The Chicago Cubs signed former Atlanta Braves starting pitcher Kyle Wright relatively late in the offseason. By the time Wright accepted a minor league deal from the Cubs, it was already clear that they were going to go at least nine deep in starting pitchers this spring, with Justin Steele coming back at some point in the first half of the season.
In other words, if Wright had options available to sign elsewhere, you would superficially assume he would go somewhere with a clearer path to getting back to the big leagues. Still only 30, Wright was an exceptionally good starter for the Braves in 2022 before shoulder surgery and subsequent fits and stops in his rehab process (with a trade to the Royals along the way) impeded his career. He could get back quickly if he’s healthy.
Ah, but all of that, in a way, is precisely why Kyle Wright chose to sign with the Cubs RATHER than merely going to a club where he saw the clearest path back to a quick big league start or two.
From the Chicago Tribune:
‘Wright has Cubse opt-outs in his minor-league deal, including one at the end of spring training. But barring an opportunity to be added to another team’s big-league opening day roster, the expectation is Wright will begin the season at Triple-A Iowa and prepare to help the Cubs at some point this summer. Former Braves teammate Michael Soroka, who was limited by injury after the Cubs acquired him at the 2025 trade deadline, reached out to Wright in the offseason and strongly recommended the organization.
“I knew there was crazy competition in this locker room and maybe I could have signed somewhere else and had a better opportunity out of the gate, but for me it’s about how do we get back healthy and if I get back healthy then everything’s going to take care of itself,” Wright said. “Because I know that I’m capable, I’ve got to get there first. So I knew they weren’t going to rush me. They were going to put the best plan in place to get me back to my previous self.”’
The Cubs, because they don’t have to rush Kyle Wright back, wound up being a perfect place for him to try to get his career back on track. Making some starts as soon as possible in 2026 in the big leagues would be understandable for most players in Wright’s situation, but he’s thinking longer-term. He wants, first and foremost, to get back to the pitcher he knows he can be. And he felt that the Chicago Cubs were the right organization for him to have his best chance, regardless of the competition.
Quite a compliment, no?
It’s something we’ve talked about a lot the last few years, with the Cubs clearly emerging as a destination for pitchers in these kinds of situations. The successes start to pile up and pitchers take notice. That includes guys who got better with the Cubs and had their overall career trajectories improved even without making it back to the big leagues with the Cubs (Adrian Houser, Zach Pop, Austin Gomber, and Nate Pearson are just a few recent examples of guys who finished their time with the Cubs in the minor leagues, but then wound up signing Major League deals with other clubs the very next year – the “success” stories don’t all look like Brad Keller!).
The Tribune piece, by the way, is a great look at Kyle Wright overall, and his path to coming to the Cubs. You can’t count on the reclamation of a starting pitcher who hasn’t been successful in three and a half years, but I certainly like what I’m reading.
For now, he’ll be stretched out slowly as a starter, and then the Cubs will decide his role based on likely effectiveness and potential need. It’s possible one of those opt-out dates will come up and will force the Cubs’ hand to bring him up to the big leagues in whatever role, but I’m sure the Cubs are hoping they can fully stretch him out at Iowa and then see how things are going as a starting pitcher.
More on Kyle Wright from the original signing post, if you missed it:
The Chicago Cubs are reportedly signing former Braves starter (and minor league Royals rehabber) Kyle Wright to a minor league deal. The 30-year-old is best known for his breakout season in Atlanta in 2022, after a long period of being a big-time prospect who couldn’t quite get over that Triple-A/MLB hump:
(via FanGraphs)As you can see, Kyle Wright’s breakout was brief, as he dealt with a shoulder injury the next year that ultimately required surgery. That surgery cost him the entire 2024 season, which was technically spent in the Royals organization (he was traded just after surgery in the fall of 2023), and then he was rehabbing his way up the minors in 2025. Unfortunately he dealt with shoulder fatigue and an oblique injury in 2025, so he never made it back up to the big leagues.
Where that leaves Kyle Wright today, obviously, is a wide open question. This is the general storyline for guys the Cubs love to work with. A formerly-successful big league pitcher known for having great stuff (that groundball rate is making me drool), with a good diversity of pitches to work with, who was knocked out by injury, and who may find renewed success working with the Cubs’ pitching infrastructure.
Kyle Wright has always been a starting pitcher, up to and including his rehab with the Royals, so it wouldn’t be fair to assume he’s now a reliever conversion project. But you don’t rule it out in these situations. We’ll have to see what the Cubs approach is – and how heathy he is – when he gets going at Spring Training.
Highly-unlikely-to-come-up, but-technically-possible: if Wright were to break back out with the Cubs in 2026, he is actually controllable for one additional season via arbitration. In part for that reason, it’s a good guess that Wright is getting a strong big league salary if/when he’s in the big leagues, by the way. (That’s the flip side to a lot of these higher-quality minor league deals: they aren’t guaranteed to cost the Cubs big money, but *IF* the player ever does get brought onto the big league roster, they’ll lock in a salary that is probably higher than your typical minor league signing.)
Wright joins Vince Velasquez as big league veteran starting pitchers in on minor league deals, potentially serving as both starting depth and also upside reclamation plays. Together with the very robust group of reclamation reliever options for the Cubs, this is a pretty incredible group of pitchers the Cubs have available on non-guaranteed deals this spring.
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