(670 The Score) MLB Network and Fox Sports reporter Jon Morosi agrees with this prevailing line of thought: The Cubs’ offseason can’t be considered a success if they don’t add a star shortstop.
As that relates to the free-agent market, there are two stars left unsigned in Carlos Correa and Dansby Swanson. Correa will be the more expensive of the two, with most across the MLB landscape believing it will take $300 million or more to sign him. Asked how much Swanson will cost, Morosi responded there’s a “reasonable chance” that he’ll land a contract of at least $200 million. The Cubs have shown interest in both players.
“I still believe they have a good chance to get one of the two,” Morosi said of the Cubs on the Parkins & Spiegel Show on Friday evening. “And I think of the two, Swanson is the most plausible one. Not only because of course as you know, his fiancée Mallory Pugh plays for the (Chicago) Red Stars – they’d be the first couple of Chicago sports if Dansby Swanson signs with the Cubs – (but) to me, Correa and the Giants are the fit. There was the face-to-face meeting in recent days, according to Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle. So there was a meeting there. Correa, I think, wants that large market on the coast. That to me is where Correa’s most likely landing spot is. And Swanson, remember, it’s not just the fact that Mallory is a star soccer player in town, another personal connection is that both Dansby and (Cubs general manager) Carter Hawkins played for Vanderbilt. There’s a Vandy connection there, where they know each other very well. To me, this is the fit.
This is the most likely landing spot for Swanson.
“I think in a very ironic twist, the fact that the Cardinals signed (Willson) Contreras made it a little bit less likely that they would sign both a catcher and an expensive shortstop. I don’t really expect the Cardinals to get both Contreras and Swanson in the same (offseason) even though I really think Swanson fits their club very well too.”
Swanson, who will turn 29 in February, is coming off his first All-Star season in 2022 and had played in Atlanta for his first seven MLB seasons. Swanson hit .277 with 25 homers, 96 RBIs and a .776 OPS while playing all 162 games for the Braves this past season. His 6.4 WAR in 2022 was the second-most among MLB shortstops, according to FanGraphs, trailing only the Mets’ Francisco Lindor.
Morosi called the Cubs one of the “small group of finalists” for Swanson, but he speculated it would take a contract in the range of eight years and $200 million or a “really lucrative” seven-year deal to get Swanson to sign in Chicago.
If the Cubs strike out on Correa and Swanson in free agency and go 0-for-4 in the star shortstop market – Trea Turner joined the Phillies and Xander Bogaerts signed with the Padres – Morosi also had an outside-the-box idea on how Chicago could pivot.
He believes the Cubs could eventually pursue Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette on the trade market. Bichette is under team control through 2025.
“Nobody has told me, ‘Hey, Bo Bichette is available,’ but like a lot of things in this industry, if you are getting closer to free agency and there’s no word of there being a (contract) extension in place, people start to ask, people start to wonder,” Morosi said. “I don’t think the Jays are there yet, but if both of those shortstops, Correa and Swanson, don’t go to the Cubs and the Cubs are very, very motivated to put a ton of their prospect value into a deal … I just believe there are some scenarios – not now – but later in the offseason in which the Jays would at least entertain the possibility of a Bo Bichette trade.”
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