3 pieces the Chicago Cubs need to acquire to contend

Infield Depth

The Chicago Cubs need some help with their infield depth going forward.

The Cubs’ infield depth is… not great, Bob. The Cubs depth chart is a whole lot of Nico Hoerner, Nick Madrigal, Patrick Wisdom, and Dansby Swanson in the infield with Christopher Morel arriving back at the major leagues to occasionally play some second or third base if needed.

Their only middle infield prospect in the Top 30 with an ETA earlier than 2025 is Chase Strumpf, who has yet to hit above .235 at Double-A.

Those troubles may have been compounded on Monday, as Hoerner limped off the field with a hamstring injury in their opening contest against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Hopefully, it’s just a minor tweak for Nico and he won’t miss an extended period of time. It’s not the first time he’s had hamstring issues, as he missed six weeks with a strained left hamstring in 2021. He’s been on the IL five times in four seasons.

The Cubs have a potentially dual-Gold Glove combination up the middle with Swanson (who won a Gold Glove last year) and Nico Hoerner who has shown tremendous potential to win the Rawlings award but that’s about it for defensive depth.

Madrigal has been underwhelming in every sense of the term and Wisdom’s defensive ceiling is yet to be determined. Ideally, he can grow from his unimpressive defense last season.

The Cubs will badly need to address the infield soon, especially if they have any injuries to the starting depth.