Insider Confirms Cubs Aggressively Tried to Trade for Angels Catcher

The Athletic's Sahadev Sharma confirmed Jacob Zanolla's report on Ivy League Cubs that Jed Hoyer aggressively tried to trade for Angels catcher Logan O'Hoppe. The Cubs reportedly presented multiple offers for the 24-year-old catcher, but the Angels refused to deal O'Hoppe at the trade deadline.

The juicy part of this story is that in Zanolla's original report, he mentioned a trio of prospects that were involved in these trade talks as Hoyer was pushing hard to get a trade done. However, despite what could have seen multiple top Cubs prospects go out West, the Angels were not interested.

Via The Athletic.

Multiple league sources confirmed that Hoyer aggressively pursued the position and that Logan O’Hoppe, the Los Angeles Angels’ starting catcher, was one of his primary targets. The 24-year-old backstop would have been a home-run acquisition, but despite multiple chats in July with the Angels’ front office, Hoyer was repeatedly and firmly rebuffed.

In case you're not familiar with O'Hoppe, he had a cup of coffee in the majors back in 2022, appearing in five games at the end of that season. The right-handed hitting catcher then made the Angels Opening Day roster in 2023, but was limited to 51 games after missing four months of action because of a torn labrum. Despite the injury O'Hoppe finished the 2023 season with 10 home runs in his final 140 plate appearances.

So far in 2024, O'Hoppe has posted a 111 wRC+, slashing .260/.320/.435, with 16 home runs in 395 plate appearances.

According to Zanolla, Cubs prospects James Triantos and Kevin Alcantara were at some point discussed in trade talks with the Angels. Owen Caissie's name was first mentioned in the article, but a revision to the story adds that the outfield prospect in question may have actually been Alcantara.

Via Ivy League Cubs.

The only two specific players I was told were offered by the Cubs to Los Angeles were James Triantos and Owen Caissie. (Edit: I am now led to believe it may have been Alcantara and not Caissie. I apologize for the confusion).

Other top prospects were added into the offer as well, which shows how serious the front office was about improving the catcher position.

O'Hoppe is under team control through the 2028 season.

The Cubs began the 2024 season with Yan Gomes and Miguel Amaya as their catching duo. Gomes has already been ousted from the roster and Amaya needed a reset in early July, which to be fair, has seemed to generate positive results from Amaya at the plate. However, despite the recent improvements by Amaya, there's no question that the catcher position is now the number one need that has to be addressed by the front office.

Cubs catchers rank 28th in MLB in offensive production this season and at -0.9 fWAR have been the second least valuable catching group in baseball.

O'Hoppe, who was traded by the Philadelphia Phillies to the Angels in 2022, has been a target for the Cubs since at least that trade deadline.

But again, as all these reports have clearly stated, the Angels are not inclined to trade away their stud starting catcher...at least not right now.

Amaya has looked better during the past month, but Sharma indicated that the Cubs view the catcher more as a backup. On the position side at least, catcher is now priority number one for Hoyer and the front office, so fans should fully expect to see the team to try and improve at the position in the offseason.

I'm sure the Cubs will be on the phone with the Angels a few more times this upcoming winter.