Cubs Listed as Potential Fit for Precisely Zero Top-25 Trade Candidates

If recent predictions from ESPN’s top baseball writers carry any weight, it doesn’t look like the Cubs are expected to do much on the trade front. Though Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel listed as many as eight team fits for each of their top 25 trade candidates this offseason, the Cubs did not appear a single time. Not for Tarik Skubal (No. 1), not for Byron Buxton (5), not for Joe Ryan (6), not for Mackenzie Gore (9), and not for any of the others who’ve been linked to the North Side in some manner over the last few days, weeks, and months.

To be fair, most of the players on this list are given less than a 50% chance to be moved during the offseason, and some (Skubal, No. 4 Hunter Greene) are five times less likely. But when you look at the higher possibilities of Kris Bubic (No. 14, 30%), Edward Cabrera (18, 40%), Mitch Keller (19, 60%), and Sandy Alcantara (22, 30%), and you see nary a word about the Cubs…well.

And hey, maybe Passan and McDaniel just forgot about the Cubs when they were putting this piece together. Or maybe they believe the organization’s relatively thin farm system, one that has been dropping in estimation of late, means the front office won’t have the onions to make the kind of play it’ll take to pry any of these targets loose. I tend to believe otherwise, as Jed Hoyer knows he’ll have to make deals if payroll is indeed restricted to the extent that some fear.

We should start to get a clearer picture of where they and other teams stand once the Winter Meetings begin next week.