Chicago Cubs surprise breakthrough star had quit baseball at 16 after scout’s brutal rejection

The Chicago Cubs seem to have found their closer in surprise breakthrough flame-throwing righty Daniel Palencia.

That reality wouldn’t have come into play, however, if things had played out just slightly differently.

Nearly a decade earlier, a 16-year-old Palencia had given up on his baseball dream after a string of failed tryouts with major league scouts in his native Venezuela.

One scout’s brutal assessment of his talents hit especially hard.

“I don’t remember them all, but I do remember one [tryout] that left a scar,” Palencia said in a Spanish language interview. “It was a scout [for the Detroit Tigers] who told me that I wouldn’t ever throw harder than 90-mph.”

Tough times make tough men

What followed was a bit of drifting and a most unglamorous job flipping burgers in a food truck.

Then, something clicked and the young man decided to dive back into baseball at an age (18-19) well beyond the age where most scouts working Latin America will take you seriously as a top shelf signing.

“I felt bad, obviously,” Palenica said, who now routinely throws around 100 mph. “I knew I had more there. All I needed was an opportunity. It’s all part of life. All those things taught me and made me who I am today.”

Training added muscle to his skinny frame and positioning tweaks helped augment his velocity fairly quickly, but then he fell ill with hepatitis and had to build himself all over again.

“It was a bit difficult,” he added. “At 20 years old the majority of scouts don’t want to see you. I think that was part of what I needed to be aware of to keep advancing. Nothing held me back. I never paid attention to the people who would tell me that I couldn’t.

“I simply just needed to believe in myself and have support from my parents. And I was always willing to do what the others weren’t willing to do.”

From the Oakland A’s to the Chicago Cubs

He would eventually be signed by the Oakland A’s in 2020, at the age of 20, although it should be noted that the Cubs, seeing something special in him, had also shown interest and ended up being just a half-step behind the A’s in snatching him up.

But Chicago would succeed at eventually grabbing Palencia in July of 2021 when they brought him to the organization in a trade involving reliever Andrew Chafin.

Following the pattern of his life, though, success did not come easy.

He struggled at various points throughout the minors, always regarded as talented, but inconsistent. Last season, he registered a 6.14 ERA in 14.2 innings for the major league Cubs and a 4.85 ERA for the Iowa Cubs.

Something special in Daniel Palencia

Still, there was something special in Palencia that the Cubs coaching staff liked a whole lot. While the 25-year-old didn’t make the opening day roster, he got a pretty quick mid-April call-up. And he’s made the most of the opportunity, working his way into manager Craig Counsell’s circle of trust as the team’s full-time closer.

“The league is difficult on young players in that regard– it makes you worry about a lot of stuff,” Counsell recently told the Chicago Sun-Times. “There’s always a chance when you get here, ‘Am I going to get sent down?’ And that’s a real concern for players. I understand why. And I think Danny went through a lot of that last year every time he took the mound.

“And it’s not that it wasn’t a possibility when he came here this year, it’s just that he decided not to worry about it. And I think that gave him a lot of confidence.”

As of this writing, Palencia’s ERA is an impressive 1.86 and he has 8 saves with just 1 blown save in 27 appearances.

Palencia credits his work on the mental aspect of the game for his success this season, but he also points to advice from two current Cubs pitchers as inspirational in helping the turnaround.

He mentions Matthew Boyd as the one who helped him find his identity on the big league mound. He also credits Ryan Pressly for some blunt, much-needed advice very early in the season.

“You’re too nasty, so just keep your s–t in the zone, and that’s it,” Palencia quoted Pressly.

So far, there’s nothing at all to complain about in Palencia’s 2025. He’s battled through the one or two difficult outings he’s had and has proven himself to have the kind of unflappable character a true shutdown closer needs to have.

Whether he gets a co-closer teammate by the trade deadline is an issue for another day. Right now, though, he’s THE man ending the games for a surprisingly good Cubs bullpen.

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