Can the Cubs fix their offense with a trade?

SAN ANTONIO – By the end of the season, the Cubs’ lineup was much more balanced than it was at the beginning of the year, thanks in large part to the changes made by the young hitters. Pete Crow-Armstrong And Miguel Amaya.

But he still lacked the kind of threat that leaves pitchers scratching their heads in game planning meetings – a hitter who will hit 30 home runs in a season even as teams bat around him. One of these players is available as a free agent.

Ideally CubsThe market size, brand recognition and resources would allow them to at least start the conversation about finding a hitter of Juan Soto’s caliber. But chairman Tom Ricketts said he sets the budget based on team revenue, and that restrictive model puts the Cubs out of the race for free superstars.

Baseball operations calculated that spreading the money across multiple contracts was the most efficient way to spend the budget. However, baseball operations president Jed Hoyer has only positive things to say about his boss.

“Obviously we talk to Tom all the time, he asks us questions and pushes us, we do research and everything, but at the end of the day, these are our decisions and we own them,” Hoyer said this week at the general meeting. management meetings. “And I think the best thing you could ask for is that he respects our experience and the intelligence required to make these decisions.”

Ricketts never went around his president of baseball operations to get the deal done. But that doesn’t change the fact that to achieve the level of performance they lacked last season, the Cubs are counting on players to outperform projections.

Two years ago, Cody Bellinger was able to fill that role on the roster. He agreed for another year with the Cubs, exercising his $27.5 million player option over the weekend.

“He’s very happy with the situation and his contract,” Bellinger’s agent Scott Boras said at a news conference Wednesday. “I think he was kidnapped for a few days last year where he crashed into a wall and did things like that. And he felt that with his age and his contract, he was on a comfortable platform that would allow him to play one more season before he thought about free agency again.”

Boras was referring to Bellinger breaking ribs when he hit a brick wall at Wrigley Field in April and breaking his left middle finger in July.

Most positions on the Cubs are filled by everyday starters who have been under team control for several years. Deal by model transaction term third baseman Christopher Morel going to the Rays and bringing Isaac Paredes to Chicago could shake up that impasse.

“Trades in baseball today are pretty hard to make,” Hoyer said, “but I think you have to look for them and find the right teams to make them.”