Andres Chavez

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images The Chicago Cubs might not have their closer, Daniel Palencia, and an army of useful relievers at the moment, but don’t fret: Caleb Thielbar is here. Nobody in the Cubs’ bullpen can replace Palencia’s sheer power and upside, but Thielbar has certainly given fans some peace of mind with his performances out of the bullpen in 2025 and 2026. The Ageless Wonder Signed to a one-year deal on Dec. 31, 2024, after a down year with the Minnesota Twins, the superannuated left-hander is reminding us all that age is just a number. Ever since donning the Cubs uniform, he's done nothing but succeed. Last year, the southpaw posted a 2.64 ERA in 58 innings, with a 3.00 FIP and 1.1 fWAR, his highest output since putting up 1.6 fWAR in 2022. This year, it's been more of the same, from a pitcher whom baseball has tried to get rid of multiple times, and who turned 39 in January. In eight frames this season, Thielbar has a solid 2.25 ERA and a 3.50 FIP with 11 strikeouts. Since the start of the 2025 campaign, the lefty’s 2.59 ERA ranks 29th among 126 relievers with a minimum of 60 innings pitched. This weekend, Thielbar notched a save on Saturday and a win on Sunday against the Mets. Evidently, the manager completely trusts him in late-inning situations, and that’s the whole point with high-leverage relievers. Skippers want arms they can trust with games on the line, and he is very much one of them. Thielbar came to Chicago with just four career saves, but he had one last year, has one this year, and could easily collect another 10 or more before Palencia is back. Since landing in Chicago, Thielbar has taken his game up a notch. Before his 5.32 ERA season in 2024, the number ranged between 3.23 and 3.49 from 2021 to 2023. Now, his ERA starts with a 2, and he's throwing harder than ever, with a 93.6 mph average fastball velocity. In fact, he throws about 4 MPH harder now than he did when he first broke into the majors in his 20s, well over a decade ago. An Elite Fastball Leads The Way The pitch earns a very solid 23.4%whiff rate, and has been Thielbar’s bread and butter. It's averaging a whopping 20.2 inches of induced vertical break (IVB), the fifth-best mark among MLB pitchers this year, and yielding an elite .160 xwOBA. It’s no wonder he's increased its usage to 52.4% this year, because hitters just can’t touch it. While it’s true that Thielbar uses his four-seamer more often than any other pitch, he also has whiff rates of at least 25% with each of his additional offerings: curveball (25%), sweeper (28.6%), and slider (33.3%). Remember, the guy is 39 years old—or, forget it. Maybe that's the healthier approach. If a pitcher 10 years his junior were doing what Thielbar has done for most of the last half-decade, with this kind of stuff and the trend arrows pointing in the right direction, you'd have no compunction about letting him take on a relief ace role. The Cubs have to be ecstatic with his recent performance, as they have an elite reliever on a salary that better fits a spare part. Thielbar is proof that players can successfully extend their careers with discipline, work ethic, and an understanding of the science of pitching. It’s fair to wonder where the Cubs’ bullpen, which ranks 21st in baseball with a 0.0 fWAR, would be without Thielbar. He offers solutions to his manager, who knows he is death to lefty hitters but can also get right-handers out if needed. Over the next few weeks, he's likely to be the team's go-to guy, though he really is 39, so the team will use him a bit more judiciously than they might use a younger pitcher with the same stuff. After all, in baseball, no one's actually immortal. View full article

Image courtesy of © Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Imagesmic The Chicago Cubs added veteran outfielder Michael Conforto on a minor-league deal on Monday, and made it official Thursday, after Conforto passed a physical. On the surface, it’s the kind of move that barely nudges the offseason needle. Dig a little deeper, though, and you can see the outline of something more useful than a random spring invite. The timing matters. Moisés Ballesteros only reported to camp Sunday, after visa issues delayed his arrival. Tyler Austin is shelved for months with a knee injury. The outfield group is deep, but it’s not entirely safe from an injury-driven crisis. For a veteran with Conforto’s résumé, that opens a door. He’ll have to earn it, but a strong spring could make this interesting in a hurry. Better Than the Numbers? Last year with the Dodgers, Conforto posted an 83 wRC+ across 486 plate appearances. That’s below average, especially for a player with limited defensive value. His .199/.305/.333 line and 12 home runs didn’t exactly scream impact bat. Under the hood, however, he still demonstrated serious talent. He finished with a .287 wOBA, but his expected wOBA was .330. That -.043 gap was the second-largest in baseball among hitters who had significant playing time, trailing only Salvador Perez. In plain English: the quality of contact and the plate discipline suggested a hitter who deserved far better than what the box scores showed. It’s like hitting rockets all night in batting practice, and somehow, every one of them finds a glove once the lights come on. Over time, that usually evens out. Conforto was, by the underlying metrics, one of the unluckiest hitters in 2025. Since we're talking about a hitter with a career 115 wRC+, there's certainly a chance for a bounce-back campaign. Bat Speed Remains He’s not the rookie who stormed onto the postseason stage in 2015. He’s not the middle-of-the-order force who mashed 88 home runs between 2017 and 2019. That version of Conforto lives in highlight reels now. But this isn’t a player running on fumes, either. His average bat speed checked in at 74 mph last season, good for the 77th percentile. For someone who has dealt with his share of injuries, that’s significant. Bat speed is often one of the first things to fade. Conforto’s hasn’t. There’s still more thunder in there than the 12 homers suggest. He also continues to control the strike zone well. He rarely chases pitches off the plate and draws plenty of walks. For a Cubs lineup already stocked with patient, disciplined hitters, that profile fits. He doesn’t need to swing out of his shoes. He just needs to stack quality at-bats, lengthen innings, and make pitchers work. Professional. Competitive. Annoying to face. The Defense, Though... If there’s a real concern, it’s the defense. In 1,010 innings in left field last season, Conforto posted -5 Defensive Runs Saved. That’s not a blip. That’s a step back. He’s no longer the steady corner defender you pencil in without thinking. Can he bounce back a bit? Perhaps. Players don’t usually fall off a defensive cliff overnight, without some contributing factors. But at this stage, he’s more playable than reliable in the field—and even that might be mitigated, if he continues a multi-year pattern of dealing with hamstring strains. The good news for Chicago is that he wouldn’t be asked to play the field much, even if he makes the roster. He’d be insurance. If something happens to Ian Happ, Ballesteros, or Seiya Suzuki, Conforto gives them a left-handed bat with experience and composure. That matters over a long season. The Cubs don’t need Conforto to carry anything. That’s what Pete Crow-Armstrong, Suzuki, Happ, Alex Bregman, and Michael Busch are there for. The heavy lifting is already assigned. Because Ballesteros, Austin and Jonathon Long have been set back by various issues, though, the aging slugger does have a potential role to play on a championship-hungry Cubs squad. It’s still February. There’s time for timing to return, for the swing to sync up, for the numbers to start matching the contact. If the expected metrics tell the truth this time around, the Cubs may have quietly added more than just another jersey in the clubhouse. View full article

Image courtesy of © Matt Marton-Imagn Images The Chicago Cubs don’t have to squint to see the future anymore. It’s standing in center field, running down fly balls like they owe him money, and occasionally launching baseballs into the night. Pete Crow-Armstrong is a foundational piece—the kind of player teams spend decades trying to draft, develop, or steal from someone else. Elite defense, real power, and disruptive speed make him a perennial MVP candidate in the National League, even if that ceiling is currently guarded by a certain two-way alien named Shohei Ohtani. A season like the one Crow-Armstrong just had will do that. A Breakout That Changed the Conversation In 2025, Crow-Armstrong put together a year that could be a cornerstone’s origin story. He finished with a 109 wRC+, 31 home runs, 35 stolen bases, and 5.4 fWAR. He crossed the plate 91 times, drove in 95 runs, and played center field at a level few in baseball can match. His glove was worth 15 Defensive Runs Saved, placing him among the best defenders in the sport. Offensively, the quality of contact backed up the surface stats. Crow-Armstrong ranked in the 82nd percentile in barrel rate at 13% of his batted balls (and 9.1% of his total plate appearances), and his .475 expected slugging percentage landed in the 78th percentile. He may not look like a classic slugger, but he doesn’t need brute strength when he knows how to get the ball in the air and pull it with authority. Pair that with lightning-fast feet and elite instincts, and you get production that stretches across every column of the box score. The Swing-at-Everything Dilemma For all the fireworks, there’s a catch: Crow-Armstrong swings at everything. That aggressiveness is baked into his game, and in 2025 it came with some ugly side effects. He posted a 4.5% walk rate, good for the 4th percentile, and chased pitches at a 41.7% clip, worse than all but four other qualifying hitters. When it works, it’s exhilarating. When it doesn’t, it can look like a hitter trying to swat flies with a sledgehammer. Pitchers adjusted, and the league started leaning into his weaknesses. The result was a tale of two halves that left Cubs fans uneasy. After crushing the first half with a 131 wRC+, Crow-Armstrong stumbled badly after the All-Star break, posting a 72 wRC+ in the second half. The production drop wasn’t subtle, and it raised a fair question: which version of Crow-Armstrong is the real one? Why the Second Half Fell Apart The answer isn’t a single smoking gun, but a handful of factors that piled up quickly. Crow-Armstrong is particularly vulnerable to pitches up in the zone—especially fastballs. When you look at his wOBA by pitch location, the elevated areas are where the damage turns into self-inflicted wounds. Pitchers found that soft spot and kept going back to it. Luck also played a role. In the first half, his home run-per-fly ball rate sat at 17.6%. After the break, it cratered to 6%. It’s fair to wonder if the early number was simply too hot to sustain. As Elliot Baas of Rotoballer.com noted, Crow-Armstrong’s average launch angle dipped month by month, which likely contributed to the power outage. Line drives turned into grounders, and fly balls lost their carry. Interestingly, some of his plate discipline indicators actually improved in the second half. His chase rate dropped to 36.9%, and his swinging strike rate improved from 16.5% to 15.2%. In trying to rein himself in, he may have dulled the very edge that made him so dangerous early on—but that reining-in was certainly needed, so it's discouraging to admit that it didn't work. What the Future Still Looks Like Even with the warts, Crow-Armstrong remains an immensely valuable player. The defense is as real as it gets, and at 23 years old, he should have several more seasons as an elite center fielder, assuming good health. On the bases, his speed gives him room to push higher. With a green light (and a better OBP), 40 to 45 steal attempts aren’t out of the question, making 30 to 35 stolen bases a reasonable expectation. Offensively, the underlying numbers offer reassurance. His .323 wOBA was nearly identical to his .321 expected wOBA, suggesting his overall line wasn’t built on good bounces. Repeating a 30-homer season may be a tall ask, but settling into a 20-homer, 30-steal profile with a yearly wRC+ between 100 and 110 is well within reach. That version of Crow-Armstrong can flirt with 5.0 fWAR on a regular basis, with more upside if he ever adds even modest gains in plate discipline. Crow-Armstrong isn’t a finished product, but he doesn’t need to be. He’s already a building block—a player who impacts games with his bat, glove, and legs, and one the Cubs can confidently build around as the next era takes shape. View full article