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The first thing you need to know about this potential trade is that it's just a sketch, meant to bring light to a couple of more important issues affecting each team. While I would find this specific trade proposal compelling, it's unlikely that either side would actually pull the trigger on it, and that itself is part of the story.
The second thing you need to know is that Griffin Jax wants to be a starting pitcher again, after spending the last two seasons becoming increasingly dominant at the back end of the Minnesota Twins bullpen. The third thing you need to know is that Kevin Alcántara is blocked in Chicago and in need of an outlet to the big leagues. Let's stop counting, now, but here's some other vital information about these two teams and their fit on a potential trade this winter:
- The Twins continue to face self-inflicted, self-destructive payroll constraints, making it functionally impossible for them to keep both Christian Vázquez and Ryan Jeffers, whom they've deployed in an unprecedentedly even timeshare over the last two seasons but who will cost roughly $15 million as a duo in 2025.
- The Cubs enter the offseason with money to spend on a big bat somewhere in their lineup, but they also need to get creative about improving the front end of their starting rotation. Specifically, they suffer from a lack of sheer velocity and overall stuff from their starters, and the problem runs much deeper than Kyle Hendricks.
- Chicago helped Miguel Amaya unlock his offensive upside last season, but he's a subpar defender behind the plate, and the Cubs front office is unlikely to accept below-average work from that position--arguably the most important on the diamond for run prevention, other than pitcher.
Ok, enough throat-clearing. Let's lay out the trade I think would help both of these teams quite a bit, and then expand on the reasons why I think so.
Cubs Get:
- Griffin Jax, RHP: Will turn 30 years old next month. Three years of team control remaining. MLB Trade Rumors projected arbitration earnings for 2025: $2.6 million.
- Christian Vázquez, Catcher: 34 years old. Entering final season of three-year, $30-million deal. Will make $10 million in 2025.
Twins Get:
- Kevin Alcántara, OF: 22 years old. No. 27 overall prospect in baseball, according to FanGraphs. Already on 40-man roster, but can be optioned for one more season. Got a cup of coffee to close this season.
- Brody McCullough, RHP: 24 years old. No. 13 prospect in Cubs system, according to FanGraphs. Has made only a very brief appearance at Double A, but also doesn't need to be added to 40-man roster for protection from Rule 5 Draft until after 2025.
This trade would clear as much as $13 million in expected salary for the 2025 Twins, and it would immediately fill a critical role for them. Alcántara is a right-handed hitter who's essentially ready for the majors, and is a plus defensive center fielder. He's not currently ready to be an average-plus hitter in the big leagues, but he has All-Star upside and six years of team control left. He would be the fallback plan for Byron Buxton in center field, a platoon partner for both Trevor Larnach and Matt Wallner in the corners, and an important step toward making the brutally slow, unathletic Twins a more dynamic team. He's a premium piece, despite his lack of offensive refinement.
McCullough is a throw-in, but an interesting one. Knee surgery ended his 2023 season, and after a late start, his 2024 season had an abrupt, premature end with another injury. When he's been on the mound, though, the 2022 draftee has been very impressive, and he could fall in line with the rest of the flowing Twins pitching pipeline, if he can just get healthy enough to benefit from the team's superb pitching development system.
That's what the Twins stand to gain: a role player with humongous upside and flexible team control, a 40-man roster spot to play with, and some serious spending power. For the Cubs, it's a much more present-focused move, but no less variable. The key to this proposal is that Jax wouldn't come in as a prospective relief ace for next year's team, alongside Porter Hodge. Instead, he'd convert back to the starting rotation, taking with him much of the velocity he gained when he first moved from that unit to the bullpen in 2022. That's because that bump isn't all about his compressed workload since becoming a reliever. He's also made major mechanical improvements over that span. Chris Langin, the director of pitching for Driveline, laid out the case for Jax as a starter earlier this year, in a compelling YouTube video:
Jax is already 30, but his arm isn't. Because his service in the Air Force kept him away from the game for stretches throughout his ascent through the minors, and because of the move to the pen upon reaching the big leagues, he's thrown fewer than 600 total professional innings--despite not having notable injury problems at any point. Even if you bake in his collegiate work, he's thrown fewer than 1,000 innings of competitive baseball through the end of his 20s.
That doesn't mean Jax will be good until he's 40, but for the three seasons of team control he has left, there's good reason to hope he could be the next Garrett Crochet, Reynaldo López, or Seth Lugo. He throws five different pitches, including both a sweeper and a changeup that can be devastating. Even if his fastball shrinks back from sitting 97 and touching 99 to sitting 95 and touching 97, he has the profile of a starter with elite upside.
In this scenario, the Cubs would give up one of their top prospects, but they'd do it with the idea that they can slot Jax in alongside Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon and Javier Assad in a fully-stocked, top-tier rotation for the next two or three years. There would be injuries and failures, but Jordan Wicks, Cade Horton, Ben Brown, and Brandon Birdsell would be available to backfill when those breaches took place.
The team would also solve its catching conundrum, because Vázquez is the perfect complement to Amaya. Since Amaya is still making the league-minimum salary, he and Vázquez would represent a reasonable investment in the position, and Vázquez is a good enough all-around defender--good framer, fine thrower, excellent handler of pitchers both in terms of game-planning and in terms of managing difficult innings or outings--to justify more playing time than a true scrap-heap pickup like this year's Christian Bethancourt and Tomás Nido experiments could. His contract has negative value, especially to the cash-strapped Twins, but the Cubs could take it on easily. Unlike the Twins, they can win without efficiently spending every remaining dime.
The Twins could just keep Jax, but they don't need him as a starter, and therefore, they don't need to take the risks that still exist if he does try to move back into that role. He could anchor their bullpen and they could trade Jhoan Durán, who actually projects to make anywhere from $1 million to $1.5 million more than Jax, but Durán's diminished velocity this year will have teams asking careful questions before turning over top talent for him.
Nor will any team trade as much for a pure reliever, like Durán, as they would for a player they would view as a starter. If you doubt this, note the surprise that met the deals signed by López, Jordan Hicks, and Lugo last winter. Those free agents had been considered relievers, so when they signed for guaranteed amounts ranging from $30 million to $45 million, fans were briefly shocked--until each team announced their intentions to move those players into starting roles. Now, two of those deals look like bargains.
The Cubs could shop Alcántara for starters who have already proved their ability to stay healthy and succeed in that role. Jax hasn't yet done that, which is why he should be available for a prospect package starting with Alcántara, rather than Matt Shaw. However, this move is perfect for them, because it allows them to leverage their wealth advantage without plunging into free agency and locking into a long-term deal. Thought they would receive Vázquez, taking on his salary would effectively be a benefit to the Twins, like throwing in another prospect alongside Alcántara and McCullough.
Each side would be accepting significant risk, because that deal is a loser for the Cubs if Jax doesn't make it as a starter, and it's a loser for the Twins if Alcántara doesn't figure out how to lift the ball and/or make more consistent contact. Each side also faces difficult constraints and/or substantial risks associated with inaction, too, though. The Cubs don't have the available playing time to give all their intriguing position players enough run to prove themselves, and they need to win now, not wait around. The Twins need to clear Vázquez's salary so that they can address other needs on their roster, and they need to turn away from the plodding, pull-and-lift, defensively limited player profile they've clung to for the last few years.
Again, I really like this framework, but it's only an outline. The idea is to illustrate the creative options each side needs to ready themselves to pursue this winter, and the way their respective needs and surpluses might overlap. It's not designed to be a done deal, as-is. I'm posting this piece at both North Side Baseball and Twins Daily, in a rare bit of cross-posting to get both of our communities talking. If you don't think your side comes out well enough in this trade, you might be right--but check out the other version of the article, where you might see fans of the other team saying the same thing.
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