Turns out the Chicago Cubs’ tease of a “special announcement” was much ado about nothing. Kinda how things went for the team at the trade deadline.
And now the team’s followers are left to worry that the season may end up being much ado about nothing as well.
Not that the message itself wasn’t something special. The Cubs had sent out an email on Thursday to promote a press conference held on Friday morning at Wrigley Field, where MLB officials officially announced that the Cubs will host the 2027 MLB All-Star Game at the iconic venue. It will be the first time that the Midsummer Classic is held at Wrigley since 1990, which is certainly worth celebrating.
However, it wasn’t really news. League insiders had been talking about it for weeks, ever since USA Today’s MLB analyst Bob Nightengale reported in his July 13 column that the Cubs had earned approval from the league to host the game.
So yeah, cool announcement. But it would have been a lot cooler for Cubs fans if the team had spent that time introducing a couple of top-flight starting pitchers acquired just before the July 31 trade deadline.
Cubs Fans Disappointed as Jed Hoyer Failed to Acquire Big-Name Starting Pitchers
It has been known around Major League Baseball since the season began that the Cubs would scour the trade market in search of pitching. Starters, relievers, all of the above … Chicago has long needed arms on its staff.
In particular, for a team with a dangerous offense and title-winning aspirations, a playoff-style workhorse had to be in the plans. The kind of big-game pitcher who could take the ball in Game 1 or 2 of a series and give the Cubs a chance to win.
Didn’t happen.
Oh, there were a few moves. Getting super utilityman Willi Castro from the Twins for right-handed pitchers Sam Armstrong and Ryan Gallagher was a decent get. And the Cubs did add a trio of serviceable pitchers in Mike Soroka, Andrew Kittredge and Taylor Rogers.
But as MLB insider Ken Rosenthal pointed out during a Friday episode of the Foul Territory podcast, the Cubs appeared to forget something.
“What’s missing there?” Rosenthal wondered. “A big-time starting pitcher.”
And Cubs fans were not too happy about the situation, especially considering that the team’s president of baseball operations, Jed Hoyer, had signed a contract extension just a few days before the trade deadline. Several fans took to Reddit to voice their displeasure.
“Jed was the biggest contract before deadline?” one asked.
“Jed sucks the life out of me, I feel gaslit when he talks sometimes,” another lamented.
“So we are not trying to win it this year? This is just about having competitive teams. Got it.”
MLB Insider Decries Trade Deadline Effort of Jed Hoyer, Cubs as ‘A Disappointment’
Rosenthal did offer a small caveat in the Cubs’ defense, noting that very few starting pitchers were involved in trades, with Merrill Kelly and Shane Bieber the only significant names that changed teams. But there were other pitchers available, and Rosenthal denounced Chicago for not doing what needed to be done.
“This was a disappointment in terms of not getting the starting pitcher that so many of us thought they needed to get,” he said.
“The prices were excessive and evidently the Cubs did not feel it was worth meeting the price. Now, here’s the problem. There are times in a franchise’s evolution when a team has to overpay. The Cubs did this in 2016 when they went out and got Aroldis Chapman. What happened? They won the World Series. This might be the Cubs’ only year with Kyle Tucker. Only year he’s eligible before free agency. I don’t know that many of us expect the Cubs to resign him. In my view, this was a year in which they had to overpay. Their rotation is vulnerable, was vulnerable, and will be vulnerable.”
Potentially leading to a disappointing end to the 2025 season.
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