A year ago, the Cubs’ didn’t make a big splash at the trade deadline.
Jed Hoyer’s front office saw the price of pitching and didn’t want to part with its top prospects, a decision that loomed large in hindsight, when pitching-depth issues helped the Cubs to an earlier-than-hoped playoff exit.
This year? Well, the same result won’t be for a lack of trying.
Hoyer & Co. went big this time around, parting with a half dozen of its top prospects — including No. 2 ranked infielder Jefferson Rojas, the No. 68 prospect in baseball — to bring in a trio of pitchers that can help the Cubs immediately. And, they hope, come October.
“Ideally, you don’t trade prospects,” Hoyer said after the deadline passed Monday. “But at the same time, we’re here to win.”
Rojas was the cost of acquiring starting pitcher Clay Holmes and reserve outfielder Tyrone Taylor from the Mets. The front office shipped away a quintet of top-30 prospects in trades for starter Kevin Gausman, reliever Ryan Zeferjahn and minor league starter Braxton Garrett, also parting with young slugger Moises Ballesteros in the Zeferjahn deal.
The two headlining acquisitions — rotation adds Gausman and Holmes — seem unlikely to be Cubs past the end of this season (Gausman’s contract is up, while Holmes has a player option), making Hoyer’s aggression all the more notable.
This goes back to the offseason, when the front office broke with the narrative by dealing outfield prospect Owen Caissie for starting pitcher Edward Cabrera and handing out a big-money, free-agent deal to third baseman Alex Bregman.
Combine those moves with the ones at the deadline, and the Cubs have acted on the belief that this team can win, win big and win right now.
“We’ve invested a lot in this roster, not just financially but in terms of how we put the roster together. It’s a really good team,” Hoyer said. “That’s part of being in contention and being in a good position. You have to make those decisions. You have to draft well, you have to develop well, and if you do those things, then you can afford to make those kinds of trades.”
Now it’s time to find out if the aggression will pay off.
Gausman, a two-time All Star, brings a milelong track record of big league success to the North Side, perhaps highlighted by the big innings he pitched for the Blue Jays as they fell just short of winning the World Series last October.
Holmes is a two-time All-Star reliever turned effective starter who had a 3.26 ERA in his season and a half with the Mets. He’s been out since May recovering from a fractured fibula but is nearing a return, with three minor league rehab starts in the last week and a half.
Zeferjahn adds to what’s been an injury-decimated Cubs bullpen, with a 1.38 ERA in his last 24 appearances since June 1. He was almost exclusively a late-inning arm for the Angels and figures to get those sorts of opportunities moving forward.
Taylor fits the bill of a righty bat off the bench, which Hoyer said was specifically requested by manager Craig Counsell with utility man Matt Shaw still nursing a lingering hand injury.
And Garrett, who made 30 effective starts for the Marlins in 2023, is a depth piece in the minor leagues (already sent to Triple-A Iowa) who could be helpful this year and into the future.
There are two months of regular-season baseball left — and, the Cubs hope, a month of postseason baseball after that — to find out if stepping on the gas in early August wins the race for this team.
The Brewers still hold a lead in the NL Central. And the in-town Dodgers are as tall a task to overcome as you’ll find, commanding as the back-to-back champs.
But Hoyer did his work at the deadline and reinforced a team that already owned one of the sport’s best records.
“In some ways, we were as focused as I can remember at a deadline,” he said. “It was very clear we needed to add pitching. … We wanted to add reinforcements, and we certainly did that.”
