After Colin Rea Signing Becomes Official, How Much Have Cubs Upgraded Their Pitching Staff This Winter?

[Matthew Trueblood]

The depth of the Cubs' rotation and bullpen have each improved substantially this offseason. Now, the question is whether it will be enough—and what shape their capstone might take.

Image courtesy of © Jeff Hanisch-Imagn Images

The Chicago Cubs made their signing of Colin Rea official on Monday, adding him to their already-full 40-man roster and designating righthander Michael Arias for assignment to accommodate him. The news of Rea's agreement to join the team's pitching mix broke on Friday, and we knew there would need to be a concomitant move. Arias makes plenty of sense, as he becomes the annual Guy The Cubs Added As An Upside Play When They Were Rule 5-Eligible, But Who Didn't Work Out At All. (We'll try to come up with a pithier title.)

Arias came after Ryan Jensen, in a parade of hurlers on whose upside the team sells itself each November, but who never even gain a big-league foothold with the team. He was one of several candidates to get this treatment when the Rea deal was made official, along with players you forgot were on the roster at all, like Gavin Hollowell and Ethan Roberts; veterans floating through for what might just be offseason stays before returning to the waiver wire, Rob Zastryzny and Matt Festa; and projects on whom the team will have to cut bait fairly soon, Caleb Kilian and Keegan Thompson. There remains a slurry of mostly unhelpful (if, in various ways, still viable) pitching talent at the edges of the roster; cutting Arias neither hurts nor brings new clarity.

Folding Rea into the crowded rotation picture and plucking one fungible arm out of the bullpen competition is a worthy move, though, and the latest in a series of moves this winter that (while feeling somewhat underwhelming, without one person who gives the rotation or the relief corps a new ace) clearly improve the team's pitching staff. It's probably helpful to think of it this way:

• Matthew Boyd has replaced Kyle Hendricks
• Colin Rea has replaced Drew Smyly
• Caleb Thielbar has replaced Mark Leiter Jr.
• Eli Morgan has replaced Héctor Neris

Now, that doesn't quite summarize the real changes, because Morgan isn't penciled into as high-leverage a role as the one for which the Cubs signed Neris last winter, and Rea is a more viable starting option than was Smyly. Nor does it account for the loss of Jorge López, who gave the team high-quality relief work over the final two-thirds of 2024 but is now a member of the Washington Nationals.

You can head off in the wrong direction, too, by assessing those upgrades without considering the fact that the team will head into the season expecting both Porter Hodge and Nate Pearson to contribute significantly to the bullpen, or that they have high hopes for Ben Brown, Cade Horton, and Brandon Birdsell. On the other hand, some of that has to overcome the regression we might fairly expect from Jameson Taillon and Shota Imanaga, after strong seasons fueled in part by some good luck and a friendly combination of weather conditions on most days at Wrigley Field, and the bullpen's improvements have to offset the loss of injured ex-closer Adbert Alzolay.

If the rotation to open the season consists of Justin Steele, Imanaga, Taillon, Boyd, and Rea, is that group clearly better than last year's, which had three of the same five but Hendricks and Javier Assad or Jordan Wicks working in place of Boyd and Rea? Yes, it is, but not by very much. In fact, the bulk of this year's team's advantage over last year's would be in the form of having Assad, Wicks, Brown, Horton, and Birdsell waiting in the wings, a better and more reliable second line than they had entering 2024.

If the Opening Day bullpen includes Hodge, Pearson, Tyson Miller, Thielbar, Morgan, Luke Little, Julian Merryweather, and Jack Neely, are they better than they were for the majority of 2024? Yes, but again, the superiority lies mostly in depth—they'd have the upside of that group, plus some of the spillover from the overloaded rotation competition and the optionable, versatile arms of Daniel Palencia and Cody Poteet. They're better, but not because of the first guys you name. That's an uncomfortable situation, especially since they'd likely end up losing a few of their solid depth charges (many of those listed already, plus non-roster invitees Ben Heller, Brooks Kriske, and Phil Bickford) in a roster crunch at the end of spring training.

I keep coming back to the same thing, which I know many fans aren't ready or pleased to hear, because they are (deservedly) mistrustful of the Ricketts family's ownership. It's this: the Cubs' roster is crying out for a trade that consolidates multiple roster spots into one, exchanging depth for upside in the process. I have already written about this possibility, but look at the Padres, who need to clear a bunch of money from their payroll and only have 34 players on their 40-man roster right now. A trade of as many as four current 40-man roster guys—Owen Caissie, Assad, Wicks, and Rob Zastryzny, perhaps?—for Dylan Cease and Robert Suarez makes a world of sense. It would put a lot of chips into the center of the table on the single hand that is the 2025 season, but it would align the team's talent better, spending some of the money we know they still have to spend and giving both the rotation and the bullpen more certainty at the top of the depth chart. That's just one of several possible shapes a trade could take, but a trade does seem to be on the cards.

At this moment, the Cubs' pitching staff is better than it was in 2024. Craig Counsell is more likely to have good options at key moments throughout games and throughout the season, and they're likely to prevent runs better (although, if the winds change at Wrigley, they could still allow more raw runs than they did in 2024). That said, this kind of improvement is fragile. It puts a major onus on the manager and comes with undue risk, because a string of injuries could bring the whole house of cards down. They can achieve a more stable, more obvious, and more exciting form of pitching upgrade. It's just about pulling the right levers, in the endgame of the offseason.

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[Development DL]

Thanks for the quality analysis. The process is fearless .

[Bertz]

The depth the team has is legitimately fantastic.  I think the question is whether they are amassing all that depth because they think it's needed to survive the marathon of the season, or if there is a certain amount being earmarked for a consolidation trade or two like you allude to.

The team used 8 starters last year, and obviously would have liked a 9th or 10th to eat up some of the starts they were forced to keep giving Hendricks even after it was obvious he was cooked.  The old adage of "you can never have too much starting pitching" is true.  That said, the Cubs already had a good amount of depth on hand.  YMMV but Rea's probably SP 8 or 9 on talent right now?  And you'd hope one or both of Horton/Birdsell would pass him by midseason.

So the question is is Colin Rea:

A) A very underwhelming final SP addition

B) The 6th starter/swingman after another yet-to-be finalized SP addition.  (Pushing every SP with minor league options to Iowa to max out depth)

C) A pre-emptive backfill for a trade.  Like you lay out, if Dylan Cease costs two pre-arb arms that's a lot of innings going out the door.  Similar deal even if you send one starter out but the guy coming back isn't as durable as Cease (one of the Rays' guys for instance)

Any of the three are believable!  I would like to think after all the smoke around the team taking a big swing on Luzardo that it's not A.  That said Luzardo and Rea have similar salaries, so it's possble Luzardo was less an indication of what SP tier the team was looking at talent-wise and moreso just the best SP that Jed could fit into his budget puzzle.