Cubs look like biggest deadline losers after refusing to trade with White Sox

The Chicago Cubs definitively needed to add at the 2025 trade deadline, particularly to the team's pitching staff.

While the Cubs have been at the top of the NL Central standings for most of the 2025 season, a red hot Milwaukee Brewers team has since started running away with the division.

If the Cubs wanted any hope of catching Milwaukee or making a deep run in the playoffs, they needed to add starting pitching. Justin Steele is out for the season, Jameson Taillon has dealt with his fair share of inconsistencies and injuries, and the current starting rotation on the North Side remains unproven.

Shota Imanaga, Matthew Boyd, Colin Rea, and Cade Horton are the top four starting pitchers in the Cubs rotation. Boyd is the only one of those four to ever pitch in a postseason game.

It felt like the Cubs needed another proven starting pitcher to get them over the hump in 2025, but the only addition Jed Hoyer made to the starting rotation at the trade deadline was Michael Soroka.

Soroka was 0-10 with the White Sox in 2024 and opened 2025 with a 3-8 record and 4.87 ERA for the Washington Nationals. Still, the Cubs moved prospects Christian Franklin and Ronny Cruz to the Nationals for Soroka and thought they had it all figured out.

Cubs nearly traded with the White Sox for Adrian Houser

Somehow, Hoyer and the Cubs felt like that just adding Soroka was good enough.

According to reports, the Cubs nearly traded with the Chicago White Sox for starting pitcher Adrian Hauser in the hours before the deadline, but the Cubs ultimately passed while the White Sox shipped Houser to Tampa Bay.

I’ve had the Cubs circled as a perfect trade partner for the White Sox and Houser for months now. It made too much sense for everyone not named Jed Hoyer, who got cold feet.

After Soroka’s first start in a Cubs uniform, Hoyer's probably regretting not making a deal with the White Sox.

Michael Soroka exits Cubs debut with an injury

Soroka only got through two innings of his Cubs debut before being pulled due to right shoulder discomfort.

"He had some right shoulder discomfort. He let a pitch go in the second inning and it just didn't feel good," said Cubs manager Craig Counsell of Soroka after the game. "He finished the inning, but he came into the dugout and said his shoulder was not feeling good. It's an IL, and we'll see what the next steps are."

To make matters worse, it sounds like Soroka's injury should have been forecasted by the Cubs before they traded for him.

Soroka's fastball velocity has been taking a dive over the last month. He averaged 94-95 mph earlier in the season, but was sitting closer to 91 over his last three starts prior to the trade deadline.

It makes some sense considering Soroka hasn't thrown this many innings in a season (83.1) since 2019, but it makes the Cubs' deadline decisions look even more foolish.

The Cubs really have no excuse for failing to make a trade with the White Sox for Adrian Houser.

They now look like the biggest losers from the 2025 trade deadline and sit 3.0 games back from Milwaukee in the NL Central while the White Sox got good value in a trade with Tampa Bay.

The Cubs (17-13) and White Sox (16-14) nearly have the same record in their last 30 games as well. How quickly the tables turn.