A funny (and charmingly classic Bob Nightengale) story gets even funnier tonight.
On Friday afternoon, Mark Feinsand reported that the Chicago Cubs have been “looking at” free agent starting pitcher Zac Gallen, a reasonable (and subsequently confirmed) baseball rumor ahead of the Winter Meetings. But 24 hours after that, all hell broke loose when Nightengale reported that the Cubs had landed their man: “The Chicago Cubs are close to finalizing an agreement with free-agent starter Zac Gallen on a multi-year deal that will pay him an average of $22 million a year. Gallen, with three top-10 Cy Young finishes, has averaged 32 starts a year for the past 4 seasons.”
Almost immediately, several other MLB reporters took to their phones to let the world know that was not, in fact, the case. And nine minutes later, Nightengale updated his post on X to inclue the word “hopeful.” Again, classic Nightengale. Yuks were had.
But tonight, Marquee Sports Network shared an additional layer to the story that makes the gaffe even funnier.
Zac Gallen was getting MARRIED when he was reported to be making a deal with the Cubs??@MLBBruceLevine has the inside scoop. pic.twitter.com/A9GQMFLtcw
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) December 9, 2025Bruce Levine: “On Saturday, when this rumor came out that he’s going to sign with the Cubs, (Zac Gallen) was actually in Cabo getting married. So the contract he was signing was not with the Cubs, but was with his new wife … So it’d be kind of hard to have the wedding night, have their honeymoon, and get your physical all at the same time.”
Zing! Got him, Bruce. Just look how happy he is with himself about that joke:
It is not, of course, entirely unheard of for a free agent not to be present when he’s signing his deal, but being out of the country AND at your wedding definitely makes it even less likely. A fun little addition that gave me a laugh. Great reporting, Marquee. You did it.
In the meantime, a reminder: After that fake-report hit the web, additional rumors came out confirming that the Cubs are, in fact, interested in signing Zac Gallen.
Zac Gallen and the Cubs
More on Gallen from our previous discussion of the Cubs’ interest:
“Before the Cubs had one rotation spot (re-)filled by Shota Imanaga, I really loved the idea of adding Zac Gallen … as a second starting pitcher of the offseason. I had him, in my mind, alongside other lower-floor, higher-ceiling targets like Shane Bieber and Jack Flaherty. And that’s because, despite a very impressive track record, Gallen had a really rough walk year that likely cost him a whoooooooole lot of money.
2022: 31 starts, 184.0 IP, 2.54 ERA (4.2 WAR) 2023: 34 starts, 210.0 IP, 3.47 ERA (5.2 WAR) 2024: 28 starts, 148.0 IP, 3.65 ERA (2.8 WAR) 2025: 33 starts, 192.0 IP, 4.83 ERA (1.1 WAR)He’s still young (next season will be his “age-30” campaign), he hasn’t lost velocity, and he had a stronger second-half in 2025 (hold that thought), but still….that’s a rough walk year. Very unfortunate for him. Just imagine how much more he would have been paid if he had hit free agency after 2023 or even 2024. The difference is likely SIGNIFICANT.
But because of that track record and a strong finish in 2025, he bears consideration. I’ll just say that if he is the only guy the Cubs add from here, there’ll be some justifiable concern that they didn’t add the sure-fire, impact starter we’re all hoping they will.
Okay, so what went wrong for Zac Gallen this year? Pretty much everything. Look at his numbers from the four seasons prior to 2025 compared to what he posted last year:
3.41 ERA –> 4.83 ERA 3.41 FIP –> 4.50 FIP 26.1 K% –> 21.5 K% 7.3 BB% –> 8.1 BB% .222 AVG –> .237 AVG 8.2 Barrel% –> 9.7 Barrel% 41.8 hard% –> 43.0 Hard%But there is a catch. And we hinted at it above: His final two months were significantly better than the first four.
His ERA went from 5.60 to 3.32 His FIP went from 4.79 to 3.95 His AVG against went from .252 to .206 His Barrel Rate went from 11.5% to 6.2% His Hard rate went from 46.1% to 36.8% His Groundball rate went from 41.7% to 47.8%In other words, to end the year, Zac Gallen was Zac Gallen again. And it wasn’t a small inning total or entirely scrub opponents, either. In those 11 starts, Gallen completed at least 6.0 full innings nine times. And he did that while facing the Rangers (2x), the Guardians, the Reds, the Dodgers, the Giants (2x), the Phillies, and the Padres.
That’s a pretty convincing run, especially for a guy at his age and with his track record. Hell, the Cubs were willing to give Matthew Boyd a two-year, $29M deal based on just eight starts at the end of 2024. And he was significantly older and without the same recent track record of success.
Interestingly, there isn’t a ton of obvious change in his pitch mix. He threw his four-seamer, cutter, and knuckle curve each a little less while leaning on each of his sinker, slider, and change-up more. But it wasn’t some gigantic divergence in his approach. At least, not that I can tell from the outside. He did pick up a little velocity as the year went on, too, but again, it’s not a dramatic improvement worthy of a “well, this explains it!”
Complicating matters further, the plate discipline data of the batters he faced didn’t really improve dramatically either. Batters offered at approximately the same amount of pitches out of the zone, and actually swung at more pitches in the zone in the second half than the first. And with more contact on pitches in the zone in the first half, his whiff rate even went down. The only modestly notable difference/improvement in those final 11 starts is batters making more contact on pitches out of the zone (which does tend to result in more weak contact).
So maybe with a slightly different pitch mix and a little more velocity, he was setting guys up better? I’m not sure. But I can tell you that his BABIP dropped significantly, from .290 (slightly above his career mark) to .232 (well below). So there was probably some luck baked in there, too.
But again, this is Zac Gallen. I would not be at all surprised if the first half of this season wound up being a fluke/bad stretch. Guys go through that all the time; his was just poorly timed.
Still, unless the Cubs were VERY confident of that fact (or how to fix him), choosing Zac Gallen as your big/primary addition is a risk.
And even though he’ll likely cost significantly less than other options out there …
MLBTR: 4/$80M ($20M) ESPN (McDaniel): 4/$76M ($19M AAV) FanGraphs (Crowdsource): 2/$$44M ($22M AAV) FanGraphs (Clemmens): 2/$36M ($18M AAV) The Athletic (Britton): 2/$$42M ($21M AAV)… he’s still not cheap AND is attached to a Qualifying Offer he rejected, meaning he’d cost the Cubs their second-highest draft pick and $500K in IFA bonus pool space.”
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