NEWSLETTER
The short intro is this: Jon Heyman is reporting that the Chicago Cubs are among the group of teams looking to add two starting pitchers this offseason.
Heyman listed the eight teams on an MLB Network hit today:
At first blush, you see the other seven teams – Cardinals, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, Giants, Angels, and Pirates – and it feels like the Cubs don’t belong. We don’t THINK of them as a starter-needy team at the moment, at least not on the scale of those clubs.
Right now, even after Marcus Stroman’s departure, the Cubs have upwards of nine pitchers who could (and probably will) make starts for them in 2024: Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon, Kyle Hendricks, Drew Smyly, Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks, Hayden Wesneski, Cade Horton, and Ben Brown.
This is a team that needs to add TWO starting pitchers?
Actually, I think yes. They do.
I think the Cubs are probably out there trying to add an impactful front-of-the-rotation type, and also more of a back-of-the-rotation type. Maybe an upside guy they want to work with.
I can think of at least four reasons why the Cubs would be looking to add two starting pitchers this offseason.
The Cubs Had a Need at the Front of the Rotation Anyway
Even before Stroman opted out – indeed, back when I was thinking he was more likely than not to stay – I felt the Chicago Cubs needed a front-of-the-rotation arm. A bat-misser. A high-velocity, nasty stuff, strikeout guy.
Hey, all teams want that, of course, but the Cubs’ rotation (especially when it featured Stroman) is so much more about contact management. That is fine for the most part – it’s probably still an undervalued approach – but you want a different look. Moreover, you don’t want the rotation to fall apart if Justin Steele can’t totally replicate his breakout 2023 season, and you also want to have an appropriate front to the rotation if you make the playoffs.
Maybe the Cubs could get that guy (Yoshinobu Yamamoto? Tyler Glasnow?) this offseason, maybe they couldn’t. Everyone wants those guys, so you can’t always pull it off. But I felt they needed to try. It needed to be among the priorities.
So, then, you toss in the loss of Stroman as a front-half option, and suddenly it doesn’t seem at all unreasonable to feel like the Chicago Cubs need to add two sure-fire starters.
The Cubs Need More Protection Against Leaning on the Young Arms Too Heavily
In an ideal world, you pull off two goals at once with a setup like the Cubs will have: you get enough veteran pitching depth to keep the PRESSURE off the young arms, but you don’t get SO many inflexible pieces that you can’t give the young arms room to take off.
Looking at what the Cubs have right now, let’s say Drew Smyly winds up in the bullpen (where he was very good last year). That would mean, assuming the front three are all perfectly healthy, the Cubs would be relying on young arms to be their fourth, fifth, and (inevitable) sixth starting pitcher. And if someone got hurt? Even more pressure and heavy reliance.
This is a version of the old truism that you can never have too much pitching, but it’s framed in specific relation to the Cubs. They have a LOT of really good young pitching on the way over the next three+ years. That’s going to help them at the big league level. But you’d love to be able to manage their usage and development in a more thoughtful, cautious way.
If you have enough quality starters at the big league level and enough of those young arms are either optionable or can pitch out of the bullpen, that’s just the dream setup. Because you’re going to need all of them at some point anyway.
The Cubs Need More Protection Against Trading One or More of Those Young Arms
This is the other half of that discussion. Even if the Cubs wanted to lean heavily on the young arms … they might have to consider dealing from that group! I’m not saying I want to see the Cubs trade away a capable, cost-controlled, young starting pitcher, but they do have a nice group right now and a strength from which they could draw. We already know, for example, that the Padres are really looking for pitching in a deal for Juan Soto.
So, then, the Cubs want to be in a position to trade a piece and not have their 2024 rotation suffer massively for it. Add two starting pitchers, and you have way more flexibility in those talks with the Padres or whoever else.
The Cubs Like to Find Value Wherever They Can Find It
The free agent class this year is extraordinarily weak on the position player side. That sucks. That’s where we’d most want to see the Cubs land a true impact player.
But sometimes, you have to take what the market gives you.
And the starting pitching market is really deep this year. It’s deep in impact at the top, and it’s REALLY deep in intriguing guys whom the Cubs could try to reclaim into something effective in 2024. They’re good at it!
So when the market looks like this, the Cubs are almost certainly going to try to find value and efficiencies. It may not be the preferred way to improve the team, but if you can land a “win” by adding an extra starting pitcher, why wouldn’t you?
Moreover, it’s possible that the Cubs are better at identifying and working with certain kinds of pitchers than the average club. If that’s true, then they should ALWAYS be looking to add as much pitching as possible, because they can get disproportionate value out of those pitchers. You never know how that winds up setting you up for success, either because a guy breaks out and pitches really well for you in a competitive season, or turns into a valuable trade piece, or helps cover up injury issues that surprise.
In sum, yes, I very much agree that the Chicago Cubs are likely looking to add two starting pitchers. They may not pull it off in the end, but there are a number of reasons to believe the Cubs would like to make it happen.
