The Chicago Cubs 2024 season never fully got off the ground. A good chunk of the blame for that can be aimed at the team’s bullpen, which let victories slip into defeats and put pressure on the rest of the team to compensate for their instability.
In the first three months, for example, relievers Adbert Alzolay, Hector Neris, and Hayden Wesneski collectively recorded 11 blown saves, all resulting in losses.
The 2024 Chicago Cubs Bullpen Was Almost Comically Bad
In the first half of the season, the Cubs’ bullpen was almost comically bad, taking the steam out of fans’ interest and putting the team in a hole from which it could never quite emerge. Despite a good turnaround in the second half of the season, the Cubs, for all intents and purposes, were done by mid-season.
Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, to his credit, took the blame for assembling a fairly shallow bullpen talent pool featuring several pieces who tend to be injury-prone.
“Being self-critical, I feel like that’s something I didn’t do a good job of last offseason…When Adbert (Alzolay) struggled early, when (Héctor) Neris struggled early, when Julian (Merryweather) got hurt, we didn’t have the depth at that point that we needed,” Hoyer told The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma back in October of last year. “That’s something that we’ll certainly look to improve going forward. That hurt us early.
“At a critical moment when those guys struggled and were hurt early, we didn’t have enough depth in that moment, and that hurt us. That’s something we have to address.”
Hoyer Addressed The Need
Hoyer certainly addressed that issue this offseason, acquiring a good amount of bullpen talent via trade and free agency, while continuing to aid in the development of younger internal relief corps pieces.
Jim Bowden of The Athletic feels that the Cubs’ work at rebuilding and fortifying the pen deserves the offseason award for “Front office that improved its bullpen depth the most.”
Per Bowden:
“The Cubs revamped their bullpen through trades and free agency. Via trades, they acquired Ryan Pressly from the Astros, Cody Poteet from the Yankees, Eli Morgan from the Guardians, and Ryan Brasier from the Dodgers. Via free agency, they landed lefty Caleb Thielbar [Also, swing man Colin Rea]. A huge Cubs weakness in 2024 now looks like a legitimate strength, in terms of depth, in 2025.”
Talent Overflow?
As a matter of fact, there is so much talent in the stacked bullpen now that there will be significant overflow, with some having to be let go and others sent to the minors despite being good enough to go at the major league level.
Andy Martinez of Marquee Sports Network predicts tons of intrigue this spring training as pitchers fight for a spot on the major league roster.
Per Martinez’s estimation:
“No positional battle will be more fascinating to follow than that of the Cubs’ relief corps. There are eight spots and seven players with no minor-league options: Pressly, Brasier, Thielbar, Miller, Merryweather, Thompson and Rea.
That means interesting arms like Nate Pearson (who was in Craig Counsell’s circle of trust last season), Eli Morgan (who had a 1.93 ERA in 32 games for Cleveland) and up-and-coming lefty Luke Little would start the year in Triple-A. Other names to watch in camp that will try and put their name in the pitching mix include righties Ben Brown (who had a 3.58 ERA in 55.1 innings in his rookie campaign) and Ethan Roberts (who returned from Tommy John surgery last year and had a 3.71 ERA in 21 games).”
Having too much talent will always be a good problem to have. Especially recalling last season, when the Cubs were left rocked and rolled by failing talent for a good part of the year.
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