I’ve been talking a lot lately about the various bullpen Hail Marys the Cubs have in holding in recent weeks. Edward Cabrera is already back in Chicago (though he hasn’t pitched yet). Justin Steele is still working his way back (TBD on what happens there). Jaxon Wiggins is a long shot, but theoretically an option. Gavin Hollowell, too, though he’s a bit more likely. But the last guy, Shelby Miller, was one I was really hoping could come through. Alas, it is not to be.
According to multiple reports on X, the Cubs are shutting down Shelby Miller, who was attempting to come back from his second Tommy John surgery ahead of schedule. Miller did pitch in parts of 13 games with the Cubs minor league teams (mostly Triple-A) to mixed/poor results (but a 36% strikeout rate). But his attempt at a return is now finished.
“Shelby did an incredible job getting back,” Counsell said via Patrick Mooney at The Athletic. “He’s had a successful month of September in terms of being healthy. At this point, the risk outweighs what reward there would be from keeping him going and pushing him to pitch in this environment. It’s just a risk that we agreed together not to take.”
The Cubs signed Miller to a two-year, $2.5M deal before this season, so he will be back next year. That was always the most likely scenario, but we naturally started getting excited/ahead of ourselves when he was back on a live game mound in early August.
Miller had a 2.74 ERA in 2025 and is otherwise healthy and ready to go for the Cubs next season. “We’ve got a healthy player,” Counsell said. “We’ve got a player ready for spring training going into next season. We’re excited about that.”
That’s all well and good, but the Cubs bullpen issues this year remain extreme. At this point, the even modestly realistic hope for the postseason ‘pen is that the Cubs starting depth can shine, while Daniel Palencia, Jacob Webb, and Ryan Zeferjahn can rediscover their prior heights. Each has had very brief flashes of success over the last week or so, but the month+ before that was pretty brutal.
If the Cubs fail to advance in the postseason, the bullpen will likely play a significant role in that downfall. All the pitching, really, but who needs that level of negativity on a rainy Tuesday night?
Brett discussed Shelby Miller a bit earlier today, in case you missed it:
As noted by Alex Cohen, Ryan Zeferjahn last night threw the two fastest fastballs of his career, at 100.9 mph and 100.4 mph. His velocity on all pitches was up about two clicks last night, so either he was just feeling really frisky, or he and the Cubs figured out something mechanically to optimize (or both). I certainly like what that says about how he’s feeling and about the future projectability that the Cubs paid so much for at the deadline. The question for now, though, is what it says about his ability to be a dominant late-inning reliever down the stretch and in the postseason. As with Daniel Palencia, I’m not sure anyone can reasonably have confidence in an answer.
The stuff with Zeferjahn is apparent. The guy gets 18 inches laterally on his sweeper and 16 inches laterally in the other direction on his sinker. He gets 16 inches of induced vertical on his four-seamer. He also has a gyro slider to really mix things up. And the premium velocity. It’s obvious why the Cubs really liked him. The issue is mostly summed up by his pitch chart from last night:
Almost no pitches in the zone, and the ones that were are mostly dead center. Almost no real north-south coordination. Lotta non-competitive pitches. In other words, the command is the issue. And we know that the extreme heater he got on before the trade to the Cubs was tied to him really locking up the control for a while (and, I’m going to guess, also the command). That’s how he gets himself in advantageous counts and THEN gets chase.
All that said, even last night, his balls in play were all grounders, he did get a strikeout, and his walk was pretty competitive. I am perfectly willing to still be optimistic on Ryan Zeferjahn for THIS season (to say nothing of the future, which I think is very easy to still be optimistic on).
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