Jed Hoyer practically opened his media availability with a caveat.

Will the Cubs be buyers or sellers when next Tuesday’s trade deadline comes?

“I think the next 7 games obviously matter,” Hoyer said. “Certainly, we saw what can happen last year. So, you never formally plant your feet. You have to be able to be nimble.”

But he’s also a realist — his job requires him to be so.

Yes, the Cubs sit 3.5 games back of a Wild Card spot. Yes, last season the Cubs were 7 games under just days after the All-Star break.

But the team — and the offense especially — has struggled for large swaths of the year that expecting a two-month heater that suddenly vaults them into playoff contention isn’t a certainty.

So, don’t expect a big, splashy trade that can turn around the team, much like Hoyer did last season in acquiring a rental in Jeimer Candelario from the Nationals.

[WATCH: Jed Hoyer’s complete press conference Monday]

“I think unless things change over the next week — I think we probably won’t do a lot of moves that only help us for this year,” Hoyer admitted. “If moves help us in ‘25 and beyond — I think we’re still exceptionally well-positioned — I think that’s what our focus will be. But, just helping ’24, I think that probably won’t be our focus unless things change dramatically.”

It’s a stark contrast from where the Cubs felt they were when the season began.

This was a team that had won 83 games in 2023, acquired arguably one of the game’s best managers in Craig Counsell and was returning much of the same nucleus of the team that scored the 6th-most runs in baseball — with some additions like Michael Busch and Shota Imanaga.

Instead, the team is searching for answers and could face the possibility of doing so while subtracting from their roster.

The Cubs won’t go into a full-scale rebuild like they did in 2021. After all, the playoffs aren’t completely out of grasp and the players in the clubhouse won’t quit just because of Hoyer’s comments.

“Our job in the clubhouse right now is to make it tough on Jed,” Ian Happ said after Monday night’s win over the Brewers. “Going out and playing good baseball and putting ourselves in a position where we can get back in this thing. I think the nice part about the the Wild Card situation is it’s all bunched up right now and we got plenty of baseball, we just gotta keep playing the way we are.”

But if an opportunity to improve the future of the team presents itself, then Hoyer won’t hesitate to pull the trigger on a deal.

If that’s the case, then the most likely area to trade from could be the bullpen.

Their relief corps struggled for chunks of the season, but it has stabilized of late. Counsell has been able to turn to a nucleus of Héctor Neris, Tyson Miller, Porter Hodge and Mark Leiter Jr. in leverage situations.

Leiter is an interesting reliever — he’s a righty who has reverse splits, meaning he gets lefties out at a better clip. Moving someone like Leiter — a reliever who has had success over the last two seasons, could net them a player that can help them beyond this season like Hoyer seeks.

Regardless, Hoyer and the front office will listen on any player — whether they have short-term or long-term contract control.

“I think you have to be opportunistic,” Hoyer said. “I would say that not just as relates to the bullpen, but with everything. That you’re always gonna be listening, you’re always gonna be thinking about what things can make us better for the future.”

Counsell underwent a similar situation in 2022 when he was with Milwaukee. That season, the Brewers sent Josh Hader to the Padres for a package of Dinelson Lamet, Taylor Rogers, Robert Gasser and Esteury Ruiz. Lamet and Rogers were used in the bullpen that season with the hopes of offsetting the loss of Hader. While the duo didn’t help propel the team in the playoffs, the Brewers finished with 86 wins and a game out of the Wild Card.

Gasser was in the Milwaukee rotation this season before injury struck. Ruiz was packaged in the three-team trade later that offseason that netted the Brewers reliever Joel Payamps — a key piece in their bullpen over the last two seasons — and William Contreras, who garnered MVP votes last season.

That’s one example of how the Cubs can look to improve in the future while still keeping an eye on the present. Losing a reliever would hurt, but the Cubs had Julian Merryweather return on Monday and still hope to have other key pitchers like Ben Brown, Adbert Alzolay, Jordan Wicks and Hayden Wesneski return this season.

“I think that obviously [if] we have back-to-back months where we play like we did in April, like [the playoffs are] a possibility. I think you never want to rule that out,” Hoyer said. “If you’re not positioning yourself for now, you’re positioning yourself for the future. Thinking about only adding only adding for ’24, I think that that may not be the right decision but adding things for ‘25 and beyond makes a lot of sense.”