Jeff Hoffman is the Potential Cubs Free-Agent Target We Should Mention More

After the Cubs signed Caleb Thielbar on New Year's Eve, it seems safe to guess that they won't also pony up what could be $15 million or more per year on a four-year deal to land Tanner Scott. They needn't eliminate the idea of signing a lefty reliever altogether, but the gap between Scott and the rest of the market in terms of likely salary demands makes it harder to justify spending big on him if he's not the left-handed linchpin in a heavily right-handed bullpen. Now that the Cubs have both Luke Little and Thielbar in position to pitch out of the pen, Scott wouldn't be the same presence he might otherwise have been.

Just one rung down the ladder of potential reliever targets, though, is a righty who still makes a world of sense for the team—and who might even be more than a plausible relief ace. Jeff Hoffman is rumored to be seeking a four-year deal, himself, but if he does sign one, it's likely to be something closer to Jordan Hicks's recent four-year, $44-million deal with the Giants. Alternatively, he might settle for three years and aim for the $38 million Clay Holmes made in his deal with the Mets earlier this winter. Why those two comparators? Because, like them, Hoffman is at least interested in signing not as the dominant reliever he's been over the last two seasons with the Phillies, but as a starting pitcher.

The idea isn't without merit, because what Hoffman found early in 2023 doesn't seem to be purely a product of having moved permanently to the bullpen at that point. He's thrived as a reliever, to be sure, with a 33.4% strikeout rate, 7.4% walk rate, and 2.28 ERA over the last two seasons in Philadelphia. Opponents have batted just .180/.249/.295 against him. Some of that has to be chalked up to the change in role; he averaged 94.3 miles per hour late in his tenure as a starter and has sat around 97 with his fastball since the start of 2023.

Importantly, though, he didn't see that increase in velocity right away in 2022, when he made his full-time move to relief while with the Reds. It came, instead, the following year, and so did an even bigger jump in velocity on his slider—from 81-82 miles per hour to 87-88. That slider change was the result of a grip change that finally unlocked the velocity he'd long sought for the pitch, a phenomenon ably broken down by Destiny Lugardo of Phillies Nation early in his transformation. Fixing the slider grip and throwing that pitch so much harder transformed Hoffman into an overpowering arm, and because he also added a sinker and mixes in a splitter against left-handed batters, he's essentially a four-pitch pitcher.

Whether he'd be close to this good after a move back to the rotation is hard to guess. It probably depends on how much of the velocity gains (on both the fastball and the slider) he could bring back to the expanded role, and the timing and explanations of those increases make it impossible to know the answer. It would be a viable experiment, though, and in a worst-case scenario, he seems like a reliably excellent relief ace.

We haven't talked much about the possibility that he'd do so for the Cubs, but it's a real one. The fact that he could give starting a try again makes him doubly appealing, and the Cubs' pitching depth gives them the flexibility to benefit whether he ends up in the rotation or the pen. Signing Hoffman would be the least complicated way (though the most fluid, and thus the muddiest, at first) to obviously upgrade the Cubs while they wait to find out whether they can secure the services of Roki Sasaki. It would also represent a second chance for the team and the player; they were interested in Hoffman (before electing to take Kyle Schwarber instead) at fourth overall in the 2014 MLB Draft.

Slot Hoffman into the top spot on the Cubs' bullpen depth chart (or third in their rotation), and they emerge as clear favorites in the NL Central. He's the perfect missing ingredient for them, though still far from the only option to round out the roster. The fact that he's still unsigned signals that the market views him mostly as a reliever, not as a starter, and that his market is somewhere south of Crazytown. As the relief market gets ready to move, the Cubs should hone in on Hoffman.