Despite the number of key Cubs players who will be in walk years in 2026, the team’s situation isn’t comparable to 2021 — when the Cubs couldn’t come to terms with any of their core players facing free agency at the end of the year and then sold off at the trade deadline.
Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer made clear at MLB’s general managers meetings in Las Vegas this week that the team will be “active” this offseason.
And even if the Cubs’ plans to build off this year’s playoff appearance go awry, they aren’t in danger of undergoing the kind of full-scale rebuild that they initiated four and a half years ago.
“We had higher goals [in 2025],” Hoyer said Wednesday of the Cubs’ National League Division Series exit. “… You try to figure out, what are the best ways to fill our holes, what are the best ways to add depth in the most intelligent way possible?”
That process will take the whole picture, both this year and beyond, into consideration.
Right fielder Seiya Suzuki, left fielder Ian Happ, second baseman Nico Hoerner and right-hander Jameson Taillon’s contracts are up after the 2026 season, barring extensions. Left-hander Mattthew Boyd and catcher Carson Kelly could also be facing free agency if their 2027 mutual options aren’t picked up.
Some of that alignment was by design. The Cubs kept the end of the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement in mind while structuring recent multi-year deals.
“Anytime you get towards the end of a CBA, it becomes a source of conversation,” Hoyer said this week. “I don’t know yet how much it’s going to impact [the offseason markets]. I don’t think anyone here does. It could have an impact, it could have no impact. It’ll be something people think about because you have to.”
Uncertainty was the theme of baseball operations officials’ comments this week about the expiring CBA.
Debate over a potential salary cap, which the players have long fought against, will likely be the main point of contention in what’s expected to be a tense bargaining period. The industry is bracing for another work stoppage after the CBA expires next winter.
It’s so far unclear whether anxiety over an uncertain future landscape will affect the kinds of deals teams are willing to offer or players are willing to accept. Either way, the Cubs are looking to lay a foundation that won’t completely crumble regardless of how the tumult plays out.
It’s a tough needle to try to thread, and there isn’t a guarantee that they’ll do it successfully. But this also isn’t 2021; the differences boil down to timing, player development and financial picture.
The Cubs are in a much different point in their competitive window than they were going into 2021. They just successfully ended a four-year playoff drought, whereas the 2021 campaign was about trying to get what they could out of the 2016 World Series core.
In contrast to 2021, the Cubs also have a strong group of contributors who haven’t even reached arbitration yet.
Center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong, who on Thursday officially joined Team USA for the World Baseball Classic, finished ninth in NL MVP voting and was named to the All-MLB second team.
Michael Busch and Matt Shaw, holding down the corner infield spots, quickly established themselves as everyday-caliber players. Right-hander Cade Horton carried the rotation in the second half. Right-hander Daniel Palencia served as the closer for much of last season. If catcher Miguel Amaya can stay healthy, he’s shown a readiness to be the primary backstop.
“We feel better about our draft process, we feel better about our pro acquisition process,” general manager Carter Hawkins said this week. “We continue to feel better and good about our development process. And so the idea is, you’re building that up to where you’re continually getting new guys coming up and impacting the major leagues.”
Not to mention, veteran shortstop Dansby Swanson is under contract through 2029. The Cubs are also expected to engage several players in extension conversations. And position-player prospects Moisés Ballesteros, Owen Caissie and Kevin Alcántara have all gotten their first tastes of the big-leagues and are ready to build off that experience.
Back in 2021, the pandemic had shifted the industry’s financial landscape. And when the Cubs traded Yu Darvish to the Padres before the season, it foreshadowed moves to come.
Hoyer has declined to comment on the Cubs’ budget this offseason, not even revealing whether it would expand from last year’s. But if chairman Tom Ricketts’ regular insistence that the previous year’s revenue determines the baseball budget holds true, the Cubs’ 2025 playoff revenue could give them more financial flexibility.
“I don’t look at it as a cause for concern,” Hoyer said of the team’s clean books after 2026. “I try to look at as an opportunity, that we have available dollars in the future that we haven’t committed yet, and we just need to continue to commit those dollars wisely as we do commit them.”
Want more insights? Join Working Title - our career elevating newsletter and get the future of work delivered weekly.
