3 biggest threats to steal Trea Turner from Dodgers in free agency

2. Chicago Cubs

The floundering Chicago Cubs (man, their fall has been tough to watch) actually played a portion of this season with Andrelton Simmons at short. Then he batted .173 with an unfathomable 24 OPS+ and management was like, “You know what? We don’t have to torture our fans!”

Nico Hoerner has logged 124 games at the position, but for months now rumors have swirled concerning the Cubs’ eventual involvement in this upcoming shortstop market, which will feature Turner, Dansby Swanson, Carlos Correa and Xander Bogaerts.

Now that their pretty little TV network is off and running, perhaps it’s time for the Ricketts family to focus on baseball. With just $90 million in guaranteed contracts on the books for 2023, the Cubs have plenty of money to spend this offseason. And they can afford to get a little bit reckless to kick other big spenders out of the picture.

Chicago simply needs to come out of this free agency period with two big names or else the franchise will set itself back much further. This isn’t quite the east coast, but if the money is there, as well as a promise to get more superior talent around him, Turner could be swayed to join the weak NL Central, a division that’s seemingly wide open every year.