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Offseason In Review: Chicago Cubs

By | at March 24, 2026 11:40pm CDT

The Cubs deepened their rotation, rebuilt their bullpen, and made one of the biggest free agent splashes in franchise history.

Major League Signings

2026 spending: $80.525MM ($15MM deferred)
Total future spending: $231.025MM ($70MM deferred)

Option Decisions

Trades and Claims

Notable Minor League Signings

Extensions

  • Colin Rea, SP/RP: Facing a $6MM club option for 2026 with a $750K buyout, the parties instead agreed to a new deal paying $5.5MM for ’26.  The new deal includes a $7.5MM club option for 2027 with a $1MM buyout, for a $6.5MM guarantee and $5.75MM in new money.

Notable Losses

The Cubs’ offseason kicked off with a series of option decisions regarding starter Shota Imanaga.  Given the team’s lack of faith in Imanaga at the end of last season, those went as expected: the club declined their three-year option, and Imanaga declined his two-year option.

The Cubs’ decision to then issue Imanaga a one-year qualifying offer worth $22.025MM came as a surprise.  With big offseason plans, why risk tying up that much money on him in mid-November? Perhaps the Cubs thought the 32-year-old would find a better deal elsewhere, netting them a mid-70s pick in the 2026 draft.

But the team certainly understood it was possible Imanaga would explore the market and elect to return to Chicago on the QO, and that’s what he did.  Imanaga is a solid mid-rotation starter, one-year deals are rarely a problem, and restored velocity this spring may lead to a season more like his excellent 2024.

The only detriment to the Imanaga gambit would be if the Cubs found themselves pinching pennies elsewhere to make up for it.  On the same day Imanaga became a free agent – before qualifying offers were due – the Cubs did make a financially-motivated move.  Despite several of Craig Counsell’s other trusted relievers entering free agency, the Cubs shipped Andrew Kittredge back to Baltimore rather than pick up his $9MM club option.

Kittredge, 36, was excellent in 21 2/3 innings for the Cubs after coming over at the trade deadline, and was Counsell’s highest-leverage reliever in the playoffs.  He’s been slowed by shoulder inflammation this spring, but back in November, I thought the Cubs would welcome him back to their bullpen.  The Kittredge decision was curious, but 36-year-old pitchers are fickle, and $9MM tends to be the top range of what Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer is willing to spend for one season of a reliever.  The Cubs did bring swingman Colin Rea back, throwing him a little extra money to get a club option for 2027.

After an unproductive and injury-marred second half, the Cubs seemed to have little interest in signing Kyle Tucker, whether to the $400MM+ deal he likely hoped for, or the record-setting AAV short-term opt-out deal he eventually signed with the Dodgers.  The Cubs probably wouldn’t have signed Tucker even if his second half had been strong.  But they did make him a qualifying offer to lock in the #75 pick in this year’s draft.

Knowing they’d get that pick likely boosted the Cubs’ willingness to forfeit their second-rounder, had they signed another team’s qualified free agent.  That possibility was on the table throughout the offseason, with the Cubs showing some level of reported interest in Dylan Cease, Michael King, Ranger Suarez, and Zac Gallen.

The Cubs made a legitimate run at Cease, who they drafted out of high school back in 2014.  Cease ultimately reached an agreement on a seven-year, $210MM deal with the Blue Jays on November 26th.  As Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic put it on December 3rd, the Cubs “bowed out as the bidding reached the $200 million mark.”

The thing is, the bidding kind of didn’t reach the $200MM mark on Cease, who deferred $64MM and signed with a net present value of approximately $189.2MM.  Either the Cubs actually drew their line below that range, or Hoyer had not yet convinced the Ricketts family to bend on their recent opposition to deferred money.

With Cease off the board, the Cubs reportedly at least entertained a number of top free agents throughout December beyond the starters mentioned, including Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, Tatsuya Imai, and Eugenio Suarez.

Simultaneously, the Cubs set about rebuilding their bullpen through free agency.  They snagged Phil Maton, a soft-tossing righty with a big strikeout rate last year, in November.  Maton’s two-year, $14.5MM deal marked the first multiyear free agent relief signing of Hoyer’s five-year tenure atop the Cubs’ front office, and the club’s first since their disastrous Craig Kimbrel signing in June 2019.  Hoyer saw another target, Ryan Helsley, land with Baltimore, but came away with Maton, Hunter Harvey, Caleb Thielbar, Hoby Milner, and Jacob Webb before the end of the year.

Save for a few minor league deals for depth, Hoyer’s bullpen work was done.  Perhaps emboldened by his success in acquiring Brad Keller, Drew Pomeranz, and Kittredge last year, Hoyer brought in four new bullpen options while retaining Thielbar.

In the 2024-25 offseason, five relievers signed for $20MM or more: Tanner Scott, Jeff Hoffman, Blake Treinen, A.J. Minter, and Carlos Estevez.  The first three posted ERAs of 4.37 and up last year, and Minter pitched only 11 innings.  Estevez had success for the Royals, but is showing red flags this spring with a drastic velocity drop.  Given that bust rate – the Cubs were actually the high bidder on Scott – it’s hard to fault Hoyer for letting Keller go to the Phillies for $22MM.  Still, the Cubs’ bullpen, led by holdover and Team Venezuela stopper Daniel Palencia, comes with tons of variance for 2026.

The Cubs went off the beaten path to snag Tyler Austin on a cheap split contract.  The 34-year-old first baseman had a touch of success in the Majors with the 2018 Yankees and Twins, but eventually decamped to Japan for a six-year run with the Yokohama BayStars (where he was teammates with Imanaga).  It seemed that perhaps Austin would take over Justin Turner’s role as Michael Busch‘s caddy against tough lefties.  But after an excellent 2025 season, the Cubs are saying Busch has earned a shot against southpaws.  Part of that may be owed to the patellar tendon debridement procedure Austin underwent in February, expected to keep him out months.  But the commitment to Austin was minimal, he could eventually supplement Moises Ballesteros at DH, and the Cubs still have right-handed options on the active roster in Miguel Amaya and Matt Shaw.

The Cubs’ interest in Cease suggested a desire to add a pitcher to the front of their rotation.  According to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, “the Cubs seem to have been the most aggressive suitor” of Japanese righty Tatsuya Imai, but they instead allowed the 27-year-old to sign an opt-out-laden three-year, $54MM deal with the Astros.

Perhaps the Cubs weren’t fans of the opt-out structure of Imai’s contract, after a similar one with Cody Bellinger became a headache.  They instead pivoted to a longtime target, Marlins righty Edward Cabrera.  The Cubs landed Cabrera in a January 7th trade with Miami, surrendering Baseball America’s #43 prospect in Owen Caissie (plus two others) to get him.  The Cubs control the hard-throwing Cabrera for three years, and he comes cheap in 2026 at just $4.45MM.

Cabrera, 28 in April, set a career-high with last year’s 144 2/3 innings (which includes a couple minor league rehab starts).  Dating back even before his 2021 debut, injuries have been a consistent theme in Cabrera’s career.  He dealt with biceps inflammation in ’21, but still reached the Majors in August of that year.  The biceps slowed him again the following year, which also included elbow tendinitis.  A shoulder impingement cost him a month in ’23, which recurred the following spring and again in May of ’24.  That one knocked him out for two months.

Cabrera began 2025 with an IL stint for a blister, another common injury for him.  An elbow injury cropped up in July, but did not necessitate a trip to the IL.  An elbow sprain did put Cabrera on the IL in September, though he returned in less than a month to make two final starts. His velocity was back at full strength in those appearances.

Of all the starting pitching options the Cubs entertained last winter, Cabrera was a high-risk, high-reward choice.  But, particularly after Imanaga accepted the QO, they needed front of the rotation upside more than depth.  The price on Cabrera was high; Caissie might have wound up as the Cubs’ starting right fielder for years otherwise.  Though he throws hard, Cabrera’s fastball is actually ineffective, as Sharma explained.  But he brings an excellent curveball and unique changeup, and he cut his walk rate last year.  Cabrera is the type of starter the Cubs were missing in last year’s playoffs, though whether he’ll be healthy in October is anyone’s guess.

Though there was a bit of stray Zac Gallen talk, the Cabrera acquisition completed the Cubs’ rotation.  They’ll trot out Matthew Boyd, Cade Horton, Imanaga, Cabrera, and Jameson Taillon to start the season, with Justin Steele hoping to return from surgery around June.  Javier Assad will start the season in Triple-A, with Ben Brown working multi-inning stints out of the MLB bullpen and Rea always ready to take starts as needed.  Jaxon Wiggins, the game’s 78th best prospect according to BA, will be at Triple-A Iowa as well.  Even with Taillon’s shaky spring, the Cubs’ rotation depth looks strong for now.  160+ innings from Horton would still go a long way, after last year’s second-place Rookie of the Year finish.

After last spring’s four-year, $115MM offer to Alex Bregman fell well short, I didn’t expect the Cubs to make a bigger push a year later.  I was wrong.  It turned out the Cubs’ previous failure to push further was more on ownership than Hoyer.  According to Patrick Mooney of The Athletic, Hoyer and GM Carter Hawkins used the intervening period to meet with higher-ups to “update the club’s philosophy on using deferred money to help finance deals for free agents.”  The fact that the Cubs’ big starting pitching acquisition, Cabrera, added less than $5MM to the payroll likely emboldened Hoyer on Bregman.

As the Chicago Bears were mounting a wild comeback to beat the Packers at Soldier Field to win the NFC Wild Card game – with Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong in attendance – Hoyer was wrapping up a stunning deal with Bregman.  Whereas their 2025 four-year offer covered his age 31-34 seasons, this year’s five-year deal covers age 32-36.  That’s the first time the Cubs have signed a free agent through age 36 since Yu Darvish nearly eight years prior — a contract Hoyer dumped halfway through to get Caissie.

The Bregman deal included $70MM in deferred money, resulting in a net present value a bit shy of $155MM.  Bregman did a bit better than expected, as MLBTR had called for $160MM over six years.  Certainly Bregman brings a clubhouse effect that Kyle Tucker does not.  But though the Cubs didn’t have to include a sixth year (age 37 for Bregman), I was still surprised to see them sign a player for big money that deep into his career.  As Davy Andrews of FanGraphs put it, “He’s not starting out with much margin for error, so things could get ugly when his bat speed or his contact skills start to go. And Bregman is already slow and a below-average baserunner. He already has a weak arm. When the first-step quickness goes, the defense could crater pretty quickly too.”  Long-term pessimism aside, Bregman still projects for 3+ WAR this year.

Cubs second baseman Nico Hoerner, quietly worth 17.5 WAR over the last four years, had been in trade rumors throughout the winter.  Hoerner’s contract is up after 2026, but the Cubs did not see fit to move him this winter to clear a spot for Matt Shaw.  Shaw, 24, was displaced from his starting third base job by the Bregman signing.  Shaw popped up in rumors as well, but instead the Cubs plan to use him in a super-utility role this year.  For example, he’ll see time in right field early in the season as Seiya Suzuki recovers from a PCL strain suffered in the World Baseball Classic.

The Cubs’ Opening Day right field start against Nationals righty Cade Cavalli may go to Michael Conforto, as the veteran will make the team folllowing Suzuki’s injury.  Minor league signee Dylan Carlson also claimed a bench spot. At the time of this writing, Scott Kingery and Chas McCormick are vying for the last position player job, with Kingery’s infield versatility probably giving him the leg up.

Late Tuesday, the Cubs put a cherry on top of an exciting offseason by locking up center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong to a long-term extension running through 2032.  PCA, just 24 on Wednesday, cemented himself as a fan favorite with a first half last year that put him in the MVP conversation.  Crow-Armstrong’s second-half flop didn’t deter the Cubs from extending him, though they already controlled him through 2030.  As perhaps the game’s best defensive center fielder, PCA offers a high floor even if he can’t get his batting average up or learn to hit left-handed pitching.

Crow-Armstrong’s six-year extension begins in 2027, so it covers his four arbitration years plus his first two free agent seasons.  If we assume around $40MM in potential arbitration earnings, each free agent year gets valued at around $37-38MM.  That’s a hefty price, but as my colleague Steve Adams put it, the Cubs have a knack for getting players to give up an atypical number of free agent years (as in the cases of Hoerner and Ian Happ).

The PCA deal doesn’t really have a clear comp.  Consider:

  • Crow Armstrong: signed at age 24 with 1.170 Major League service, buys out four arbitration years and two free agent years covering age 25-30 for $115MM
  • Jackson Merrill: signed at age 22 with 1.006 service, buys out one pre-arb year, three arb years, and as many as six free agent years covering age 23-32 for $156MM (if 2035 club option is exercised)
  • Roman Anthony: signed at age 21.25 with 0.058 service, buys out three pre-arb years, three arb years, and as many as three free agent years covering age 22-30 for $160MM (if 2034 club option is exercised)
  • Corbin Carroll: signed at age 22.57 with 0.038 service, buys out three pre-arb years, three arb years, and as many as three free agent years covering age 22-30 for $134MM (if 2031 club option is exercised)
  • Tyler Soderstrom: signed at age 24.1 with 2.053 service, buys out one pre-arb year, three arb years, and as many as four free agent years covering age 24-31 for $111MM (if 2033 club option is exercised)

As you can see, none of these really match up with Crow-Armstrong, who signed a bit later in his career than most, gave up the fewest free agent years, gave up no club options, and like Anthony and Carroll preserved a shot at free agency heading into his age-31 season.

PCA was already part of the Cubs’ long-term outlook, but here’s how that looks at present (relievers excluded):

  • Free agents after 2026: Hoerner, Suzuki, Happ, Imanaga, Taillon, Boyd, Carson Kelly
  • Under control through 2027: Steele
  • Under control through 2028: Cabrera
  • Under control through 2029: Dansby Swanson, Busch, Miguel Amaya
  • Under control through 2030: Bregman, Horton
  • Under control through 2031: Moises Ballesteros, Shaw
  • Under control through 2032: Crow-Armstrong

Barring further extensions, the Cubs might see something on the order of 17 WAR walk out the door after the 2026 season, plus four relievers.  Throw a lockout into the mix, and the 2027 Cubs could look quite different when the dust eventually settles.  They’ve certainly got the payroll flexibility to sign Hoerner and/or Suzuki.  However, Hoerner could be somewhat difficult to value, and I’m not sure the Cubs will want to go further with a 32-year-old Suzuki.  The Cubs may be left seeking a pair of corner outfielders, multiple starting pitchers, and several relievers next offseason.

Those are problems for another day.  Though the PCA signing kicks in next year, the Cubs have pushed their 2026 payroll to new heights, passing the $244MM competitive balance tax threshold.  They’ve built a strong team despite losing Tucker, though they probably face tougher competition from the rest of the NL Central than many realize. That includes needing to find a way to jump the Brewers, who have kept them second in the division for three straight seasons.

How would you grade the Cubs' offseason?

  • B 52% (1,098)
  • A 25% (540)
  • C 16% (348)
  • F 4% (86)
  • D 2% (51)

Total votes: 2,123

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