Paul Sullivan: Cubs and White Sox are on opposite ends of the trade spectrum as deadline nears

CHICAGO — White Sox pitcher Adrian Houser might or might not be on the Cubs’ radar.

But the idea of Houser facing a Cubs team that possibly could acquire him at the trade deadline added a little spice to Friday’s opener of the City Series at Rate Field.

Has the Cubs brain trust talked about Houser?

“Well, he was a Cub last year, so we’ve talked about him frequently over the last couple years,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said, referring to a brief stint at Triple-A Iowa in August before Houser was released.

Counsell understood the question was relating to the trade deadline but was trying to evade it nonetheless. When it was asked again, he replied: “We talk about a lot of players, yes.”

It’s that time of the year when the deadline gets closer and managers do anything they can to avoid the subject, while knowing their bosses are working the phones to try and make upgrades for the stretch run or dealing talent to get better for the future.

White Sox manager Will Venable insisted Friday that he hasn’t talked much to general manager Chris Getz on that front.

“We have a really good relationship where we talk about the state of our group all the time,” he said. “As far as potential deals and what the trade-deadline stuff means, there haven’t been many conversations. I’m just focused on what we’ve got going on here in the clubhouse and what we can do to go out there and win games.”

The Cubs and Sox are obviously on opposite ends of the trade spectrum, with the Cubs locked in a tight divisional race with the Milwaukee Brewers and the Sox 12 1/2 games out of fifth place and hoping to avoid another 100-loss season.

The trade-talk season has expanded over the years, at least media-wise. It used to begin in July and last a month, but now starts in June, well before the July 31 deadline. The Athletic is a major driver of the rumor churning, with ESPN closely behind. It’s good for baseball because it keeps the sport on people’s minds, even as most of the rumors never really pan out.

“From the clubs’ perspective, I think it has actually changed a little because the draft comes down two weeks before it,” Counsell said. “I understand it’s a fun subject to talk about, but the clubs, they’re all in on the draft until like four days ago, so (trade deadline) is not talked about by people who matter.”

Cubs President Jed Hoyer and Getz are both busy, with the former window-shopping for pitching and the latter “eBaying” his veterans to add to the system.

Whether they can come together on a deal remains to be seen, but the adage that the crosstown rivals are averse to trading with each other because neither top executive wants to see his former players succeed on the other side of town has gone the way of the pitchout.

Still, the last significant deadline deal between the teams was Cubs closer Craig Kimbrel to the Sox for Nick Madrigal and Cody Heuer in 2021. That one didn’t turn out well for either side. The one that remains in everyone’s memory banks was the 2017 deal of Sox left-hander Jose Quintana for Cubs prospects Eloy Jiménez and Dylan Cease, which looked like one of the worst deals of the Theo Epstein era before Jimenez inexplicably regressed and was dumped on the Baltimore Orioles at last year’s deadline.

Cease turned into a Cy Young Award candidate for the Sox before being dealt to the San Diego Padres in spring training of 2024. And Cease might be on the Cubs’ radar now if the Padres decide to trade him and get something back in his walk year. He’d be a rental, so the Cubs would not have to give up as much as they would for some other starters with a year or two left on their deals.

Getz hasn’t said the Sox are moving Houser or Luis Robert Jr., but obviously Houser fits the mold of a player a rebuilding team signs to trade, as they did last year with Erick Fedde and Tommy Pham. And Robert has been on the trade block for most of the last two years, and is still here.

Robert was out of the lineup Friday with a sore adductor, though Venable said he expects him back in the lineup Saturday. If the Sox plan on dealing Robert, they have to make sure he’s healthy, a recurring problem the last few years.

Getz said in spring training that he has asked Hoyer questions about the Cubs’ 2012 rebuild, and when’s the right time to add on. The Sox have shown in the last week that they have some talent to work with, but it took the Cubs until 2014 to really start showing signs of improvement. That would suggest the Sox need one more year to get the point at which they can say they turned a corner.

Getz could make multiple moves next week and go with a young team the final two months, as the Cubs did in ’21 when Hoyer traded his stars to go into a semi-rebuild. Hoyer recalled last week that he tried to make a deal every day the week before the deadline, but ultimately waited until the final day for the big dump.

“I failed on day one, day two, day three, day four …” he said with a laugh. “I was joking with some guys I was talking to, ‘I’m going to make a deal every day.’ I couldn’t do it. I tried my hardest as a seller. I did one (early), and ultimately there wasn’t as much urgency, I didn’t have the right market, I didn’t have the right price, so I couldn’t do it. It was a good lesson for me.

“I sort of needed the urgency of the deadline, starting the night before, to get those deals done. That’s when I realized, most of these things are going to go to the end.”

There’s no urgency yet for Getz to unload, but the clock is ticking for both executives, adding one more thing to watch at this weekend’s City Series.