The Cubs’ season came to an unceremonious end on Wednesday. Chicago was easily swept out of the Wild Card Series by San Diego. They lost by a combined 12-1 margin over the two contests.
President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer met with reporters (including ESPN’s Jesse Rogers and Vinnie Duber of The Chicago Sun-Times) as the team enters offseason mode. It’s no surprise that upgrading the pitching staff is the priority.
“We’re leaning on our defense too heavily, and the overall quality of the pitching has to improve. … When I think about our offseason, when I think about seasons to come, that has to be the goal, to get our pitching infrastructure and pitching quality to the level of our position player group,” Hoyer said. “It’s safe to say that the biggest part of our focus going into the offseason is going to be on pitching. Whether that’s 100-to-0, what that ratio is going to be, has not been determined yet. But certainly, the great majority of our focus is going to be on pitching acquisition.”
This year’s Cubs were one of the more lopsided teams in history. As Mike Petriello of MLB.com explored in the middle of September, the Cubs arguably had the best offense and team defense in MLB while running out one of the worst pitching staffs. Chicago ended up middle of the pack in overall run prevention despite having Gold Glove caliber defenders around much of the diamond. Their pitchers were 23rd in strikeout rate and allowed the most home runs in the National League. Only the A’s surrendered more longballs than Chicago’s 231.
The Cubs tried to address the pitching midsummer. They traded for David Peterson in late June and added Clay Holmes, Kevin Gausman and reliever Ryan Zeferjahn at the deadline. The starters are all impending free agents, assuming Holmes declines his $12MM player option. Shota Imanaga and Matthew Boyd (mutual option) will also head back to the market.
Justin Steele will hopefully have a typical offseason but hasn’t pitched in an MLB game since April 2025 because of elbow surgery. Ben Brown is coming off a season-ending neck injury. Cade Horton underwent Tommy John surgery in April and is looking at a second half return in the best scenario.
The Cubs figure to be linked to almost every free agent starter of note and should be involved on the top potential trade targets (e.g. Reid Detmers, MacKenzie Gore, Drew Rasmussen). There’ll surely be calls from some of the fanbase for Tarik Skubal, yet that’d probably require more than doubling the largest contract in team history: the eight-year, $184MM deal they gave Jason Heyward a decade ago.
They’ll have a significant amount of turnover in the bullpen as well. Aaron Civale, Caleb Thielbar, Trent Thornton and Hunter Harvey are free agents. They’ll have borderline club option calls on Colin Rea and Jacob Webb, the latter of whom melted down at the end of the season. Chicago didn’t get much from their two-year deal with Phil Maton. Zeferjahn was inconsistent after the trade, while season-opening closer Daniel Palencia struggled to miss bats around an elbow injury.
The Cubs have generally shied away from huge bullpen investments under Hoyer. Their current leverage group is one of the weakest in the league, however, even with Maton and Shelby Miller hopefully back from injury. Even if a run at Adrian Morejon or David Bednar would be out of character for this front office, there’s an argument for going in that direction. They reportedly were runners-up with a four-year offer to Tanner Scott two off-seasons ago, so it’s not as if they’re firmly opposed to spending on the right reliever.
While the focus is going to be on the pitching staff, the Cubs have a few key position players also hitting the market. Seiya Suzuki is a near-lock to reject a qualifying offer and could price himself out of Chicago on a four-year deal with a club that’s more aggressively hunting offense. Ian Happ is a less likely QO candidate after a middling final four months. If the Cubs let both players walk, they’ll need at least one outfielder from outside the organization.
Carson Kelly should land another multi-year deal, though the Cubs might be content to break in rookie Owen Ayers alongside Miguel Amaya. Fourth outfielder Tyrone Taylor and bench bat Michael Conforto also played solid roles and are slated to hit the market. There’s naturally going to be a lot of turnover with this many players in the final seasons of their deals.
“We’re not going to be able to bring back all of them. That’s clear,” Hoyer said of the team’s free agent class. “We can’t retain everyone. The team’s going to look and feel different next year. … We do have a lot of good players that are going to be free agents and we’ll be in touch.”
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