It wouldn’t be #RumorSZN without mention of Whit Merrifield, and the Tribune’s Mark Gonzales got the party started early in a post I missed when it first came out. Then Bleacher Nation wrote about it and my Twitter timeline was a mess of trade takes and I found myself wondering what the hell was happening. In a Q&A column around the end of October, Gonzales addressed the long-running possibility of the Cubs targeting the Royals second baseman by saying that it “will be a priority” for the Cubs this winter.
He also mentioned that the Cubs could send back a pair of players, though whether he’s indicating that talks have progressed to that stage or is just putting the possibility out there is not clear.