Cubs: 3 moves the team must make this offseason

Since it’s officially the offseason for the Chicago Cubs along with the rest of MLB, I thought it’d be a perfect time to discuss what the Cubs should do.

The Chicago Cubs finished off 2019 at 84-78 and third place in the NL Central but ended up missing the postseason for the first time in four years.

After missing the postseason, Theo Epstein and the front office decided it was time to make some changes.

The first move was to fire Joe Maddon. He spent 5 years with the Cubs, had a 471-339 record, won national league manager of the year in 2015, and ended the longest championship drought in sports history after bringing a world series to Chicago in 2016.

After firing Maddon, the Cubs had a lot of managerial options to chose from. They interviewed Mark Loretta, David Ross, Joe Espada, and Will Venable.

Out of those three, Ross and Espada seemed to be their top two choices, so they brought them back for a second interview. A couple of days later, the Cubs officially announced that Ross would be the next manager.

Ross played for the Cubs during the 2015-16 season and has a great relationship with the players. Many Cubs fans loved this move while some didn’t.

With Ross becoming the new manager, he’ll be picking who he wants on his coaching staff. The first hire was Chris Young, who will be the new bullpen coach after the team fired Lester Strode. Next on the list for Ross was a bench coach, so the team went out and signed former Padres manager, Andy Green.

Now that they’ve acquired new coaches, it’s time to focus on the payroll, and how much money they have to spend this offseason. The Cubs have currently $186 million on the books for next year and the luxury tax threshold is $208 million.

They have money to spend and players to release and trade. So I’ll be talking about who I think they should trade and sign this offseason.