Recent reports of trade talks between the Cubs and Mets regarding star third baseman Kris Bryant are inaccurate, Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer tells reporters in a Zoom conference call (Twitter link via Jordan Bastian of MLB.com). Hoyer emphasized that he is not engaged in any active trade conversations and has not had recent trade talks. “By and large, I would expect this is what our team will look like,” Hoyer added (link via Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago).
That’s not to say that there won’t be slight tweaks. Hoyer left open the door for some potential minor league deals even after camp opens, and he more interestingly tipped his hand that the club could soon have another Major League free-agent signing to announce for the bullpen (via Wittenmyer).
Bullpen help would be plenty sensible for the Cubs even if their entire current group were healthy, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Hoyer revealed that right-hander Rowan Wick is behind schedule due to an intercostal strain, while southpaw Kyle Ryan is likely to be placed on the Covid-19 list and will have his start to Spring Training delayed as a result. As a reminder, that’s not an indication that Ryan himself tested positive; players can be placed on the Covid-19 list due to exposure to positive cases as well.
That pair of absences likely leaves the Cubs with a mix of Craig Kimbrel, Andrew Chafin, Dan Winkler, Jason Adam, Duane Underwood Jr., Brad Wieck, Robert Stock, Dillon Maples and Jonathan Holder, among a few others with even less experience, on the 40-man roster. Adam Morgan, Joe Biagini and Rex Brothers give the Cubs some additional veteran options on non-roster deals, but it’s pretty clear that the group could use some additional augmentation.
Hoyer unsurprisingly didn’t tip his hand as to the identity of the apparently forthcoming signing, but the market still has plenty of interesting names from which to choose. Right-hander Jeremy Jeffress posted solid results but ugly secondary marks in a shortened 2020 season with the Cubs, and veterans like David Robertson, Shane Greene, Tyler Clippard, Brandon Workman, Pedro Strop, Jose Alvarez, Tony Watson and Oliver Perez are among the many yet-unsigned free agents.
We don’t have a clear idea of the Cubs’ budget at this point, but after dumping Yu Darvish’s salary and non-tendering Kyle Schwarber, the Cubs are nowhere near the luxury-tax threshold and have their lowest bottom-line payroll since 2015. Ownership recently gave the green light on spending a bit of money after those aggressive cuts earlier in the winter, which has resulted in the additions of Joc Pederson, Jake Arrieta, Trevor Williams and Jake Marisnick.
So, the Met’s wouldn’t meet the asking price, amirite?
Mets aren’t giving up Alvarez for anyone but Trout.
Lol sure. Number 48 prospect? Doubt he has a ROY or mvp award in his future, but by all accounts hold on to him no matter what!
Those fringe catching prospects hit at monster rates.
He’s the 4th highest ranked player under 20. Dude didn’t play in 2020. How much higher do you want him ranked?
Wait do Cubs fans really think Bryant for Alvarez is fair?
He’s very young. You wont find many players with one year of Rookie ball rated top 50. Probably less than a twenty (tops) over the past 10 years.
Classic example of how highly mets fans value their prospects! Most unrealistic group of the lot
Pay attention to how Cubs fans rate their prospects… Bobby Hill, Eric Patterson, Kerry Wood, Starlin Castro were all sure fire HOFer’s.
Don’t rule out Castro yet. He might get enough hits to force the issue with the HOF. (Although I don’t consider him one).
Who cares that the word is both the Reds and Cubs won’t engage with the Mets if Alvarez is not the centerpiece…
Kerry Wood had a stellar rookie season and followed it up by having Tommy John surgery. He had the highest k/9 and lowest h/9 in the MLB in his rookie season. He hit the IL 13 other times in his career. You really holding that against the Cubs scouts and fans?
Bobby Hill did help get the Cubs Aramis Ramirez and Kenny Lofton for the 2003 playoff run. Proving one teams trash is another teams trash…
Inb4 he’s the next Blake Swihart/Rob Refsnyder
The Cubs don’t need a catcher. They’re actually in great shape at that position.
Nobody is going to meet the asking price for Kris Bryant. He is a player who cannot hit anything low and away. Throw him sliders and watch him walk back to the dugout after striking out. Why do you think he struggles to hit above .200 now. Who is paying $19 million for that this year? Bryant is now in the tough spot of needing to perform for a contract when he can’t stay healthy and doesn’t produce. One of the all-time contract blunders in baseball history. He could have gotten a $250+ million extension from the Cubs a couple of years ago. He instead chose to pout about service time and to wait to squeeze every last possible dollar out of free agency. Next year, if he hits the open market, he will be looking at a 1-year deal in the $10 million range. One of the all-time contract blunders in baseball history. Make sure Scott Boras gets credit for this fiasco as well!!
@Very Barry — At least he didn’t get involved in a land war in Asia.
If Bryant was on the White Sox he would be batting 2nd or 3rd and be one of their best players. Can we stop with this cubs hatred and enjoy some finally above average white Sox baseball.
Hard to stop the hated with the cubs because of their cocky we have a dynasty for years commits over and over
I want no part of Kris Bryant on the White Sox!! Why?? We have Yoan Moncada, who is twice the player that Bryant is right now! Just speaking facts on Bryant. He can’t hit a slider. He made a HUGE contract blunder. He needs to directly appeal to Cub fans to put pressure on management to offer him some kind of contract…..and Bryant needs to take it! His value is very little on the open market. At $19 million he is untradeable unless the Cubs eat most of the money! Now he gets to try and stay healthy in 2021 and gets stats in a lineup that features another .200 hitter in Javy Baez, that doesn’t score runs and he needs to produce with a deadened baseball. Ouch!!!
Says the guy that just trolls and never post a comment about his actual team. I am guessing the Brewers?
South Side of Chicago. White Sox all day!!! I do believe the Brewers will in the NL Central over the Cardinals though. Cardinals still don’t have enough sticks. No bats in that outfield.
Yup, only what many see as the front runner for the ROY out there. No bats at all!
2020 Bryant would be riding the pine on the 2021 Sox lol.
Oh brother. Sox fans are setting themselves up for massive disappointment.
Dylan Carlson? Much more of a defense guy than offense. Thanks for proving my point.
Sliders were actually Bryant’s 3rd most whiffed pitch in 2020. His issue was good contact. Only 18% hard hit rate. He makes more consistent contact and he’s closer to his normal self. Wasn’t he also injured last year?
You do know 2020 Moncada was not that good right? How do you spout off about Bryant having a bad year when Moncada had a SO rate of 31% and hit .225?
Bryant is in decline for 3 years running. He’s exiting his prime and will keep getting hurt off and on. 2 or 3 year contract is all he can hope for with a 3.5 WAR 2021. Of course 2015 to 2017 he was a 5 to 7 WAR player. Was great now can be very good when not injured, but how often could that now be.
You don’t know what you’re talking about Berry. I can assure you are wrong on the 250+, first of all. Cubs never even offered 200. And Bryant never “pouted” and couldn’t care less about the service time manipulation. He went through that for his union brothers and at the bequest of Boras. I wish I could tell you why I know, but damn there is just so much inaccurate info out there. Bryant is such a good guy. There is a absolutely no animosity between he and the Cubs, believe me. Geez.
He needs his “Union Brothers” to pass the hat around and take up a collection to get him back the couple of hundred million that he is gonna be short in free agency.
I’m not trying to be argumentative and this is just my opinion so don’t get too offended, but my biggest concern with Bryant if I were another team considering making a trade is commitment. He has make some comments regarding the game not being fun anymore and his body language the last two years has seemed very negative. Again this is just my outsiders take on it, but he wouldn’t be the first high profile athlete to lose interest in a sport once it starts to take a toll on his body. It maybe that he is frustrated with circumstantial things we know nothing about, but he does not seem happy. I would want some clear insight into that before I made any big investment in him.
Barely… He never pouted once. Sox fan myth. And then there’s the huge contract he was offered that’s never been verified. Sox fan myth. The only one pouting is you, Barely. Cause that’s what sox fans do. That is verified.
I am not the biggest fan of KB and do not expect him to go back to 2016 numbers, but this is stupid. He was a 4.8 fWAR player in 2019, he’s not going to end up settling for a 1 year $10m deal.
He’ll be a Met by Monday,First day of full camp
Joely Rodriguez? Richard Rodriguez? There are some solid trade options for relievers in the market right now.
He suggested a free agent.
Whoa. Steve coming in firing
Sorry for my aggressive tone, all. My rage — it knows no bounds.
Dang man, that really hurt… *whimpers*
No, you’re fine. What hurts is having fluctuating power outages. It sucks here. This is the first time in many, many decades that we’ve had snow that has stuck to the ground for over two days. To a northerner that might seem like Winter-lite, but down here people are losing it. Stores have half-mile lines and people are flooding gas stations like they have the holy-grail. Luckily we haven’t had to leave the house in a week, and we’re set for a couple more. Ain’t no way we’re going to town in this crap.
We get the same thing here in NC when there is a any mention of a severe storm. I am inland, (away from the ocean and any real risk of flooding or hurricane damage), and people here act like the end of the world is coming…then we get one or two days of light rain and mild winds. For a good week or two, though, the shelves are empty at every grocery store and the gas stations have around 25-30 cars competing for what people seem to think are the last fuel reserves on the planet for a few days.
??
!!!
So Kris Bryant will be a Met in the next few days
Samardzija. It’ll be samardzija for $1M!
Sorry. You did not put it in the form of a question.
-200 points
No jeff- 60 year old greg maddox would be a better option
There’s a great prank with a disguised Maddox pitching to Bryant. He wiffs on the curve
Let’s face it no great free agent was ever signing with the Mets. Only way their really getting something of value is through a trade.
LOL
WHILE THE ‘OTHER’ TEAM IN NY PICKS UP MET CASTOFFS ……
They ain’t the only ones. Beat d’Arnaud down so we can sign him at a bargain price, boosting his stock for another run at free agency. Mets are the great equalizer for bloated contracts.
@mets1536- Justin Wilson was never re-signing with the Mets. All the losing on the other side really caught up with him. Now he’s in a better place. No great pressure pitching in the 7th inning, he should thrive in the Bronx.
Mets fans talking smack lol…like the NYY even take you guys seriously.
Let’s be honest – Bauer isn’t great. Springer is ready for the decline.
Realmuto is the only ‘great’ free agent this year and the Mets bailed on that party very early.
Regardless of your opinion of Bauer, (and I think his future production is kind of up in the air as far as predictions are concerned), the Mets FO certainly tried hard to get him and seemed to think they had succeeded before he signed with the Dodgers. As far as free agents have gone this offseason, the Mets have had a hard time landing their man, and seemed to have gone with plan B or C regularly so far.
Smart because Kris Bryant can make his value bigger if he performs well by deadline
Or a QO.
Yeah, my guess is that the Cubs will keep Bryant this season and he will reject a QO next year. He will likely sign elsewhere and the Cubs will get their draft pick. Assuming a team does not blow them away with an offer, which seems unlikely at this point, unless he absolutely tears it up this season prior to the trade deadline.
Reading that list of relievers reminded me of that scene in Major League.
“…this guy here is dead!”
“Then take him off the list”!
Mets need to call A’s Billy Beane and ask for Matt Chapman. I think Billy would entice a package headed by:
Ronny Mauricio – SS.
Francisco Alvarez – C.
Matthew Allan – RHP.
David Peterson – LHP.
J.T. Ginn – RHP and
Inf Jeff McNeil
Billy Beane no longer works for the A’s. That is a massive overpay.
He does but he is president I think
Billy Beane is the Executive Vice President of Baseball Operations for the Oakland Athletics. Any trade to be made by the A’s needs his blue print…
To much but thats what it would take because Billy is smart
No, no, and no on the Mets part. They don’t need to jeopardize their future for Chapman.
Ridiculous overpay not even for someone as good as Chapman maybe one of the worse overpays I have seen. Sandy would laugh that proposal right off the phone then instruct his people to put any calls coming from the A’s to voicemail it would be that big of an insult. Not really sure how much better overall Chapman is then McNeil let alone another 5 prospects ridiculous.
There’s no way they make a trade with McNeil involved. That removes one of (if not the) most productive bat in their lineup moving forward, wouldn’t make sense even a little bit. You don’t deal from your major league roster to strengthen your major league roster unless you are converting sticks to arms or vice versa. It would be a prospects for ML talent trade
Man…as a Cubs fan, those bullpen arms don’t inspire much confidence.
As a Cards fan, I sincerely hope the Cubs can scrape together enough $$ to get Pedro Strop back..
I expect the Cubs to be horrendous this year
Agree
Tony, the Cubs expect to be horrendous this year.
Tim Dierkes went back and forth on how good the Cubs were going to be this year bc their 37 wins extrapolates to 92 wins in a full season and the fact that they had guys under preform in 2020 including obviously Bryant. He said it so it must be true
Trade Bryant for Miguel Cabrera than sign Edwin Jackson to close out games.
Of course its inaccurate. Every offseason for the past three years there has always been rumors about Bryant that go nowhere. I know they traded Darvish and Colorado traded Arenado, but this is always just about drumming up a story for clicks and views.
Resign Jeffress.
Agreed
Cubs are heading towards a retooling and if the free agent signing trend continues, then the bullpen arm Hoyer will sign is David Robertson, a potential buy low signing with the potential to sell high near the deadline.
Cubs should be in Year 2 of a total rebuild. This ship is going down in flames like the Baltimore Orioles. Baltimore kept refusing to trade Machado until they absolutely had too, and now nobody even remembers he ever wore the jersey. Cubs have it worse. They have most of the relics of the past still on the roster, and in fact, are even bringing some relics like Jake Arrieta back, and overpaying no less. Has a team ever been worse at evaluating their own players? Keep holding on to guys until they absolutely, positively have no trade value left.
So in 2020 they won the division and you think it needed to be blown up? No one was taking Darvish at 4 years 82 million…..
Are there any other teams beside the mets mlbtr can cover?
28. Every team but Arizona apparently
Cubs will keep Bryant til deadline. They aren’t going get an offer worth taking and his value couldn’t be any lower.
Cubs have had a decent off season. Nice additions while freeing up long term spending and getting a good return with the Darvish trade.
Hoyer also said the Darvish trade wasn’t about slashing the payroll so…he’s a politician in the wrong field.
No point in trading Bryant right now; any GM willing to give up a legit piece for him would get roasted Justin Timberlake-style by their fan base, so that won’t be happening.
Not sure his deadline value will be any better, but it sure as hell won’t be worse.
How do the Cubs jot have enough to bring back Jeffrey’s??? He can’t be that expensive.
Pedro Strop signing in 3…2…1…
*Jeffress
Damn autocorrect.
Stupid, filthy autocorrect. We hates it forever!
Cubs can move Bryant..but would have to package him with Hendricks or Contreras….They all may be gone at trade deadline when the Cubs are 10 games back…
When the Cubs are bad next year we’ll be able to pick him up at the deadline.
And why is posting twice?
Pass on Jeffress. Had a nice year in 2020, but hitting was down, the division was bad, and his advanced stats suggest more lucky than good. Not a lot of quality left. Maybe Rosenthal, but he is a risk also.
If Hoyer is speaking publicly it means that either the Cubs are actively shopping Bryant, or they were actively shopping Bryant and no one would meet the asking price. Publicly saying he’s not available is just a means of leveraging teams to up the ante. I can see Bryant opening the season with the Cubs. I can also see the Cubs overplaying their hand and getting nothing but draft pick compensation next winter when he rejects the qualifying offer
So they get a draft pick for him and do not spend 150 million on him in FA and can find another player or players to spend that on. What is wrong with that? especially if they are competing in a depleted NL central. Which by my account does not have near the arms as other divisions have. He could have an outstanding year which in turn would make the Cubs competitive and making a push for a playoff spot again. .
Davis will not be the Mets 3rd baseman,
It’s been obvious for awhile nobody is giving up crap for a $20 million Bryant. Even if he’s good this yr I doubt a team would give up much for a couple months of him. Teams normally only overpay for arms in pennant races.
The Cubs are short on experienced southpaws in their bullpen so I’m thinking José Álvarez or Tony Watson might be the free agent reliever Jed Hoyer is referring to. If the Cubs go upside, they could do worse than former Tigers closer Shane Greene. David Robertson is the most accomplished of the potential FA’s still left but also might command the most dollars, at least if he hit on all of the incentives likely to be included in any contract he signs.
The Cubs need Two back Strop and Jeffries are both going to have great years and if only one then sign Shark for A relief job as the setup man
Jason Adam Is a guy to watch. Has filthy stuff/movement and was untouchable as our 7th inn or set up guy last year esp last cpl months. I expect him to continue to do great things this year. Kimbrel too, bp will be sneaky good again
Bryant is worthless right now.
Really dumb to tender him a contract that ended up being $20 million