Amid a Strong Start, Cubs' Continued Struggles in Bullpen Stand Out as Trouble

[matto1233]

The Cubs bullpen is going to be better this year. Right?

Image courtesy of © Denis Poroy-Imagn Images

If you don’t think too hard, the early season bullpen blow-ups between this year and last start to blend together a bit. There was one in Arizona this year. There was one in Arizona last year, too. There was one in San Diego both this season and last, as well—and they all came in April.

While we were all complaining to each other in the North Side Baseball Slack group during the Diamondbacks’ 10-run inning the other day, Brandon Glick wondered when the last time the Cubs even had a good bullpen was. Well, the answer is that it’s been a while! Just how long? Take a look at this table, with all stats courtesy of FanGraphs:

Year	ERA (MLB rank)	FIP (MLB rank)	fWAR (MLB rank)
2025	5.58 (29)	4.58 (24)	-0.1 (24)
2024	3.81 (12)	3.94 (17)	2.9 (20)
2023	3.85 (13)	4.05 (12)	4.0 (17)
2022	4.12 (21)	4.32 (28)	0.6 (28)
2021	4.39 (21)	4.48 (22)	1.9 (21)
2020	4.38 (13)	4.45 (15)	0.7 (19)
2019	3.98 (8)	4.54 (16)	1.3 (20)
2018	3.35 (2)	3.88 (9)	4.5 (11)
2017	3.80 (6)	4.08 (13)	4.4 (11)
2016	3.56 (8)	3.87 (14)	2.7 (21)
2015	3.38 (8)	3.37 (1)	4.6 (5)

That’s a whole lot of Tums. While the bullpen hasn’t been terrible for the past two seasons, it certainly hasn’t been reliable. The previous two campaigns were pretty dreadful, and this year has been a train wreck to this point.

During the club’s last competitive window, from 2015-2019, the bullpens were generally good. As you might recall, those teams were known for their defense, and the disparity between the bullpen ERA and bullpen FIPs would suggest a bit of overperformance there.

However you slice it, though, it's been a while since this team's relief corps was consistently excellent over a full season. The Cubs have not had a top-10 bullpen, by ERA, since 2019. They have not had a top-15 bullpen, by FIP, since 2018. They have not had a top-10 bullpen, by Fangraphs WAR, since 2015.

Notably, Jed Hoyer took over for Theo Epstein as president of baseball operations after the 2020 season. In the four-plus seasons since, the Cubs have not fielded a bullpen in the top 10 in any of these metrics, despite attempting to be competitive for (arguably) all but one of those seasons. From 2021 through 2025, the Cubs’ bullpen is 16th in ERA, 22nd in FIP, and 24th in WAR.

I knew it was bad, but I didn’t realize it was quite this bad. Every fan thinks their team’s bullpen stinks. We have a tendency to remember the games that are lost in the late innings, when victory was oh-so close. By contrast, we gloss over early leads that were simply preserved. It's not in your head this time, though. Cubs relief units have been mid for several years.

I think, by now, it’s fair to wonder: is this something that Jed Hoyer is capable of addressing? Should he be making a greater point to sign higher-leverage arms in free agency? Has this regime not been good enough at identifying talent to pitch the late innings? It seems as though the organization has done a poor job, at the very least, of developing the young, hard-throwing hurlers who power so many of the pens that outperform them. One thing is for certain: it needs to be better.

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[Bertz]

Fun fact, aside from Nate Pearson and Eli Morgan, the Cubs bullpen has a 3.84 ERA and a positive WPA.

Now that's not to say those two's performance doesn't count or anything like that, but I think the degree to which we should still be worried about the bullpen is overstated.

- Pressly is clearly over his early season command issues.  And to his credit even while he was fighting through those did a great job of bending but not breaking

- Hodge, Friday's nightmare inning aside, is awesome

- Merryweather looks most of the way back to 2023 form.  Lost a little velo and in the process has traded some strikeouts for groundballs, but he looks very good again

- Brad Keller looks awesome, full stop

- Palencia and Roberts look like they are finally over the hump.  Both are pitching well and most notably have not wilted in high leverage action like they did at various points in '23-'24

- Thielbar unfortunately I'm thinking might be cooked.  He's gotten some sequencing luck, but under the hood things are very ugly.  The only bright side is it is still just April

Now obviously there's been some poor performance and that's already banked.  But I don't see a lot of reason to still be worried about the group.  Frankly with the way Keller and Merryweather have looked I feel better about the group now than I did in February.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

20 minutes ago, Bertz said:

Fun fact, aside from Nate Pearson and Eli Morgan, the Cubs bullpen has a 3.84 ERA and a positive WPA.

Now that's not to say those two's performance doesn't count or anything like that, but I think the degree to which we should still be worried about the bullpen is overstated.

- Pressly is clearly over his early season command issues.  And to his credit even while he was fighting through those did a great job of bending but not breaking

- Hodge, Friday's nightmare inning aside, is awesome

- Merryweather looks most of the way back to 2023 form.  Lost a little velo and in the process has traded some strikeouts for groundballs, but he looks very good again

- Brad Keller looks awesome, full stop

- Palencia and Roberts look like they are finally over the hump.  Both are pitching well and most notably have not wilted in high leverage action like they did at various points in '23-'24

- Thielbar unfortunately I'm thinking might be cooked.  He's gotten some sequencing luck, but under the hood things are very ugly.  The only bright side is it is still just April

Now obviously there's been some poor performance and that's already banked.  But I don't see a lot of reason to still be worried about the group.  Frankly with the way Keller and Merryweather have looked I feel better about the group now than I did in February.

Also worth noting that they’ve faced the number 3 and 4 offenses in MLB (by wRC+) for 50% of the schedule so far.  Plus the A’s are 7th and that doesn’t include the Dodgers games either.  Pen results should improve directly and indirectly(via better SP/less long relief) when they can come up for air after the April gauntlet.

[Rcal10]

1 hour ago, Transmogrified Tiger said:

Also worth noting that they’ve faced the number 3 and 4 offenses in MLB (by wRC+) for 50% of the schedule so far.  Plus the A’s are 7th and that doesn’t include the Dodgers games either.  Pen results should improve directly and indirectly(via better SP/less long relief) when they can come up for air after the April gauntlet.

And they have Brasier coming back. I don’t think the pen is as bad as many think it is. I like Keller, Hodge, Pressly and Merryweather. I am encouraged by what I have seen from Palencia and even Roberts. If Brasier comes back and performs like last year that is several good pen arms. Jury out on Thielbar. But they do need at least one lefty. 

[Jason Ross]

To add to a few things:

1. The biggest contributors to blowups (Eli Morgan and Nate Pearson) are currently removed, and Morgan has options upon his return

2. Ryan Braiser, Javier Assad and Tyson Miller offer alternatives who are currently working their way back from injury 

3. Caleb Thielbar has some interesting statcast stuff. I'm not convinced he'll be this bad if he can locate the ball a bit better. The Stuff+ doesn't dislike him, except his location is horrific. If he can nail that down...

4. Cade Horton will likely be added to it at some point

I doubt that the Cubs will deploy a top-5 BP this year, but there's enough internal stuff going on that they should be somewhere between "fine" and "pretty good", IMO.

[matto1233]

3 hours ago, Bertz said:

Fun fact, aside from Nate Pearson and Eli Morgan, the Cubs bullpen has a 3.84 ERA and a positive WPA.

Now that's not to say those two's performance doesn't count or anything like that, but I think the degree to which we should still be worried about the bullpen is overstated.

- Pressly is clearly over his early season command issues.  And to his credit even while he was fighting through those did a great job of bending but not breaking

- Hodge, Friday's nightmare inning aside, is awesome

- Merryweather looks most of the way back to 2023 form.  Lost a little velo and in the process has traded some strikeouts for groundballs, but he looks very good again

- Brad Keller looks awesome, full stop

- Palencia and Roberts look like they are finally over the hump.  Both are pitching well and most notably have not wilted in high leverage action like they did at various points in '23-'24

- Thielbar unfortunately I'm thinking might be cooked.  He's gotten some sequencing luck, but under the hood things are very ugly.  The only bright side is it is still just April

Now obviously there's been some poor performance and that's already banked.  But I don't see a lot of reason to still be worried about the group.  Frankly with the way Keller and Merryweather have looked I feel better about the group now than I did in February.

I think the point you (and Jason) are making re: Morgan and Pearson is a fair and comforting one. HOWEVER, those were two guys Hoyer had identified that can help the team, and they have done exactly the opposite. One hallmark, in my opinion, of Hoyer’s bullpens is that they do, eventually, wind up being halfway decent. The road to getting there is always super bumpy, though, and in the case of 2023 and 2024, was the difference between them making and missing the postseason:

2023 first half ERA: 4.01

2023 second half ERA: 3.67

2024 first half ERA: 4.01

2024 second half ERA: 3.51

[Old Time Cub Fan]

All good points. Pressly scares me, I don't consider him a lock down closer. You can't have a closer who only k's about 10% (I think this is correct)of batters. Formula for blown saves.

[Billy62]

Another bullpen failure tonight. Let’s hope our offense can pull the fat out of the fire….again.

[Billy62]

As. Inconsistent as that bullpen can be, that offense is so electric. Go Cubs Go. 🙂