The Cubs Have Most of the Pieces of a Good 2027 Bullpen On Hand

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Because the Cubs were so bad at pitching in general this season, their bullpen came in for disproportionate criticism. Their starters often provided little margin for error, and their relief corps wasn't deep or healthy enough to come through when they were needed most. The pen really did lose the Cubs some games in 2026, but it felt like it lost them several more, to many fans; too much was asked of them.

Jed Hoyer admitted a "failure" of bullpen construction in 2026, which was not vapid self-effacement. He did fail. The pen wasn't good enough. In truth, though, it should have been much better. Within a fortnight of the beginning of the season, two key cogs in the pen he had built were pulled out of that mix and dragooned back into the rotation, in Colin Rea and Ben Brown. Injuries upstream caused problems, but so did injuries to the core of that pen, itself.

Daniel Palencia's World Baseball Classic ramp-up created a challenge for him as he tried to throttle down and then return to full strength, which increased the risk of the injuries that eventually hit him. Phil Maton had had chronic knee trouble dating back two seasons, but signed a two-year deal for significant money with the Cubs—then essentially lost the season to that very knee problem. Hunter Harvey had a balky elbow, because that's what Hunter Harvey does. All three of the quasi-relief aces Hoyer had arranged at the back end of his theoretical pen were, by the beginning of May, clearly not going to be that kind of anchor for that unit. Each problem was foreseeable, so Hoyer must absorb the blame for them—and for the decline of the aged Caleb Thielbar. However, he also got unlucky. The number of injuries that hit the rotation snatched away the safety net he'd attempted to build behind that top tier of arms, and even one of the most promising stopgap slingers (southpaw Riley Martin) went down almost as soon as he came up.

From the beginning of the season to the end, though, Hoyer did find a couple of good ways to improve the bullpen, both for 2026 and with an eye toward 2027. He patched the rotation enough over the summer to get Rea and Javier Assad back to working out of the pen at times. Low-dollar signing Jacob Webb emerged as a solid (though overworked) arm, and waiver-wire pickup Ryan Rolison proved he belongs in the majors. Most importantly, Hoyer made a rare, significant investment in a controllable reliever at the deadline, picking up Ryan Zeferjahn from the Angels at a steep prospect price. It was a bit of a flip from the Scott Effross deal in which Hoyer took some pride in 2022; he gave up a controllable big-leaguer with a much higher ceiling for a player he believed would help immediately and has significant upside of his own.

What Hoyer hoped that group would become never did materialize. Down the stretch, the club tried to get Brown, Justin Steele, Shelby Miller and Martin ready fast enough to tack them onto the roster, but went 0-for-4. Meanwhile, Webb turned into a pumpkin, and Palencia and Zeferjahn were inconsistent, for different but similar reasons. However, it wasn't the pen that sank the season. The team fell apart at the finish line because of poor starting pitching, and never held a lead the bullpen might have even attempted to protect in the crucial final games of the regular campaign or the Wild Card Series against San Diego. Indeed, at the end of the team's year, there were only two important silver linings to celebrate:

Pete Crow-Armstrong's maturation into arguably the best player in baseball; and
The beginnings of a good bullpen coming into focus.

There are two major vectors of variance that make building a bullpen difficult. One is performance. Samples are small and the margin for error (whenever you're using an important arm) is tight, and relievers are all failed starters, so most of the time, their performance will be somehow volatile. They might battle command issues or need to have their very best stuff to be effective, but whatever form it takes, a reliever who's good one year might be quite bad the next. The other major vector is health.

Because of those things, the Cubs are far from guaranteed to have a good set of relievers heading into 2027. They have to make an addition or two to the mix. That's all they really need, though, because there's enough talent on hand to expect at least the guts of a strong pen in 2027. Rolison, Palencia and Zeferjahn remain under long-term team control, and will cost almost nothing next year. Miller should be a full go in 2027, and even in his rehab stints in Iowa, he looked very good. In fact, his fastball has never been firmer, and his slider-splitter combination was nasty. Martin ended the year healthy. Maton had surgery in September to address his nagging knee problem, which puts him in position to have a healthy year.

It's unlikely, for different reasons, that Brown or erstwhile top prospect Jaxon Wiggins ever stick in the majors as starters. They should become part of the relief picture next spring, too, though each might initially stay stretched out in case they're needed for a bulkier role. The Cubs have an affordable club option on Webb, too. You need at least a dozen arms you believe in to feel good about a bullpen mix going into a season, and this team is not there. Nor, however, are they as far away as they seemed for much of 2026.

The starting rotation needs major renovation. Hoyer and company should sign multiple starters they can envision as front-line options, in addition to scouring the market for trade opportunities and pouncing on chances to add young, live arms. When it comes to the pen, though, the needs are much more limited. The in-house candidates are stronger than they look, coming off a season in which they were disproportionately diminished by injuries. Palencia, Zeferjahn, Rolison, Miller, Webb, Martin and Maton are a solid base upon which to build. They should be better and healthier, as a group, next year. That's a good thing, since the Cubs need to focus on other, bigger needs.