The Chicago Cubs’ bullpen has to be better next season. Team president Jed Hoyer didn’t hide that fact when talking to the media after the Cubs wrapped up their second consecutive 83-79 season.
“Being self-critical, I feel like that’s something I didn’t do a good job of last offseason,” Hoyer said. “Looking at our bullpen, I’m really proud of the work our whole staff did during the season, whether it was Tyson Miller, Jorge López, Nate Pearson, player development bringing up guys like Porter Hodge and Luke Little. I thought in-season we did a really good job of that.”
By the end of June, Chicago’s bullpen was one of the stronger units in the game. From June 25 on, its 3.15 ERA as a unit was fourth in baseball and second in the National League. By the end of the season, the Cubs had the 12th-best bullpen ERA in baseball, a tick behind the San Diego Padres and better than the Philadelphia Phillies. But of course, as the team learned in 2023, May and June are critical months as well.
“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 said. “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.”
Something similar happened in 2023. But the way Craig Counsell managed his relievers this season helped avoid guys completely wearing down by September as they tried to get back in the race, something that sunk the team in 2023.
It’s important to remember that Hodge was on very few radars at this point last year. Nobody thought Miller would be as impactful as he was or that López would return to his dominant form. Some laughed at the idea of acquiring Pearson, but the Cubs quickly made adjustments that helped him be more productive and have more planned for this winter.
That is one big reason fans shouldn’t expect Hoyer to depart too drastically from his normal thought process when it comes to building a bullpen. Finding more depth and ensuring that early-season failures don’t sink the team are imperative. But spending outlandish amounts of money on a reliever just isn’t the answer for this group.
Nate Pearson is a reliever whom Chicago helped rebuild. (Stacy Revere / Getty Images)
For one, pitching coach Tommy Hottovy doesn’t believe that having a closer is the only way to success. He’d prefer they not be too stubborn at the start of the season about placing relievers in certain roles based on previous performance.
“We actually get ourselves in trouble sometimes (by) saying, ‘This guy is going to pitch this inning, and this guy is going to pitch this inning,’” Hottovy said. “Ideally, in a perfect world where everyone is healthy, feeling well and pitching well, that’s what we want to do. But it doesn’t always work out that way.”
It’s important to look at how other teams have success with their bullpens. The Cleveland Guardians had the best bullpen in baseball. Emmanuel Clase is a dominant closer, but the Guardians didn’t spend big money to get him. Rather, he was part of a deal that sent Corey Kluber, who was 34 and had a year left on his contract, to the Texas Rangers. The rest of the bullpen was built through mid-to-late-round draft picks, Rule 5 selections and minor-league free agents.
The same is true of the Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals and Detroit Tigers, each of whom had top-seven bullpens by ERA. The Tigers had one “big-money” reliever on their team: Andrew Chafin. They traded him at the deadline, then proceeded to make a shocking run to the playoffs leaning on a dominant bullpen group.
The Atlanta Braves appear to be an exception, but even big spenders such as the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees prefer to find hidden gems rather than bust their budget on relievers. Consistently, the smartest teams build the best bullpens without giving out long-term, big-money contracts.
The best way to build depth is to have guys like Hodge emerge as pieces to lean on. Luke Little started to look like a weapon until a left shoulder/lat injury ended his season. If Ben Brown (neck) can be healthy next year, he almost certainly could help as a reliever if he’s not a part of the rotation. Can someone emerge with some consistency from the group of Jack Neely, Daniel Palencia and Ethan Roberts? Is there a surprise name like Hodge who could pop?
Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy doesn’t believe having a closer is the only way to success. (Michael Reaves / Getty Images)
“When you have that, it makes it easier to say, ‘These are pieces that I think we can go get to make our team better,’” Hottovy said. “When you don’t have that pipeline of guys coming up consistently, you start scrambling and thinking you have to get more. It’s always good to have more pitching — we’ve seen that more than ever this year. But it’s great to see our young guys come up and have success.”
Chicago’s young pitching depth is better than it has been in years; the Cubs need to identify them better in March, though. Perhaps Hodge needed that time in the minors to hone his craft, but the turnaround to find the best pitchers is crucial to early-season success.
The Cubs certainly should invest in the bullpen. But of the top 25 relievers by WAR (FanGraphs), just four were signed on the free-agent market and given multiyear deals worth over $5 million annually. They need to do their best to find pitchers like Chafin, Ryan Tepera, Chris Martin and others who can be had on short-term deals.
If they’re going to splurge, one- or two-year deals are likely the most they’ll expend. They need to figure out if they can re-sign López, who felt comfortable in Chicago and recaptured a dominant version of himself with the team. If not, find the next pitcher like him and maybe one or two more.
They can’t rely solely on their youth, but they also can’t ignore it. They have to know when to change courses when a once-effective pitcher is no longer getting the job done. They can’t use injuries or ineffectiveness as an excuse, and the best way to do that is to have a next-man-up mentality that’s created by a deep and talented roster of pitching.
“What we’ve proven over the last couple years: We can figure it out,” Hottovy said. “We have to trust our eyes, trust what we’re seeing and trust the process. We get ourselves in trouble when saying, ‘This guy is going to be the guy’ and he’s just not there and we beat our head against the wall waiting for that to happen.”
