The Chicago Cubs were caught, figuratively, with their pants down in the 2024 season. Coming into that campaign, a major concern was pitching depth and, as things are wont to do, what could go wrong, did go wrong.
While the starting rotation held steady in the face of a Justin Steele injury and Kyle Hendricks’ inconsistencies, the bullpen fell apart early and put the team in a hole from which they could never quite emerge.
Injuries to Adbert Alzolay and Julian Merryweather took away two of the team’s biggest 2023 relief assets and free agent acquisition Hector Neris proved to be an absolute bust.
The bullpen did manage to right itself and, over the last half of the season, proved itself to be one of the better bullpens in the league. By then, though, the Cubs were out of contention and just playing for pride and paychecks.
Things could’ve been worse, of course. But in the minds of a winning organization, anything less than a playoff berth can’t be regarded as a success.
Chicago Cubs Are Focused On Pitching Depth
So, this year, the stated plan is to add depth and make sure that when the unexpected happens, like injuries and slumps, the team has reserves from which to draw.
“It’s just a place where you can’t get caught without depth, quality,” manager Craig Counsell told The Athletic. “You have to have it.”
“Right now, it’s depth,” Counsell added. “That’s (how) we’re attacking it. Just trying to have enough answers and not get in a situation where we don’t have depth or answers.”
Jed Hoyer, president of baseball operations, has been talking about pitching depth since the end of last season and, also, taking blame for the lack of it last season.
“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.”
What They’ve Done So Far
Thus far, however, the Cubs haven’t added a whole lot of that depth they’re talking about.
They traded for 28-year-old right-hander Eli Morgan from the Cleveland Guardians via trade. They also got 30-year-old right-hander Cody Poteet from the New York Yankees in the Cody Bellinger deal.
When it comes to the starting rotation, they picked up free agent left-hander Matthew Boyd on a two-year deal via free agency
Boyd, Morgan and Poteet are solid additions, but it could be argued that they’re merely (hopefully) upgraded substitutes for the arms that the team lost after last season. Depth still needs to be added.
What’s To Come
President of the Chicago Cubs talks to the media before a game between the Chicago Cubs and the Miami Marlins at Wrigley Field. Mandatory Credit: David Banks-Imagn Images
By all accounts, the Cubs are, indeed, still looking to add arms to both the starting rotation and bullpen.
Adding a quality starter to the rotation may actually solve two problems at once as the team could then take one of the back-of-rotation pitchers and use him to beef up the relief crew. Having Javier Assad, for example, serving a long-relief role could take significant burden off some of the bullpen arms.
Chicago has the money to pick up a quality pitching free agent or two and they have the farm system capital to make some significant trades.
Expect movement soon.
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