NEWSLETTER
Jon Morosi is doing his laps lately, and I appreciate him for it.
Appearing this afternoon on Parkins & Spiegel on 670 The Score, Morosi was asked about the Cubs as sellers, and in essence, have they already engaged in seller-type talks. The answer was closer to “not quite” than “yes,” but the teeny, tiny baby steps have occurred, according to Morosi.
“They are at this point, now that July has begun, from what I can tell from sources right now, they are taking incoming inquiries right now. Where they are at least signaling to other teams that, if not imminently, that at some point in the weeks ahead they will be interested in and open to trade negotiations of a selling posture.”
Morosi was quick to note that he doesn’t have it confirmed that THOSE negotiations have started – it’s a very fine distinction, but an important one – but instead it’s that the Cubs are acknowledging the reality of their situation, and signaling to teams that they are open to at least getting some phone calls.
The way I understand the comments, the Cubs are not out there affirmatively telling teams that they are ready to start talking selling trades. But they ARE taking those kinds of phone calls, and at least conveying – according to Morosi’s sources around the league – that at some point they will (or are very likely to?) be open to actually having the substantive talks. Something like, “Hey, yeah, we’ll make a note that you’d be interested in Player X and Player Y if we start selling negotiations, and that might happen later this month, so we’ll get back to you.” That about the ballpark?
And … yeah, right? That just makes sense? The Cubs know where they stand now. They know how deeply unlikely it is that they make a herculean run over the next three weeks, sufficient to justify staving off a sell. The only real question is what pieces they are willing to sell – and/or what pieces have actual tradable value out there – and when the Cubs start pulling the trigger. For now, at least we know the Cubs’ front office isn’t putting their finger in their ears and failing to even START contemplating what a selling season might look like.
(Note, Morosi also underscored that he DID NOT previously report that the Cubs and Mariners had talked about a Nico Hoerner trade. Like I said earlier, that’s just not what he was saying. He was simply pointing out that there COULD BE fits between the Cubs and Mariners, with Nico Hoerner among those POSSIBLE fits.)
