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The Chicago Cubs agreed to a two-year deal with veteran left-handed starting pitcher Matthew Boyd, Jon Heyman reported early Monday night. The oft-injured southpaw will earn $29 million over two seasons, and the deal appears to be neither front- nor backloaded.
All offseason, I have said the team needed to add two starting pitchers: one at the front end of their rotation, and one at the back. This is the latter type of move, but a very strong version thereof. Boyd, who will turn 34 on Groundhog Day, made only eight regular-season starts in 2024, and has not pitched even 100 innings in any season since 2019—although that year, he threw a whopping 185, in his second straight campaign as a high-volume starter with the Tigers.
Durability is not Boyd's strong suit, but that might just be a good thing. He was available at this price precisely because he can't be counted upon for a whole lot of work, but when he's on the mound, lately, he tends to be quite good. He carried a 2.72 ERA and struck out 27.7% of opposing hitters for Cleveland during the regular season in 2024, and carried that brilliance right into October. He's a move more in keeping with the strategies we see embraced by the teams we all ask the Cubs to more closely mimic: the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, and Padres, who compile depth in an acknowledgment of the risk of injury but don't simply pay for reliable innings at a low level of quality. They'd rather have a good pitcher than a merely average one, even if it means paying a premium for a player who might spend a good chunk of the season on the injured list.
To those who don't follow the American League closely, Boyd probably isn't much of a recognizable name, but he's had a long and occasionally very promising career. The last few years have been painfully injury-disrupted. He missed most of the second half of 2021 with arm discomfort the Tigers couldn't help him diagnose or resolve, at a time when that organization did virtually nothing right. Finally, in September, he was diagnosed with a torn flexor tendon, and underwent surgery to repair it. He wouldn't pitch again until the final month of 2022, after signing with the Mariners over his injury-shadowed winter. Then, in June 2023, he tore his UCL, requiring Tommy John surgery and shelving him until the second half of 2024.
Thereafter, though, he reminded everyone of the two reasons why he's consistently been in demand all these years:
- He can really pitch, as a lefty with a funky slot and a good arsenal—which got markedly better in 2024; and
- He's one of the game's good guys, beloved in every clubhouse to which he has ever belonged.
Boyd was an integral part of the Guardians rotation down the stretch, and then allowed just one run in 11 2/3 innings of work over three appearances in the postseason.
Let's get into the nitty-gritty here, because it's pretty interesting stuff. Boyd, a Washington native who has long been a disciple of Driveline, is not a hard thrower, but he is a bat-misser, when he's right. He has a five-pitch mix: four-seamer, two-seamer, changeup, slider, curveball. The curve is sparingly used, and fairly new, but helpful. The four-seamer, slider, and change anchor the repertoire, and can mix in nasty ways.
As you'd expect, against lefty batters, Boyd is slider-heavy and prefers to pair it with the sinker—though, in a wrinkle we know the Cubs like, he uses that sinker more like a true two-seamer, with more arm-side run than heavy action, often attacking the upper half of the zone with it to jam a lefty or set up another offering. Against righties, he's primarily a four-seamer and changeup guy, and the curveball comes into play more.
For all our talk to date about how the Cubs like cut-ride fastballs, Boyd's is a pitch without a lot of vertical ride and with arm-side action, even from the four-seamer. It's probably best to think of him as a poor man's Sean Manaea for this offseason. Whereas Manaea would have cost the Cubs draft picks and is likely to get a three- or four-year deal worth more than $20 million per year, Boyd offers a much less durable (but similarly high-upside) low-slot, multi-pitch, veteran profile from the left side.
For what it's worth, too, getting such a lefty might have been high on the team's priority list, if they believe at all in the strange phenomenon of Wrigley Field playing very lefty pitcher-friendly of late. I broke down the data on that earlier this offseason, and it's worth considering when evaluating the addition of Boyd, as opposed to (say) Frankie Montas, who signed a similar but larger deal with the Mets earlier Sunday night.
Boyd will not sate the appetites of virtually any Cubs fan right away, but he's a solid addition. He's a clearly better pitcher than Jordan Wicks, and gives the team a better matrix of possible outcomes if Ben Brown, Hayden Wesneski, Cade Horton, or Brandon Birdsell are unable either to stay healthy enough to have an impact or to succeed as starters. He also makes it more feasible to trade from the team's upper-level pitching depth, should they end up in a negotiation wherein their young offensive prospects aren't quite getting the deal done in the right way.
If this is the only major addition the Cubs make to their pitching staff this winter, it's insufficient. That feels unlikely, though. They paid a small early-winter, buy-now premium to land a player who can replace the gravitas of Kyle Hendricks and Patrick Wisdom, brightening the clubhouse a bit; has proved the ability to get out even very good hitters, very recently; and might have been undervalued by the market because of the way his injuries have prevented him from stringing together successful outings over the last four seasons. It reads as a move designed to give them upside even while adding to the back end of the rotation. They still have ways to further strengthen the team by adding to the front end, or by turning their attention to building an elite bullpen.
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