Piecing Things Together, It's Clear the Chicago Cubs Intend to Sign a Top Relief Pitcher

[Matthew Trueblood]

The bread crumbs are piling up on the path. We're right on top of the truth here.

Image courtesy of © Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images

Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy appeared on the Mully and Haugh Show on 670 The Score Wednesday morning, and when the hosts asked him about who he thought might close for the team in 2025, he laughed.

"I love that we're at January 15th, and it's like, 'Who's the closer?'" Hottovy said. He did then hem and haw a bit, but he finally landed on his real sentiments here: "I think if we sat here today and said our team is a finished product, we'd be doing us and everybody else a disservice. We're still very active in trying to raise our floor, especially in the bullpen."

In other words, whatever fatalism you've encountered about the team standing pat and leaving their roster underpowered for the fight to reclaim the NL Central, don't give into it. Hottovy did go on to praise Porter Hodge and the job he did late in 2024, but if the team were even half-seriously considering having Hodge be their relief ace this season, that would have been at the top of Hottovy's mind when asked the question. It was, instead, an afterthought. Hottovy confidently expects the team to add a significant back-end reliever, and while he talked explicitly about the floor for the pen, the move he's hinting at would do just as much for their ceiling.

Jed Hoyer did a sit-down interview with David Kaplan and Gordon Wittenmyer Wednesday, too, and when asked about their remaining designs for the offseason, he explicitly said both that the team is "not done," and that their focus is primarily on the bullpen and the bench. He mentioned being active in both the trade market and free agency, but in a sharp contrast with his remarks earlier this winter, he leaned toward the latter in his tone and his answers.

Put those puzzle pieces together, and the picture you'll end up with is clear: the Cubs expect to sign one of the big remaining free-agent relievers, with Tanner Scott, Kirby Yates and Kyle Finnegan as the most obvious candidates. We've written at length about each of those hurlers, so for more details, click here, here, here, or here. In short, though, any of those three could be very strong closers, and the only real drawback to any of them is that they're likely to come with a substantial price tag. That's not as great a drawback for the Cubs as it might be for others, though, because they have money to spend and relatively few other good ways to use it.

The Cubs don't believe their closer for the coming season is currently in their organization. It's hard to read that as anything but good news. If it does turn out to be a trade that fills that need, there are good players who could fit, too—guys like San Diego's Robert Suarez (more on that possibility here), Minnesota's Jhoan Durán, or Tampa's Pete Fairbanks. In the fact that they still intend to upgrade the top of their pitching depth chart, we can see evidence that they understand they sold themselves short in previous seasons.

When building the team for 2023 and 2024, they didn't invest enough in contingency plans, on either side of the roster sheet. Hoyer sounds resolute about doing better this time. He promised to take a different approach to building the pen at his end-of-season press conference, and he's one relief ace from delivering on that promise. Already having added Eli Morgan and Caleb Thielbar to the big-league mix and snagging some promising non-roster invitees, he's created better depth in the relief and starting units. A closer would make good on all that work.

Finally, we should attend to the fact that Hoyer sounded equally committed to improving his bench, rather than having any of their top prospects cast in bench roles in Chicago. That points in the same direction as the desire to add a closer—toward an understanding that they have to construct a deeper roster than they have in the past. It's worth watching over the next several days, because it's unlikely that this process will drag out as much as the team's courtship of Cody Bellinger last winter. In the next fortnight, we should expect to see the team add two key pieces to round out a contending roster for the coming season.

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[SB in SC]

One of Craig Counsell's strengths with the Brewers was how he managed the starting staff when he did not have 5 strong starters by using piggyback starts and openers.  He was also successful utilizing at least one great bullpen arm and for most of his tenure utilizing 2 great bullpen arms.  I would think that if he was asked he would rather have a lock down closer than a middle of the rotation starter if money only allows one of the two.  The Cubs paid him a lot of money to not get his opinion on things. (not that I know what his opinion is)  

In the playoffs Taillon or Assad as currently constructed would get 3 starts tops throughout the playoffs as the 4th starter.  Dodgers 4th starter got 2 starts.  Dodgers top two relievers got into 9 games each in the playoffs.

[ryanrc]

Look, common sense dictates the cubs pay whatever the price may be for Tanner Scott. He's the PERFECT fit to their squad, in every way. Anyone else is just a budgetary decision. 

What they really, really need is a young multi-year leader, lefty, truly hard thrower, virtually unhittable, "Josh Hader level" fear in the batters. A true superstar. It would make all the nickel and diming at other positions add up to sense. 

I could see Cubs going 3 years, 65 million, with a 4th/5th year option. Similar to Imanaga's contract but more AAV. That would be a genius contract for an All-star closer. 

THIS is a nice post-season bullpen, as it covers every kind of pitcher you need to get by every type of hitter: 
Closer: Scott L / Hodge R 
Setup: Miller R / Morgan R  

Handed Specialists: Thielbar L / (Merryweather or Pearson) R

Early Relief: Little L / Brown R 

Swing: Rea R, Assad R 

[ryanrc]

My blog on North Side Baseball makes the following argument: 
Sign Tanner Scott, LH Closer, 3/5 year contract, 20 mil in 2025
Sign Randal Grichuk OF bench, 2 year contract, 12 mil in 2025

Sign Paul DeJong for 3B/utility infield. 1 year contract, 9 mil in 2025. 
Total cap hit: 41 MIl. 
 

Remaining: cap right now: $50 million. 

Remaining after these signings: $$9 million. 

Using this same path of roster construction, we could actually re-sign Tucker for 2026 if we did a few creative things. First, keep in mind we have $7.5 MM in money going to Smyly and Heyward that will be falling off. Then, DeJong departs. Then we trade Suzuki to clear Tucker's spot and Tucker's long-term money, and we plan on promoting Caissie to platoon with Grichuk and that split duo performs similarly as Suzuki at DH.