Chicago Cubs send a message to Milwaukee Brewers with trade

In case you hadn’t heard, the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox made a trade yesterday involving Jose Quintana. He was one of the top available arms on the market and he’ll be headed to–well he’s staying in Chicago but moving up in the standings.

In 2014 the Oakland Athletics landed Jon Lester to begin deadline day, and the Detroit Tigers reacted by trading for David Price right at the very end of the deadline, leading Billy Beane to text then Tigers GM Dave Dombrowski, “And you only gave me one minute to acquire Chris Sale.” We could be seeing an arms race like that shaping up in the NL Central this season.

One of the bigger surprises of the first half has been the Chicago Cubs *not* completely running away with the NL Central. After winning the division by 17.5 games last year and hoisting a World Series trophy at season’s end, the Cubs looked like a lock to win the Central again in 2017. Well this season hasn’t come as easy, and that’s why they traded away two of their top prospects for Jose Quintana, who is under club control through 2020.

The message to the Milwaukee Brewers: We’re coming.

With a 5.5 game lead in the Central, the Brewers have some breathing room, but they’re also one bad week away from looking up at the Cubs. While how Milwaukee holds up in the second half was already going to be a fascinating storyline to follow, what they do at the trade deadline could be even more intriguing, because Quintana isn’t the only pitcher on the market with a couple of years of control left.

Last week I wrote about how the Crew and the Oakland Athletics would be perfect trade partners. That becomes even more evident now if Milwaukee is looking to land a counterpunch. The A’s have relief options available in righty Ryan Madson (2.17 ERA) and potentially lefty Sean Doolittle (3.54 ERA, 2.51 FIP), and the Brewers have prospects. The two teams also have recent trade history with the A’s landing Khris Davis just last year.

If the Brewers really wanted to ante up, they could compile a package with a couple of their young outfielders and some arms and take a shot at landing the other big fish that’s definitely on the market in Sonny Gray. I feel confident that one of the A’s relievers will be headed to Milwaukee at some point in the next couple of weeks, and an outfielder will be headed back to Milwaukee. But if the Brewers want to send a message of their own back to the Cubs, they could go after Gray, basically saying that they’re in it for this year, and beyond too.

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The timing of the deal for the Cubs is interesting. After a rough first half, it was important to tell the fan base that they weren’t content with how they had played and made a big move before the start of the second half. At the same time, it gives Milwaukee plenty of time to run the numbers and see if adding someone like Gray (or another big addition) would be wise.

The other thing that the Cubs’ trade does is set the market for acquiring talent this deadline season, which could be part of their long game here. Over the past year Chicago has traded Gleyber Torres, Eloy Jimenez and Dylan Cease, all top five prospects in their system. That amount of depth is not something that most teams have, and using it is just another one of the tools at their disposal.

The Brewers have been adding pieces to their farm system, and have a pretty good one themselves, but they’re also still trying to figure out who will be part of their core at the big league level. That’s not a problem that the Cubs have. Heck, they’ve been floating Kyle Schwarber in trade talks.

Next: Orioles should move bullpen parts at deadline

Yesterday’s trade put the Brewers on notice at the very least, and could end up leading to a big counter-trade from Milwaukee to stay in the race this season while building for the future. But the Cubs’ front office is really testing the relatively green GM in Wisconsin. Do they believe that there time is coming sooner rather than later, or do they hold onto some of their bigger pieces for a later day? This is going to be one interesting trade deadline.