas of need. But it also gives the team time to evaluate young pitchers such as Jordan Wicks, Hayden Wesneski, Cade Horton and Ben Brown to get a better sense of the long-term impact they could make on the rotation.
Some of the top free-agent pitchers — Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Jordan Montgomery, to name a few — were still available as of Wednesday evening.
Positionally, the Cubs are focused on the corner-infield spots. First base was a revolving door for most of last season. Late in the year, their solution was a platoon of Cody Bellinger and Jeimer Candelario, when he was healthy. Both players are free agents.
One potential fit is Rhys Hoskins, who missed last season with a torn anterior cruciate ligament. Boras, his agent, agreed at the general managers meetings last month that Hoskins could be a candidate for a pillow contract in his first year back from injury. The Cubs worked out a similar deal with Boras last year for Bellinger, who successfully used last season to boost his earning potential this year.
At third base, the Cubs at least have options in Nick Madrigal and Patrick Wisdom. But Madrigal, two years removed from surgery on his right hamstring, landed on the injured list twice last season with a strained hamstring.
“When Nick was playing well and healthy, I thought he was really good defensively at third; we were a better team with him in the lineup,” Hoyer said. “He just got hurt a lot, and we weren’t deep enough to respond last year.”
The Cubs are also making plans to replace Bellinger’s offensive production.
Re-signing him could present itself as a way to both achieve that goal and address first base. Hoyer declined to talk about specific free-agent targets, but he has consistently spoken highly of Bellinger.
“We have a good relationship,” Hoyer said. “We were texting the other day about his [most improved player] award. And he’s got nothing but positive thoughts about the organization; we have nothing but positive thoughts about him.”
