What's Next For Cubs' Front Office? '6 Weeks Of Working With Other Teams On Deals'

(CBS) The Cubs have been open and honest about the fact that they're seeking more pitching.

Now that the MLB amateur draft is completed, the attention of the Cubs' front office has already turned to the trade market. But when should we expect a deal to be made? Not just yet.

"You get into this late May, through the draft is really total focus on the draft," Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer said in an interview with Mike Mulligan and David Haugh on 670 The Score on Thursday. "Then you almost immediately pivot to working on trades and contacting teams. It usually takes a few weeks for it to really heat up. I always say the Samardzija deal and the Feldman deal, those are two of the earlier deals that year, that was early July. So usually it takes a few weeks to really get going, but it's a quick pivot to working on the draft and then all of a sudden working on trades. Part of the real fun thing about the job is that it does change from month to month. You're always working on something different. Now we got six weeks of working with other teams on deals."

Hoyer's references were to the Jeff Samardzija trade between the Cubs and Athletics in 2014 and the Scott Feldman deal between the Cubs and Orioles in 2013. Both deals were made in the opening days of July.

The defending champion Cubs entered Thursday's off day as arguably baseball's biggest underachievers, sitting at 32-33 and in second in the NL Central, two games behind the Brewers.

"We have every trust that this is going to happen, but you'd be lying to say being a game under .500 here after the draft is something we expected," Hoyer said. "We've been largely healthy most of the season. We just need to start playing better and put together not those games but those weeks where you play really good baseball and you're consistent. We know we can do it, but I mean, at some point, saying it is just words. We have to go out and prove it here over the next three months or so."

Listen to Hoyer's full interview below.