It’s too early for the Cubs to talk about adding on, and it’s too late for the White Sox to talk about anything but a fire sale.
But as the City Series was scheduled to begin Tuesday night at Wrigley Field, the disappointing Cubs and the disastrous Sox were both in need of transfusions.
The Cubs are hoping to salvage the season. The Sox are trying to salvage the decade.
Let’s get this rolling before everyone tunes out baseball and begins preparing for the Caleb Williams era.
Sox general manager Chris Getz and Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, the architects of Chicago’s twin terrors, have a chance to remake their teams with each other’s help. And fortunately for fans, they’ve already become chatty North Shore neighbors with a shared history of rebuilding teams from the ground up.
“We became friends before he got that job,” Hoyer said of Getz. “It’s a hard job to take over and have to make really difficult trades, to have to effectively lose on purpose for a while in order to get better. But I respect the fact he’s going right at it. He’s not cutting corners. He’s traded the right guys. They’ve got a lot of pitching in their minor-league system now because of that.
“If I can offer encouragement at times or a shoulder at times, it’s great. We’ve both been through it, and the concept of rebuilding is one thing. The reality of driving home alone at nights having lost a game and sometimes in a cruel way is real. I try to humanize that a little bit.
“Sometimes in the offseason when he’s thinking about these trades and thinking about rebuilding, it probably feels a little different than now. He’s not shying away from making hard decisions, and that’s the most important thing.”
The hardest decision for Getz, of course, would be whether to trade his biggest star, center fielder Luis Robert Jr., who returned from the injured list Tuesday after missing all but the first seven games this season.
Robert is signed through 2025 with club options for ‘26 and ‘27, so there’s no urgency to unload a player who could be around when the rebuild turns the corner. Getz recently reiterated there are no untouchables on the team, without mentioning Robert by name.
“There’s some players on the team that I think make a little more sense than others,” he said. “ As the season progresses or you head into the offseason, you’ve got to weigh your upcoming season, what you have in the farm system. Those types of things can change fairly quickly based on the needs you have internally. It’s got to match up with other clubs.
“But we’re open on (all) players on our club just because we know we’ve got to make strides to get back into a competitive team here in the AL Central.”
Robert understands the business of the game. When I asked him Tuesday whether he wants to be with the organization long term, he said through interpreter Billy Russo he’s OK either way.
“Definitely, I would like to stay with this organization,” he said. “This organization, they gave me the opportunity to play in the majors and make my dream come true. But if they decide otherwise, I will go to do my best somewhere else.”
It’s unlikely Robert would go, but who knows? The Sox need a lot more talent in the system to get this rebuild off the ground, and no player would net more than Robert.
Would Hoyer and Getz get together and talk deals over an Iced Lavender Oatmilk Latte? Michael Kopech could be energized throwing in front of a packed house at Wrigley Field. The Cubs have some starting pitching in the system that could interest Getz.
Hoyer said they spoke about some trades over the winter, but nothing came to fruition.
“There’s always some active politics that go on between the two teams, so it’s not the easiest trade partner,” he said. “But it’s a pretty open relationship. We talk about that stuff, and maybe at some point we’ll get a significant deal done.”
The last “significant deal” between the teams was at the 2021 trade deadline, when the Cubs sent closer Craig Kimbrel to the Sox for infielder Nick Madrigal and reliever Cody Heuer. Kimbrel struggled as a setup man to Liam Hendriks, while Heuer’s career was sidetracked by injuries in 2022 and Madrigal was sent to Triple-A Iowa on Sunday after failing to find any consistency in a backup role.
The biggest Cubs-Sox deal in recent history was the 2017 trade that sent Eloy Jiménez and Dylan Cease to the South Side for José Quintana. Hoyer was asked if Cease was the player he and Getz talked about over the winter.
“I don’t think that was going to happen,” he said, laughing.
On the other hand, if the Cubs don’t wake up soon, Hoyer could be the one looking at a fire sale. That’s something he knows how to do, having dealt a slew of stars at that ’21 trade deadline, including fan favorites Javier Báez, Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo.
The trade deadline is still weeks away and Hoyer said he still believes in this offense, but if the status quo continues, he has Cody Bellinger, Ian Happ and Nico Hoerner available to dangle to prospective buyers.
Hoyer admitted it’s “undeniable” the Cubs have played poorly since late April, but he added: “We’ve already shown it’s in there. I just expect us to play better.”
It doesn’t make sense to pull the plug in the first year of manager Craig Counsell’s $40 million contract, and the Cubs showed last year they can go from 10 games under .500 to wild-card contention with two good months.
But believing the ’24 Cubs can do it is one thing.
Watching them do it is another.
