A soft-tossing veteran lefty hit the free agent market, and Jed Hoyer couldn’t help himself.
A Bummer for Chicago!
And other jokes to avoid staring into the darkness.
According to Bob Nightengale, the Chicago Cubs are signing veteran reliever Aaron Bummer to a minor league deal.
Aaron Bummer to the Cubs
The Braves acquired Aaron Bummer a few years ago, when the former White Sox reliever was traded to Atlanta in a deal that featured a couple of recent/former Cubs (Michael Soroka, Jared Shuster, Nicky Lopez, Braden Shewmake, and Riley Gowens). That offseason, Bummer and the Braves came together on a deal that paid him $2.5M in 2025 and $9.5M in 2026.
Why was he able to get so much? Well, because he was once pretty good. In 2021, Bummer posted a 3.51 ERA with a 31% strikeout rate over 56.1 IP. And before this year, he had two solid seasons in Atlanta (2024-2025): 3.69 ERA (3.44 xERA, 2.87 FIP) over 109.2 IP, including an excellent 56.8% groundball rate and very good strikeout (25.1%) and walk (7.3%) rates.
Unfortunately, 2026 was not going his way, though it may have really started with his season-ending injury last August.
Opening the year up with the Braves, Bummer pitched to a 7.63 ERA with peripherals to match … the strikeout rate was brutally low (16.9%), the walk rate was brutally high (13%), the groundball rate declined sharply (46.2%), and the contact quality was absurd: 93.6 MPH average exit velocity, 15.1% barrel rate, 54.7 hard-hit rate.
That’s about as bad as it gets.
So the Braves released him.
Now the Cubs are signing him. Why? Well, even though the offense is drawing more of our attention (and ire) lately, the pitching staff is still in shambles. There are injuries in the bullpen, yes, but the decimation of the rotation has also pulled two useful relievers into starting service (Colin Rea and Ben Brown). So if the Cubs think there’s something about Bummer they can fix, they’re giving it a shot.
Unfortunately, there’s also the problem of his evaporating velocity.
Back in 2023, Bummer was sitting 94-95 MPH with his fastball. In 2024, it was down to 93.7 MPH. In 2025, it was down to 91.6 MPH. And here in 2026, before he was released, it hit 90.3 MPH. Indeed, it was 89.8 MPH in his last outing before hitting the injured list.
So unless the Pitching Lab has some sort of time machine (please take me back to two weeks ago), I’m not entirely sure what they hope to get out of him, other than … maybe experience? But, hey, I don’t know. Maybe they have an entirely different plan of attack for him. Plus, he did succeed just fine last season with velocity in the low 90s. A little rest and rehab, and maybe he can turn … I don’t know. Whatever. We’ll see if anything comes of this. I wouldn’t count on it, but it wouldn’t be the first time. And it’s not like there’s any risk.
Plus, with a name like that, he fits right in.
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