Cubs scouting Rays talent; trades could be looming |
TAMPA BAY — Since taking over as manager of the Chicago Cubs in 2015, Joe Maddon, who previously managed the Tampa Bay Rays from 2006 through 2014, has not shied away from surrounding himself with former Rays compatriots.
From pitching coach Jim Hickey to outfielder Ben Zobrist, multiple fixtures from the Maddon era in Tampa Bay are now members of the Cubs organization. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that, according to the Tampa Bay Times, Cubs scouts were at Tropicana Field last week, evidently scouting Rays players. Perhaps inspired to already be thinking about potential trade deadline deals because of the lackluster starts to the season by Yu Darvish, Jose Quintana and other fairly recent acquisitions, Cubs front office gurus Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer might be looking to get a head start on scouting the market for an 8-13 Rays club that could certainly be a seller come trade deadline time. Despite the fact that most of the players from Maddon's tenure in Tampa Bay are now no longer members of the Rays, the chances are good that Maddon still has a recent enough connection to the franchise to make trading for Rays talent seem especially worthwhile for Epstein and Hoyer. In fact, the Cubs were heavily involved with the free agency market for former Rays starting pitcher Alex Cobb just this past offseason, and current Rays All-Star starter Chris Archer could possibly become the apple of Epstein's eye this summer. Regardless of the potential trade targets, Epstein and Hoyer are almost certainly already thinking about any and all deals that could be made this summer to bolster a Cubs team that does not appear to be of World Series caliber through the first three weeks of the season, and the presence of Cubs scouts at the Rays' facilities indicates as much.
