{"id":58478,"date":"2025-05-30T11:17:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T11:17:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=58478"},"modified":"2025-05-30T11:17:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T11:17:13","slug":"cubs-trade-deadline-watch-2-players-becoming-trade-fodder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=58478","title":{"rendered":"Cubs trade deadline watch: 2 players becoming trade fodder"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\">The Chicago Cubs are loaded with talent this season. They went out during the offseason and made multiple moves to put their team in a spot to be successful this year and it&#8217;s working out tremendously well so far.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\">The Cubs poached Kyle Tucker from the Houston Astros in exchange for Cam Smith and Isaac Paredes. So far, Tucker has been tremendous for Craig Counsell&#8217;s club, but the loss of Parades and Smith is still being felt.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\">Chicago leads the National League Central, though, and it doesn&#8217;t seem like they should run into any sort of serious competition unless the St. Louis Cardinals continue trending the way they are now.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\">Either way, the Cubs are bound to be huge buyers at the trade deadline. They could look to add at a few key positions this season as they look to steal the NL pennant from the Los Angeles Dodgers.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\"><em><strong>For more news and rumors, check out MLB Insider Robert Murray\u2019s work on\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>The Baseball Insiders podcast<em><strong>, subscribe to\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>The Moonshot<em><strong>, our weekly MLB newsletter, and join the discord to get the inside scoop between now and the MLB offseason.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<h2 id=\"inline-text-5\">Who could the Cubs use as trade bait to buy big?<\/h2>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\">The Cubs are going to be very active on the trade market this season. Most importantly, they need to add a starting pitcher or two. The rotation needed help coming into the season, but the front office didn&#8217;t add too much. With Justin Steele going down with a season-ending injury, the rotation is even more crippled.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-7\">Somebody like Sandy Alc\u00e1ntara or Luis Castillo have been mentioned as potential fits for the Cubs. Both pitchers have flashed excellence, but they&#8217;re also on longer term contracts. Neither is a rental like a pitcher like Erick Fedde is.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\">But if the Cubs are going to go after a huge trade like this, they&#8217;re going to need to cut ties with some prospects as trade bait. Who could they use on the trade block?<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"inline-text-9\">OF Kevin Alc\u00e1ntara<\/h3>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\">The Cubs don&#8217;t have a lot of talented options to trade in the minor leagues. A few of their top prospects, like Matt Shaw and Cade Horton, are seemingly off limits in a trade, for good reason, which leaves a guy like Kevin Alc\u00e1ntara as the perfect trade bait.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\">The Cubs have talented outfielders like Pete Crow-Armstrong at the big league level. They&#8217;ll likely look to sign Tucker to a long-term deal while Owen Caissie.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\">On the season, the 22-year-old outfielder prospect is slashing .237\/.324\/.397 for the Cubs&#8217; Triple-A affiliate. He&#8217;s a bit of a long-term project, but he could work as the headliner in a blockbuster deal this season.<\/p>\n<h3 id=\"inline-text-13\">2B\/OF James Triantos<\/h3>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\">While we&#8217;re on the topic of Cubs prospects who are good enough for the big leagues, just not with the Cubs, let&#8217;s move on to utilityman James Triantos.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\">The versatile defender is slashing .250\/.304\/.313 in 33 games at Triple-A. Last season, he posted an OPS closer to .800 split between two levels of the minor leagues. His power numbers are down quite a bit this season, but he should be able to turn it around.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\">He&#8217;s a good defender with good speed as well. There&#8217;s just no place for the Cubs to use him at the big league level, so throwing him in a trade would make perfect sense.<\/p>\n<figure><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Cubs are absolutely loaded with talent this season. They went out during the offseason and made multiple moves to put their team in the spot to be s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":58479,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-58478","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cubs trade deadline watch: 2 players becoming trade fodder - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=58478\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cubs trade deadline watch: 2 players becoming trade fodder - NEWS USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Chicago Cubs are absolutely loaded with talent this season. 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