CHICAGO — Three high-end free agents still remain in play for the Chicago Cubs so, what’s the latest news when it comes to Cody Bellinger, Matt Chapman and Rhys Hoskins?

Cody Bellinger
Bellinger remains strongly in play to return to the North Side of Chicago, but Major League Baseball’s team north of the border is becoming a stronger suitor for his talents by the day.

According to MLB.com and the New York Magazine’s Will Leitch, the Toronto Blue Jays are his No. 1 landing spot for Bellinger after they missed out on Ohtani, with the Cubs coming in at No. 3 on his list.

“The Blue Jays do make a lot of sense,” Leitch told Alanna Rizzo on High Heat Friday. “I think that they could use that kind of extra left-handed bat in the lineup. I think defensively, he works out very well there … If he’s going to go somewhere else, I think the Blue Jays are a logical place.”

“Though, I think it’s worth noting, staying with the Cubs I think makes a lot of sense as well,” Leitch added. “For all the excitement of them bringing in [Craig] Counsell, and the Cubs really trying to go for it this year, if they don’t bring back Bellinger or [Marcus] Stroman, they’ve lost two of the best players on their team.”

Matt Chapman
According to The Athletic’s Patrick Mooney, Scott Boras has a tendency to market players to clubs who fit the profile of players they have signed in the past — and while negotiations are hashed out in the Bellinger camp — Chapman is the same type of two-way player the Cubs usually covet, and fits in the same vein as when they signed Seiya Suzuki and Dansby Swanson.

Chicago faces stiff competition for Chapman’s services though, especially from a particular National League West team trying to keep pace with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Earlier this month, MLB Network’s Jon Morosi pointed toward the San Francisco Giants as a team who could be in pursuit of Chapman.

After the Dodgers signed Japanese superstars Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, in addition to dealing for Tampa Bay Rays starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow, the Giants are viewed as a team that needs to continue to add talent to keep pace with Los Angeles, the 2023 NL champion Arizona Diamondbacks, and to stay ahead of the dormant San Diego Padres.

San Francisco has already signed Korean star outfielder Jung Hoo Lee to a six-year/$113 million contract, and could look toward Chapman as someone who could solidify the left side of their infield not only with his bat, but also with his glove.

Chapman is a two-time Platinum Glove winner and four-time Gold Glove winner at third base in his career, and while he did have a down year at the plate last season in terms of conventional statistics, he still had a 108 OPS+ and a 4.4 WAR, and finished top five in MLB in average exit velocity (4th – 93.4 mph), barrel % (2nd – 17.1%) and hard hit % (1st – 56.4%).

Rhys Hoskins
As recently as Monday morning, Morosi speculated that the Cubs were front-runners to sign the former Philadelphia Phillies slugging first baseman, but as time goes on, teams like the Seattle Mariners and the Giants could sneak into the equation and pilfer Hoskins from the Cubs, despite Chicago being seen as a prime landing spot for his services.

“We’ve talked about Rhys Hoskins and the Cubs before,” Morosi said on MLB Hot Stove Monday. “I still think the Cubs are a part of that conversation, but one more team I was told over the last several days that are certainly involved are the Seattle Mariners … With Hoskins being from the Sacramento area, a west coast guy … the longer the Cubs wait on this … they might miss him too.”

Hoskins, who is heading in to his age-31 season after missing all of last year with a torn ACL, has averaged 36 doubles, 36 home runs and 98 RBI’s with a 125 OPS+ over 162 games the entirety of his career (league average is 100, meaning he’s been 25% better than the average MLB hitter since 2017).

The Big Picture
So far this offseason, the Cubs have spent $0, while Dodgers have outspent the rest of Major League Baseball — $1.053 billion to $873 million — on their way to assembling a team of avengers on the west coast, but unlike the NBA, stuffing a roster with superstar talent and spending money hand over fist doesn’t exactly translate to postseason success.

The teams with the three highest payrolls in baseball last season — New York Mets, New York Yankees and San Diego Padres — didn’t even qualify for the postseason. In fact, the Mets and Padres both finished with losing records, despite spending north of $600 million combined between the two teams.

Taken a step further, spending and winning don’t necessarily correlate to postseason success either. Of MLB’s three 100-win teams a season ago — the Atlanta Braves, Baltimore Orioles and Dodgers — the Dodgers (No. 5) and the Braves (No. 8) were both among the top 10 spenders in 2023, but Los Angeles and Atlanta combined to go 1-6 during the 2023 National League Division Series and were eliminated from the playoffs in their first series of the postseason.

Point is, even though the Cubs missed out on Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the opportunity to make the postseason is still as prevalent as it was before the Dodgers dropped a smooth billion-plus to reel in the two Japanese superstars, plus, the North Siders still have more than one opportunity to make a splash in free agency.