The Chicago Cubs have hit a rough patch. They’ve lost three of their last four games— at home– and their first-place lead in the NL Central Division has shrunk to 3.5 games over the Milwaukee Brewers.
Headed into an important four-game series with the division rival St. Louis Cardinals (who are only 4.5 games behind the Cubs, in third place), a lot is riding on how well the team bounces back from their first true slump of the 2025 season.
Pitching has been targeted as Chicago’s greatest weakness moving into the trade deadline, and the need for high-end arms is even greater right now as the thinned-out starting rotation has been shaky and the bullpen has begun to falter. With 38 runs given up over the last four games, there is clearly a need for pitching.
Pitching help coming soon for Chicago Cubs?
MLB insider Bruce Levine believes that the much-needed pitching help via trade could come much sooner than the July 31 deadline. As a matter of fact, per Levine, it could come as soon as this week.
“The Cubs are looking at adding that pitcher that we’ve been talking about,” Levine said Monday morning on “The Mully & Haugh Show” at 670 The Score. “It appears they’re getting closer to identifying some of these teams that are out of it that want to trade. So I wouldn’t be shocked over the next week or ten days, much before the trading deadline, maybe as early as this week, that they make a move for another starting pitcher.
“It’s more likely a guy that we can’t all identify that’s a good young veteran pitcher, and I’m working hard to try to identify that right now.”
A sense of urgency
The quick trigger on a trade would fly in the face of the current belief that it’s too early to pull off a deal in a market that has still not fully settled on which teams will be sellers and which will be buyers. Currently, there are only a couple of teams firmly identified as sellers, looking to flip a quality pitcher or two in rebuild mode.
The quick trigger from Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer could also be attributed to a bit of panic buying as the team’s pitching begins to strain and split apart at the seams.
“They’re going for it,” Levine added. “They’re proactive.”
Earlier this month, Hoyer, who is up for contract renewal at the end of this season, clearly identified pitching as a focus prior to the trade deadline.
“Our position-playing group has been outstanding both offensively and defensively,” Hoyer told the media. “That gives some clarity. Obviously, you don’t know what’s going to happen in the next month-and-a-half with that group. But right now, the focus would be on adding pitching and adding pitching depth. That would be the clear thing.”
But, who?
What’s not so clear is who Hoyer and the Cubs will be targeting as an impact pitcher pickup.
As of right now, the only firmly established sellers in the trade market would be the Florida Marlins, Colorado Rockies, and Chicago White Sox, with a small handful of others likely to join the mix shortly.
Names such as the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ Merrill Kelly and Zac Gallen, and the Atlanta Braves’ Chris Sale have been mentioned frequently as possible Cubs’ trade targets, but it would appear that none of those names currently have a clear path to Chicago.
Whatever the case, it would appear that the big Cubs pitching acquisition will be coming sooner rather than later.
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