Although the Cubs generally sat out last winter’s star-studded free agent market for shortstops, there’s already been ample speculation that they’ll be more aggressive on that front in the 2022-23 offseason. Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic added to that this week in his podcast, voicing a belief that the Cubs “will get” one of the marquee shortstops on this year’s market. As profiled in our latest Free Agent Power Rankings here at MLBTR, the class includes Trea Turner, Carlos Correa (who’s expected to opt out of the final two years and $70.7M of his Twins deal this winter), Xander Bogaerts (who’ll opt out of the final three years and $60M on his Red Sox deal) and Dansby Swanson.
It’s obviously far too early to make any definitive statements regarding who’ll sign where over the winter, and it bears emphasizing that speculation this time of year often doesn’t align with reality when the offseason dust settles. (A year ago this time, the common speculation was that Correa would reunite with former Astros skipper AJ Hinch in Detroit. A few years back, Patrick Corbin and the Yankees were linked to one another just about every week.) Signing one of the “big” shortstops would likely require the largest commitment the Cubs have made since signing Yu Darvish to a six-year, $126M contract in free agency — and each of the four can be reasonably expected to clear that sum on the open market this year.
Correa was reported to be a target of the Cubs last winter, but he revealed in a July interview with Gordon Wittenmyer that in spite of some conversation, he never received an actual offer. The Cubs ultimately signed the recently released Andrelton Simmons to a one-year, $4M deal.
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