After all of the trade rumors and deadline hype, the Chicago Cubs made two low-key acquisitions - starting pitcher Dan Haren and relief pitcher Tommy Hunter - before 4 p.m. ET on July 31. Does this further indicate the team is prepping for beyond the 2015 season?
Trade rumors linked the Cubs to a number of high-profile players such as David Price, Cole Hamels, Jeff Samardzija, Tyson Ross, Andrew Cashner, Justin Upton, Ben Zobrist and others, but Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer perhaps took the conservative route and will seemingly wait until the offseason to make any significant upgrades that are needed.
"It felt like from the outside looking in that their thought was 'we're just going to add something cheaply, we don't have to give up a lot for a Dan Haren, and we want to make ourselves marginally better because this team has earned it,'" ESPN Insider Buster Olney said on the Baseball Tonight Podcast.
"All along their goal was certainly to improve now and for the future," Jesse Rogers of ESPNChicago.com added on the podcast. "But mortgaging anything in terms of top prospects would have been a huge mistake ... no team makes the playoffs with three or four rookies. If they do this year, it's a bonus. The focus is on the future, and rightly so."
The Cubs find themselves in the thick of a tight NL wild-card race with the Pittsburgh Pirates, San Francisco Giants and New York Mets/Washington Nationals and it's not going to be easy for such a young team to beat out these more experienced clubs as the final two months of the season kick into full gear. Perhaps the front office is looking at this year realistically and figured it wasn't worth trading prospects for rental players or even others under club control just yet.
"We explored everything very thoroughly, very aggressively, came close," Epstein told Patrick Mooney of CSN Chicago after the deadline. "But we still have that talent in the organization. Some of them will go on to play up here, and others we'll probably use in trades another day.
"Our players were in demand. It was just a lot of the guys we had targeted - who we thought would make the biggest impact - weren't moved."
Rumors suggested the Cubs' front office was shying away from rental acquisitions such as David Price, Justin Upton and Ben Zobrist, and instead focused their attention to players under club control beyond the 2015 season (Hamels, Ross, Cashner and Craig Kimbrel). Well, Hamels was traded to the Rangers and the Padres didn't move any of their players, which now indicates the Cubs could make a huge splash in free agency.
After all, their rookies are still getting comfortable at the MLB level, and making a significant short-term move may have not been the most prudent decision considering the team needs further development.
For example, Kris Bryant is batting just .147 with 29 strikeouts in 68 at-bats since the All-Star break.
"He's missing a lot of good pitches, a lot inside the zone," Rogers noted.
The struggles of Jorge Soler on both offense and defense are well-documented too.
Addison Russell was a great defensive addition to the roster, but he's batting just .235/.301/.362 in 89 games this season.
"Russell, for example, is finding his second wind," Rogers said.
Maddon has also acknowledged Russell is still finding his way at the plate.
Kyle Schwarber has been excellent in 20-plus games with the Cubs, but he still needs to get in his reps because this small sample size is likely not indicative of what he'll be able to do across 162 games.
Despite this year's unprecedented success, there is still a lot of work that needs to be done and the front office understood that when they were tempted to make transformative moves before the deadline.
"While it might sound harsh to suggest early work, the margin for error is virtually nil with the Cubs trailing the San Francisco Giants by one-half game for the second National League wild card berth," writes Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune.
"And with four rookies in the starting lineup, the Cubs are in the production stage as much as the development stage."
