Front Office Subscriber Chat Transcript

Darragh McDonald

• Hello, everyone.
• If you are American, I hope you’re feeling okay today.
• If you’re not American, I also hope you’re feeling okay today, on this unremarkable Friday.
• Anthony is off for the holidays, so I’m filling in. As always, sorry for the downgrade.
• I will be back at noon but feel free to drop questions ahead of time.
• Okay, hello!
• Already lots of questions in the queue, so let’s dive in.

walterj23

• Which is the most likely going to happen to Cubs 2b Nico Hoerner before the season starts , trade him for other pieces , extend him before the season starts , or simply let him play out his final year of his contract and tag him with a qualifying offer next winter ?

Darragh McDonald

• I would guess the Cubs just let 2026 play out and see where they’re at. A lot could change between now and then. Happ and Suzuki are impending free agents, in addition to Hoerner. What do they have in Matt Shaw? What about Jefferson Rojas? What about Caissie and Alcantara?
• They can then decide where to put their resources, which could mean re-signing Hoerner or one of the outfielders or something else.

Uke

• How does upcoming labor stuff affect signings?  Are players more or less likely to sign long term deals?  Are teams more or less likely to sign long term deals?  Or does no one know what it all means?

Darragh McDonald

• This is a great question.
• A few weeks ago, I would have guessed that players would not want to be free agents in the 2026-27 offseason. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
• Bieber and Flaherty both triggered one-year player options when they probably could have got multi-year deals. Four guys accepted the QO. I expected Gleyber but not Shota, Woodruff or Grisham.
• That’s five guys who probably could have got solid multi-year deals and avoided the lockout. Maybe that’s small sample noise but it doesn’t seem players are scared about being out there next winter.

Bobby Higginson

• Any chance the Tigers get involved in the top tier of closers?

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