The Athletic did a thing where they picked an available free a gent for each of the 30 MLB teams, and although I want to underscore that there’s no “rumor” here, I did find the selection for the Cubs to be sufficiently interesting to merit a discussion. Particularly after going through the entire collection of bullpen options for the Cubs yesterday and noting how few of them throw lefty.
Which is to say, The Athletic gave the Cubs a lefty reliever:
“Chicago CubsJalen Beeks, LHP
Recent trades for Ryan Pressly and Ryan Brasier have given the Cubs some much-needed help in the late innings, and a late deal with Beeks would give them another experienced reliever who’s been everything from a long man to a closer. Beeks would also give the Cubs some left-handed balance in their pen. Caleb Thielbar is their only lefty at the moment.”
The Cubs may not desperately need another lefty in the bullpen, particularly in the three-batter-minimum era where match-ups are a little less flexible. But if they were going to add just one more arm, especially if they could pull it off on a minor league deal – pitchers and catchers report in just two days – Beeks would be a pretty outstanding fit.
His stats:
As you can see, the 31-year-old lefty has been intermittently successful, pitching in a variety of roles, mostly with the Rays. He doesn’t get the strikeouts he once did, increasingly relying on his four-seamer to induce weak contact, but it worked well last year once he got out of Colorado. He projects to be about a league-average arm in 2025, which is exactly the kind of guy you can realistically hope to get as an additional lefty depth option on a minor league deal.
Of note, although he dominated lefties in 2024, he has otherwise been split neutral for his career (and was actually pretty strongly reverse-split in 2022 and 2023). Not sure if that was the driver of, or the result of, the tweak to his pitch mix – definitely seems related one way or another because his changeup and cutter both rated out poorly last year – but maybe he’s more split-heavy now. Which would be fine, given the Cubs’ extremely-righty-heavy relief group.
Hard to say whether Beeks would look at the Cubs as the right opportunity, though. On the one hand, they clearly some more lefty depth, and Beeks could be one Caleb Thielbar injury in the Spring away from making the Opening Day bullpen. On the other hand, the overall group of relief options for the Cubs is so massively large that if there aren’t injuries, he might not come close to being in that top-8 group.
Beeks, by the way, is not the only lefty reliever still available, though I have to believe guys like Andrew Chafin, Andrew Heaney, and Scott Alexander could find big league deals. Then again, Colin Poche just had to settle for a minor league deal. There’s also old friend Drew Smyly still out there, among many others.
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