The Cubs have signed Luke Farrell, according to Chris Hilburn-Trenkle of Baseball America. This is Farrell’s second stint in Wrigleyville, as he previously pitched for the organization in 2018, tossing 31 1/3 innings at the big league level.
Farrell has seen action in each of the last five MLB seasons, amassing 87 2/3 career innings with five different clubs. Most recently, the righty pitched for the Twins in 2021, posting a 4.74 ERA, 22.1% strikeout rate, and 11.5% walk rate over 24 2/3 innings of work, as Farrell missed over two months recovering from a right oblique strain.
Problems with walks and home runs have kept Farrell from enjoying consistent success at the big league level, though he has shown flashes of impressive strikeout ability in both the majors and minors. Farrell has worked mostly as a starter in the minors but has only started five of his 63 career Major League contests.
Farrell joins a long list of experienced pitchers in Chicago’s farm system, as the Cubs have stocked up on seasoned hurlers to augment what had been a very young bullpen mix. He’ll provide some depth for a Cubs team that continues to add as many pitchers as possible to cover innings.
Major or minor deal?
Minors
Thanks!
Depth for Iowa. I think they released Abbott last week.
Kinda see a trend with the Cubs’ roster that’s really off putting
Acquiring depth?
Acquiring depth, perhaps…acquiring talent, perhaps not.
How much high end talent to you expect to acquire this time of year? Not realistic. This is the kind of guy the Cubs have had success turning into a reliever the last couple of years. He pitches at Iowa, maybe he gets a shot at some point. Simply depth as the season goes along.
Son of John (pitcher, pitching coach,, farm director, manager), brother (I think) of the Cubs scouting director. Gotta keep the kids fed.
OOOPs, make that past tense on brother being the SD. but he’s in an office somewhere. But grandpa was also a MLB pitcher. Wonder what everybody talked about at supper.
Yep, I think he was the one in SNL, right? Made a movie with Dewey Cox where they were step-brothers… And played Marky Mark’s counterpart detective when dirty Mike & the boys used his car… That guy.
Would rather have signed Will Ferrell.
Blue Jays fans love Luke Farrell. One of the most ecstatic utterances I have ever made was, “Luke Farrell is warming up in the bullpen!!!”
In his career, Farrell faced 21 Blue Jays. He got just eight of them out. Some stats:
3 G, 1 GS, 2.2 IP, 20.25 ERA, 6 ER, 11 H, 2 HR, 2 BB, 4.875 WHIP, .579/.619/.947/1.566
The Cubs have a lot of veterans stashed in their AAA system. I’m surprised how good they have played so far given that they’ve received no offense outside of the domination from Suzuki. If they can hang around through July, this team should be able to add to its roster and try to make a wild card berth. Who would have thought this was possible after last year’s sell off. Pretty impressive.
No offense besides Suzuki? Happ is hitting .345, Madrigal is hitting .286, Villar is hitting .450, Wisdom is hot, and Gomes is hitting .333. I think there’s been a bit of offense besides Seiya.
The Cubs are 6-4, are at or near the top of the league in every offensive category, have a potential superstar in Suzuki, and have been surprisingly fun to watch, yet people are really bothered by Farrell being signed to a minor league deal? Ridiculous.
As always, we await developments.
Someone to eat innings in Iowa, eventually get called up for a week during a schedule/injury crunch to eat blowout innings, and then get DFA without much angst. Recycle your #7 relievers the way you recycle your #3 catchers, until they expand the 40-man to 42 or 43 to account for all the pitching churn this is the way it pretty much has to happen.
It’s a long season and they will rotate through all of these guys hoping to catch them when they are throwing good…not a bad plan for a small market poor team
Yeah they keep adding but it’s mostly crap. If they had a solid rotation and bullpen, I’d laud these additions for the seasoned depth they provide. But the Cubs don’t have that so this is just another addition caused by the fact that Hoyer’s purse strings are tied by a cheapskate owner.
He cant be any worse than Chris Martin