In Two Different Ways, Nate Pearson is a Quintessential Cubs Relief Acquisition

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Cubs traded for a hard-throwing reliever over the weekend, and they gave up real (albeit modest) value for him. Why?

It's not the fact that Nate Pearson throws hard that attracted the Cubs to him. There are plenty of relievers who throw hard, and many of them have much more success doing so than Pearson does. His fastball command stinks. His injury history stinks. His track record, as a whole, stinks. They didn't proactively trade for the controllable righty reliever, at the expense of two low-wattage but usable prospects, because he can touch 102 with his fastball--although perhaps that didn't hurt.

No, the Cubs liked Pearson for two reasons, each exemplified by other recent moves they've made in exactly the same vein. They are:

1. The untapped potential value of emphasizing his better breaking ball; and
2. The fact that he's under team control through 2026, and was available at a price commensurate with a rental reliever with a more robust résumé.

In that way, Pearson is a nice next piece in a set that includes Julian Merryweather, Tyson Miller, and the now-departed José Cuas. The Cubs believe in the process they use to target and acquire relievers and extract value from them, enough to keep repeating that process.

Merryweather is a case study in how the Cubs will try to increase Pearson's effectiveness. When they acquired him prior to 2023, he was a four-pitch pitcher, with both a slider and a sweeper taking up a chunk of his non-fastball pitch usage. They went to work to fix that, because he didn't really need the sweeper; the slider was good enough to dominate with. He quickly emerged as a slider monster in the Chicago bullpen, and only injury has interrupted his run of dominance since.

Pearson needs to undergo the same transformation, because his curveball is like Merryweather's now-defunct sweeper: in the way of more important things. It's Pearson's slider, like Merryweather's, that can be devastating. The especially good news, this time, is that the change is already underway.

If Pearson does pan out as a dominant, strikeout-happy high-leverage arm, the Cubs will enjoy control of his services for two more seasons after this. That's how he also echoes the acquisitions (last summer, and then early this season) of Cuas and Miller. All three of these moves have been proactive trades in which the Cubs gave up useful farm system depth--the kind of prospect they've had a hard time developing into a real contributor, but whom other teams like--to get a reliever with substantial team control left, rather than trying to patch the same hole with lower-caliber waiver claims or players who will become free agents shortly thereafter.

Every team wants to have a good bullpen, but no team wants to spend very much on it. The Cubs' approach to that effort is becoming more clear. In addition to fliers on players like Merryweather, Mark Leiter Jr., and Colten Brewer, they want to grab players like Cuas, Miller, Pearson, and Yency Almonte--those squeezed but not quite bumped by the roster crunches of other teams, and on whom they can realize multiple years of benefit if they successfully mill them into valuable bullpen arms.

Pearson will get a long audition as a setup man over the final two months, but the Cubs figure to hold onto him almost no matter what--not because of the players they gave up for him, but because he reflects a set of process priorities that aren't temporary. The Cubs want to streamline the arsenals of high-octane relievers, and they want to find ones who can solve problems and answer questions in their pen for multiple seasons, at a low cost. Pearson nicely epitomizes that point of emphasis.

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[Bertz]

I think one if the things that Pearson likely needs to change is he throws too many strikes.  Merryweather had this same problem in Toronto, he threw 54.6% of his pitches in the zone as a Blue Jay and got hit hard despite his primo stuff.  In addition to the repertoire changes his improvements last year involved fishing for chase way more, dropping down to 47.6% in the zone.  It sucks from a watchability standpoint but results wise you do generally want relievers to nibble.  

Pearson dropping the lesser of his breaking balls, changing the FB shape a bit, and piping the ball down the middle less might be enough to be that late inning arm we envision.

I'd love over the next day and a half to try and find a lefty version of this profile too.  Of the Cubs' high octane relievers on the Iowa/Chicago bubble Luke Little is the only lefty and obviously he's down for the year with injury.