Signing Matthew Boyd Pushes Cubs to Decision Point About Hayden Wesneski

Though it was only Monday morning that Cubs fans woke up to concrete news about changes to the team's 2025 starting rotation, there was never much question that such a change was coming. Matthew Boyd slots neatly into (for now) the fourth spot in the team's projected starting staff, pushing everyone but Shota Imanaga, Justin Steele, and Jameson Taillon down a rung in the hierarchy. Someone was bound to be brought in to effect that shift, but now it's really happening.

For Hayden Wesneski, that pulls the eventual resolution of many questions about the future a notch closer. It's been a tantalizing but difficult two and a half years in the Cubs organization for Wesneski, whom the team received in a trade for righty reliever Scott Effross at the 2022 trade deadline. He was initially viewed as a starting pitching prospect, but the auditions he got for that job (most notably in the first six weeks of 2023) didn't go well. He still might have upside as a big-league starter, but increasingly, it feels likely that one of these two outcomes will prevail:

1. Wesneski makes a full-time, permanent move to short relief for the Cubs, where his stuff might play up and allow him to blossom into a dominant arm.
2. Wesneski does figure it out as a starter... but it happens elsewhere. The Cubs trade him to a team in need of help in the rotation and with a bit more time to bring along a hurler still feeling for the command and polish required to succeed in long outings and face opposing lineups two or three times.

Earlier this offseason, the team acquired right-handed reliever Eli Morgan from Cleveland, adding him to a mix that already included Porter Hodge, Tyson Miller, Nate Pearson, and other relievers with impressive but inconsistent track records. On the other hand, they non-tendered Adbert Alzolay, and have released hurlers Trey Wingenter and Yency Almonte. There's room for the good version of Wesneski in their projected bullpen, particularly because he can still be optioned to the minor leagues for one more season. Because his four-seam fastball is too straight and is constantly at risk of getting hit hard, he's struggled to both miss bats and limit power when forced to work through opposing lineups more than once. In relief, however, he can lean much harder on his plus sweeper. He has far better career chase, whiff, ground-ball, and strikeout rates in relief, and in 2024, he seemed to figure out the best way forward for himself in that role; he just wasn't actually called upon in it very often.

Specifically, late in the campaign, Wesneski appeared to be getting behind his fastball better, leading to better carry, more velocity, and the ability to miss bats with it. He fanned nine of the 20 batters he faced in the big leagues in September, using mostly the recalibrated heat and that devastating sweeper.

While he does still fit into the team's plans if permanently shifted away from starting, Wesneski might serve them best as a trade piece. There are teams who might see him as a diamond in the rough, figuring they can fix his persistent release-point issues and help him find a fastball that isn't as easy for opponents to square up. Either way, the additions of Morgan and Boyd have forced the team closer to making a decision about Wesneski. If he's going to stay in the organization, he needs to come to spring training ready work in short bursts and avail himself of the 1-2 extra miles per hour he's generally found on his heater there. Otherwise, they should be shopping him, treating him as a valuable but secondary piece in a number of possible trade permutations to get their hands on much-needed upgrades for the lineup or at the higher echelons of their pitching hierarchies.