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Cubs Option Ben Brown

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The Cubs announced Tuesday that they’ve optioned righty Ben Brown to Triple-A Iowa. Reliever Porter Hodge was reinstated from the injured list in a corresponding move. Brown’s demotion opens a spot in the rotation for lefty Shota Imanaga, who is set to return to start Thursday’s game for Chicago.

It’s been an up-and-down season for the 25-year-old Brown, who has at times looked the part of a potential long-term member of the Cubs’ rotation. More often than not — and especially recently — he’s struggled to work deep into games, however. Brown is sitting on a 6.13 ERA at this point, a number that’s been inflated over the past five weeks. In Brown’s past seven starts, he’s had individual outings wherein he’s yielded six runs (twice) and eight runs (twice). It’s derailed a decent start to the season for the promising young righty and has at least for now cost him his spot on the big league roster.

Imanaga’s return will bolster what’s been a reeling Cubs staff. They’ve made no secret about their plans to upgrade the rotation via the trade market. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer publicly said as much just two weeks ago. Even beyond that comment, a need for help was readily apparent. Chicago has lost ace Justin Steele for the season due to elbow surgery. Young righty Javier Assad has yet to pitch this season due to multiple oblique injuries. Colin Rea was excellent upon first moving into the rotation but has struggled over the past month, just as Brown has. Imanaga was sidelined nearly two months with a hamstring injury.

The Cubs’ need for pitching is no secret, but they’re one of just several clubs looking for immediate rotation help — and doing so at a time when there are few clubs around the league willing to engage in genuine trade conversations. Be that as it may, Bruce Levine of 670 The Score said in a radio appearance on 670’s Mully & Haugh this week (audio link) that the Cubs are being extremely aggressive and working on multiple fronts. Levine suggested a deal could come together well ahead of next month’s trade deadline and possibly even within the next week to ten days.

Levine downplayed the possibility of the Cubs acquiring former Cy Young winner Sandy Alcantara, who’s slowly turning his season around after an awful start to the year in his return from Tommy John surgery. (Alcantara has a 2.74 ERA and 19-to-5 K/BB ratio in 23 innings across his past four starts.) Rather, he suggests that the Cubs have been looking at some less-obvious trade candidates around the league.

The Marlins themselves have other, less-heralded trade candidates than Alcantara (e.g. Edward Cabrera). The Mets appeared to have some arms available before injuries to Kodai Senga and Tylor Megill thinned their depth. Clubs like the Orioles, Twins and D-backs could ultimately end up with starters on the market, but none of them seem ready to move in a sell direction with five-plus weeks before the deadline. The Rays can never be discounted as a possible trade partner at any juncture, and they’re again rich in pitching (at a time when Joe Boyle and Ian Seymour are thriving in Triple-A). Zack Littell is almost certain to be available as a rental, but an aggressive team could try to make a more substantial offer for someone like Drew Rasmussen.

Those are all speculative possibilities, of course. The Cubs have kept their rotation search generally close to the vest. With Brown and Rea struggling recently and Matthew Boyd a bit banged up — he exited his most recent start after a rough landing on his shoulder when spearing a J.P. Crawford comeback liner (video link) — the need has become more noticeable. Boyd is on track to start tomorrow’s game for the Cubs, and the team called the issue “minor,” but it’ll still be worth tracking how he gets through tomorrow’s outing.

As for Brown, he’ll head back to Triple-A and look to get back on track. Injuries to any pitching staff are an inevitability, so even if the Cubs wind up adding a starter sooner than later, as Levine suggests, additional opportunities for Brown to start games could present themselves as the summer wears on. This is his second of three option years for the right-hander, so even if he stays down longer than 20 days and formally burns a minor league option, he’ll retain one more option year and remain a flexible piece for the Cubs moving forward. If Brown spends more than two weeks in Triple-A, it’d push his path to free agency back by a year.

Javier Assad Shut Down With Grade 2 Oblique Strain

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Cubs manager Craig Counsell provided Jordan Bastian of MLB.com an update today on injured right-hander Javier Assad. Assad recently suffered a Grade 2 strain of his left oblique and will be shut down. Counsell didn’t provide a specific timeline but even moderate strains can lead to absences of weeks or even months, so Assad won’t be returning to the club in the near term.

It’s an unfortunate blow for Assad and the Cubs. The right-hander’s battle with this oblique problem goes back months now. Way back in early February, just as camp opened, it was reported that he was experiencing some side tightness. He was eventually diagnosed with a mild strain of his left oblique and started the season on the 15-day injured list.

Not too long ago, he seemed on track for a fairly quick return. He started a rehab assignment by tossing 3 1/3 innings for Triple-A Iowa on April 15th. But in his second rehab outing, on April 22nd, he experienced some renewed soreness after tossing four innings in that game. Earlier this week, Counsell said that Assad would be heading to Chicago for some further tests, which apparently found this strain.

Prior to this setback, he seemed on the cusp of a return to the big league team. That timing would have worked out well for the Cubs, as they recently lost Justin Steele to UCL surgery. Instead, the Cubs will have to proceed without Steele or Assad for at least a few weeks.

Swingman Colin Rea stepped up take a rotation spot when Steele hit the IL. His first start saw him go 3 2/3 against the Dodgers, allowing one run. He then went 4 2/3 against the Diamondbacks, again allowing just one earned run. He got up to 69 pitches in that latter start, so he’s close to fully stretched out at this point.

As of a few weeks ago, it seemed likely that Assad was going to bump Rea back to a long relief role. Now that Assad is going to stay on the shelf a while longer, that will presumably allow Rea to hold a rotation job for the foreseeable future. The other four spots are taken by Shota Imanaga, Matthew Boyd, Jameson Taillon and Ben Brown.

It’s less than ideal but the Cubs seem to be in a decent position to weather these injuries. Imanaga and Boyd both have ERAs under 3.00 so far, while Taillon and Brown are both under 5.00. As mentioned, Rea has only allowed one earned run in each of his two starts. Should a need for another starter arise, the Cubs have a couple of former first-round picks in Iowa. Jordan Wicks hasn’t clicked in the majors yet but is a former top prospect. Cade Horton hasn’t yet cracked the majors but is one of the top pitching prospects in the league and has a 1.06 Triple-A ERA this year. They also have veteran Chris Flexen at Iowa on a minor league deal and he has an ERA of 0.40 through four starts.

It was reported last week that the club planned to use internal options to cover for Steele’s absence. Those plans surely included Assad but this new injury likely won’t change the short-term goals. There will surely be intriguing pitching options available at the trade deadline but they’re harder to get now. While some clubs will eventually pivot into sell mode, most are still clinging to hopes of contention at this point. A free agent like Spencer Turnbull wouldn’t provide any immediate help, as he would need a few weeks of ramping up after missing spring training.

The Cubs will likely proceed with their current rotation, though the plans could perhaps be changed by future injuries or one of the guys in Iowa forcing their way into the picture. Assad could be back in the mix later in the year but the Cubs would also be justified in being cautious in the wake of this setback.

Photo courtesy of Kyle Ross, Imagn Images

Cubs Notes: Assad, Pressly, Morgan

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The Cubs’ pitching staff has been hammered by injuries early in the season, which has served to undercut what’s been an outstanding offense. Justin Steele’s season is already over thanks to UCL surgery, and right-hander Javier Assad has yet to pitch in 2025 due to an oblique strain. The hope had been that Assad would be able to return early next month after beginning a rehab assignment in mid-April, but he exited his most recent rehab start while clutching his side an experiencing obvious discomfort.

Cubs skipper Craig Counsell told the team’s beat last night that Assad was traveling back to Chicago to be reexamined in the wake of that apparent setback (via Jordan Bastian of MLB.com). There’s no further update at this time, but it seems fair to expect the renewed discomfort will push Assad’s 2025 debut back further than originally hoped.

The 27-year-old Assad pitched a career-high 147 innings in the majors last year, starting 29 games for the Cubs and logging a solid 3.73 ERA. He’s been a productive member of the staff both in a relief and rotation capacity since his 2022 debut. Metrics like FIP (4.49) and SIERA (4.66) are far more bearish than his 3.40 ERA, due primarily to middling strikeout and walk rates of 19.8% and 9.9%.

Even if there’s some likely regression in store, however, Assad is clearly a big league-caliber arm who could hold down an important spot in the middle or at the back of Chicago’s rotation. His setback likely extends right-hander Colin Rea’s run in the rotation. The veteran swingman has proven to be an important offseason pickup thus far, tossing 13 2/3 innings and holding opponents to a pair of runs on 14 hits and a walk with a dozen strikeouts. Rea has made two starts, lasting 3 2/3 innings his first time out and 4 2/3 innings in his second. He held potent Dodgers and D-backs lineups to one run in each of those starts and out to be stretched out enough to pitch five to six innings in his next appearance.

The rotation has generally fared well despite those injuries (3.50 ERA), but the Cubs’ bullpen has been a true weak point in 2025. Chicago relievers rank 27th in the majors with a 5.17 earned run average — a struggle that’s compounded by the fact that the Cubs’ bullpen also ranks fifth in MLB with 94 innings pitched. The Cubs will only lean on their bullpen all the more heavily in the wake of a season-ending injury to top starter Justin Steele, who averaged nearly six innings per start from 2023-24.

Part of the bullpen’s struggle has been a shaky performance from newly acquired closer Ryan Pressly. The longtime Astros hurler has a sharp-looking 2.45 ERA in his first 11 innings with the Cubs, but he’s sitting on a career-worst 10.6% strikeout rate that checks in lower than his 12.8% walk rate. That’s not a sustainable recipe for success.

Pressly has been pitching at less than 100% this season, however. Counsell revealed last night that Pressly had his right knee drained yesterday and was unavailable for a save situation that arose (link via Patrick Mooney of The Athletic). Sophomore reliever Porter Hodge stepped up and nailed down a victory over the Dodgers that pushed Chicago’s record to 16-10 and widened their division lead to 2.5 games.

Despite the ominous update on Pressly’s knee, Counsell added that the team hopes the 36-year-old veteran will be available beginning with this weekend’s series against the Phillies. Pressly was down yesterday, and the Cubs have an off-day today, so he’ll have a few days to rest that ailing knee. In addition to shaky command, Pressly is giving up hard-contact at career-worst rates and has shown a career-low 93.3 mph average velocity on his heater. His 6.4% swinging-strike rate is the eighth-worst among the 276 MLB pitchers with at least 10 innings pitched in 2025.

Pressly isn’t the only ailing Cubs reliever. Right-hander Eli Morgan, acquired from the Guardians over the winter, is already on the 15-day injured list after stumbling to a 12.27 ERA in his first seven appearances with his new team. He’d originally been diagnosed with an elbow impingement, but Counsell revealed last night (via Bastian) that Morgan won’t throw at all for two to three weeks due to an inflamed ulnar nerve in his right arm. There’s no indication right now that surgery is a consideration, but several players (e.g. Michael Fulmer, Steven Matz) have ultimately required an operation when dealing with ulnar neuritis in the past.

Morgan, 28, had a nice run with Cleveland from 2022-24, pitching 176 innings with a 3.27 ERA, a 25.1% strikeout rate and a 6.6% walk rate. His strikeout rate dipped considerably in 2024, however, and he spent time on the injured list due to both shoulder and elbow inflammation. He’ll be reevaluated after this shutdown period, but for the time being there’s no concrete timetable on when he might be able to return.

Looking Ahead To Club Options: NL Central

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MLBTR continues our division by division look at next year’s team/mutual option class with the NL Central. Virtually all of the mutual options will be bought out by one side. Generally, if the team is willing to retain the player at the option price, the player will decline his end in search of a better free agent deal.

Previous installments: player options/opt-outs, NL West, AL West

Chicago Cubs

  • Shota Imanaga, LHP (team has three-year, $57MM option covering 2026-28; if they decline, Imanaga has $15MM player option for 2026)

Imanaga signed a somewhat complex four-year, $53MM deal when he made the jump from NPB during the 2023-24 offseason. Next winter, the Cubs need to decide whether to trigger a three-year, $57MM option for the 2026-28 seasons. That’d come with respective salaries of $20MM, $20MM and $17MM. If the Cubs decline their end, Imanaga would be able to decline a $15MM player option for ’26 and test free agency.

It’d almost certainly take an injury for that to happen. Concerns about how Imanaga’s stuff might translate against MLB competition proved unfounded. The southpaw finished fifth in NL Cy Young balloting during his first major league season. He turned in a 2.91 earned run average across 173 1/3 innings, striking out a quarter of opponents against a 4% walk rate. The punchouts haven’t been there through this year’s first five starts, but he takes a 2.22 ERA into tonight’s appearance against the Dodgers. He’s getting whiffs on an excellent 14% of his pitches, so he’ll likely finish off a few more strikeouts moving forward. Imanaga’s deal looks like a bargain, and the Cubs should happily sign up for another three seasons at a $19MM average annual value unless he suffers an injury.

  • Colin Rea, RHP ($6MM club option, $750K buyout)

Rea reunited with Craig Counsell in Chicago after the Brewers declined his $5.5MM club option. It actually worked out slightly to his financial benefit. The righty collected a $1MM buyout from Milwaukee and secured a $5MM guarantee with the Cubs. He’s playing this year on a $4.25MM salary and will make at least a $750K buyout on next year’s club option. That’s valued at $6MM, so it’ll be a $5.25MM decision.

The Cubs had Rea work in long relief to begin the season. He has stepped into the rotation since the Justin Steele injury. The 34-year-old righty is out to a strong start, allowing two runs through his first 13 2/3 innings. He has punched out 12 while only allowing one walk in 56 plate appearances. Rea had held a rotation role in Milwaukee for most of last year, posting a 4.29 ERA through a career-high 167 2/3 innings. As a mid-30s swingman with league average whiff rates, he’s never going to break the bank, but the option price is reasonable for a capable #5/6 starter.

Turner’s option is mostly an accounting measure designed to push back $2MM of his $6MM free agent guarantee by a few months. Option buyouts are paid at year’s end, while the money would have been evenly distributed throughout the season had it simply been a $6MM salary. It’s unlikely that the Cubs would want to sign up for a $10MM salary covering Turner’s age-41 campaign even if he repeats his solid 2024 production.

The 17-year big league veteran has posted 11 consecutive above-average offensive seasons since his 2014 breakout with the Dodgers. His power numbers have declined with age, but he put up a strong .354 on-base percentage in 139 games between the Blue Jays and Mariners a year ago. Turner’s start on the North Side hasn’t been good. He’s hitting .147 without an extra-base hit over 14 games. He’s taken six walks against nine strikeouts but will obviously need to make more of a slugging impact.

Cincinnati Reds

Cincinnati took a buy-low flier on Barlow, a former closer who was released by the Guardians shortly before the playoffs. The righty had fallen quickly down the depth chart in Cleveland. He carried a 3.52 ERA with a 32% strikeout rate into the All-Star Break. Barlow allowed a near-6.00 ERA while striking out just 19% of batters faced in the second half. A fastball that typically sat around 93 MPH had dropped to the 90-91 range.

The early tenure in Cincinnati has been mixed. Barlow has gotten his velocity back, averaging 93 on both his four-seam and sinker. He’s getting whiffs on a huge 15.3% of his offerings, nearly two percentage points above last year’s level. The stuff is certainly more encouraging, but the results haven’t followed. He has a pedestrian 9:6 strikeout-to-walk ratio while allowing five runs on eight hits through 9 1/3 innings. He was limited to a $2.5MM guarantee last offseason. He’ll need a more convincing rebound for Cincinnati to retain him on what amounts to a $5.5MM call.

Hays signed for $5MM after being non-tendered by the Phillies. The righty-hitting outfielder has been a capable regular for most of his career, but his production dipped last season while he battled a grueling kidney infection. A Spring Training calf injury delayed his team debut until last week. Hays has been on tear since his return, connecting on three homers while hitting .406 in 34 plate appearances. He has a hit in all seven games, including three straight multi-hit performances against his old teammates in Baltimore over the weekend.

Suter, who grew up in Cincinnati, joined the Reds on a $3MM deal during the 2023-24 offseason. He posted a 3.15 ERA through 65 2/3 innings and signed a $2.25MM extension at the start of last winter. The 35-year-old southpaw is out to a customary start. He has managed 9 2/3 frames of three-run ball despite striking out just four of 38 opponents. Suter’s stuff is never going to jump off the page — he’s sitting in his typical 85-88 MPH range with his fastballs — but he avoids hard contact and is aiming for his seventh straight sub-4.00 ERA showing. Assuming he continues on his usual pace, the Reds should want him back on a $2.75MM decision.

Milwaukee Brewers

Milwaukee made a big investment by their standards in signing Hoskins to a two-year, $34MM contract during the 2023-24 offseason. The longtime Phillies first baseman had missed his walk year after suffering an ACL tear during Spring Training. The Brewers expected Hoskins to recapture his consistently above-average offensive form after a healthy offseason.

That didn’t happen in year one, as he hit a career-worst .214/.303/.419 across 517 plate appearances. Hoskins still managed 26 homers, but the overall offense was essentially league average. It wasn’t attributable to lingering knee discomfort. Hoskins did his best work early in the season, carrying an .813 OPS through the end of May. He hit .203/.285/.395 over the season’s final four months and bypassed an opt-out opportunity.

Hoskins has gotten out to another strong start this year. He’s batting .270 with a trio of homers and what would be a career-low 20% strikeout rate over his first 75 trips to the plate.

Milwaukee signed Peralta to a $20MM extension just before Spring Training 2020. He was mostly unproven at the time, but it only took one more season before he developed into a top-of-the-rotation starter. This quickly became one of the more team-friendly contracts in baseball. The deal included respective $8MM club options for 2025 and ’26, which would have been Peralta’s first two free agent years had he gone through arbitration.

The 28-year-old righty has been the clear staff ace since Milwaukee traded Corbin Burnes. He posted a sub-4.00 ERA in each of the five guaranteed seasons of the contract. Peralta has rattled off another 28 1/3 frames of 1.91 ERA ball through his first five starts this year. Unless he suffers a significant injury that’d threaten his availability for next season, the Brewers are going to rubber-stamp the option.

Quintana signed late on a $4.25MM pillow contract after finding a weaker market than he expected. The net present value was actually just under $4MM, as Quintana agreed to defer the $2MM buyout on his ’26 mutual option. The Brewers aren’t going to exercise their end of the $15MM option for what would be the veteran lefty’s age-37 season. It looks like they got great value on the one-year deal, though, as Quintana is coming off a 3.75 ERA showing for the Mets. The late signing delayed his team debut, but he has fired 12 1/3 innings of one-run ball over his first two starts.

Woodruff underwent shoulder surgery late in the 2023 season. The Brewers re-signed him to a backloaded two-year deal with a $17.5MM guarantee. They knew he’d spend all of ’24 rehabbing. They’ve taken his progression carefully and didn’t push him during Spring Training. Woodruff began a minor league rehab stint on April 12. He has made a pair of rehab starts and could be back with the big league team in the next couple weeks.

Note: William Contreras’ arbitration contract contains a $12MM team option for next season. He’s excluded from this list because he’d remain under arbitration control if Milwaukee declines the option, as they did with Devin Williams last offseason.

Pittsburgh Pirates

  • None

St. Louis Cardinals

  • None

Cubs To Select Brad Keller; Ben Brown To Be Fifth Starter

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The Cubs have informed Brad Keller that he has made the Cubs’ roster for domestic Opening Day. Manager Craig Counsell passed the news along to Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times. The Cubs will have to make a corresponding move to get him onto the 40-man. Also, per Sahadev Sharma of The Athletic, Ben Brown has won the final rotation spot over Colin Rea.

Keller, 29, pitched to a 4.22 ERA in 10 2/3 innings this spring but turned heads with improved velocity and sharper breaking pitches. He’ll grab a spot in the Chicago bullpen. Given his background as a starter and his 10 2/3 innings in just six appearances, he’ll give Counsell an option who can pitch multiple innings.

Keller was a Rule 5 pick by the Royals out of the D-backs system back in 2017, and for three years he was a solid, durable member of the Kansas City rotation. His effectiveness began to wane in 2021, however, and injuries plagued him in the coming seasons. By 2023, his command had completely eroded. He walked 45 batters in 45 1/3 innings before landing on the injured list. A series of tests eventually led to a thoracic outlet syndrome diagnosis and season-ending surgery. He returned to the majors with the White Sox and Red Sox in 2024 but struggled in both spots.

The 25-year-old Brown came to the Cubs in the 2022 trade that shipped David Robertson to the Phillies. Brown made his big league debut last year, tossing 55 1/3 innings with a 3.58 ERA, 28.8% strikeout rate, 8.6% walk rate, 38.7% grounder rate and 0.81 HR/9. He sits 96-97 mph with his four-seamer and couples that offering with a plus curveball. Brown has at times worked with a changeup in the minors as well but has deployed a two-pitch arsenal in the major thus far. He allowed a pair of runs in 2 2/3 innings versus the Dodgers in the Tokyo Series, but Brown also whiffed five of his 15 opponents there. Similarly, he’s allowed six runs in a small sample of eight spring frames but did so with a pristine 9-to-1 K/BB ratio.

Brown gets the nod over the veteran Rea, who’ll open the season in the bullpen after signing a one-year, $5MM deal in free agency this winter. The 34-year-old righty carries a 4.40 ERA in 292 innings for the Brewers across the past two seasons. He’s worked both as a starter and long reliever in that time. Rea may not start the year in the rotation, but it seems likely he’ll make a handful of starts as injuries and/or poor performance elsewhere in the rotation dictate the need for a fresh arm or even a more permanent replacement.

Javier Assad Ruled Out For Opening Day

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Cubs right-hander Javier Assad has been sidelined this spring due to oblique soreness, and 670 The Score’s Bruce Levine relays this afternoon that the righty won’t be ready to pitch in time for either the Tokyo Series on March 18 or the club’s stateside opener against the Diamondbacks on March 27. Presumably, the Cubs will place him on the injured list to open the season, leaving him out of action for at least the beginning of April.

Assad, 27, has found plenty of success over three seasons in the majors with Chicago despite questionable peripherals. The right-hander served in a part-time swing role for the Cubs in both the 2022 and ’23 seasons, posting a 3.06 ERA (139 ERA+) in 147 innings of work across 41 appearances (18 starts) during that two-year stretch. That excellent production came in spite of underlying numbers that were far less impressive. Assad walked 9.9% of his opponents while striking out just 20.2% of them over those first two seasons, and his 44.7% groundball rate was strong but not outstanding. That left him with a 4.34 FIP and a 4.59 SIERA over those two years, both of which painted him as a below average pitcher despite his above-average results.

When the right-hander was handed an Opening Day rotation spot by the Cubs last year, it was fair to wonder whether those lackluster peripherals would come back to bite him. He once again managed to defy the underlying metrics in 2024, however, posting a 3.73 ERA (107 ERA+) despite a 4.64 FIP and 4.72 SIERA. His strikeout, walk, and groundball rates were largely unchanged from the prior two seasons, but despite that he still posted the numbers of a solid back-end start across 147 innings and 29 starts. His 4.38 ERA and 4.80 FIP after the All-Star break last year stuck out as a potential cause for concern, but after an offseason that saw the club focus more on upgrading its lineup and bullpen rather than the rotation Assad once again figured to feature in the club’s starting five to open the 2025 season.

Those plans will have to be put on hold for now, however, as Assad is only just beginning to work his way back to the mound after being sidelined for all of last month by an oblique strain. Levine writes that the Cubs hope he’ll be able to proceed to throwing a bullpen session next week, but even that seems up in the air. Given the uncertainty surrounding Assad’s status, it’s hardly a surprise that the Cubs decided to formally pull the plug on him as an Opening Day possibility and begin exploring other options to fill out the rotation in earnest.

Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele front Chicago’s rotation and are slated to start the club’s two-game series against the Dodgers in Tokyo. Meanwhile, veterans Jameson Taillon and Matthew Boyd make up the middle of the Cubs’ rotation after Chicago added Boyd on a two-year deal back in December. With Assad no longer an option for the fifth starter job, it seems likely that the gig could fall to veteran swing man Colin Rea. Rea, 34, posted a 4.40 ERA (96 ERA+) and 4.82 FIP in 58 appearances (49 starts) with Milwaukee over the past two years. He figures to be on the Opening Day roster so long as he’s healthy, though he does have ample experience pitching in relief as well.

The possibility that Rea could be used as a long reliever rather than a starter leaves the door open for one of the Cubs’ other potential starting options to grab the fifth starter job. Right-hander Ben Brown dazzled in his rookie season with a 3.58 ERA and 3.11 FIP in 55 1/3 innings of work, and while he was sidelined by an osteoma on his neck for the entire second half last year he now appears to be fully healthy. Jordan Wicks struggled through an injury-marred campaign in 2024 but is a recent top-100 prospect with plenty of upside.

Veteran rotation arms Chris Flexen and Brad Keller are both in camp as non-roster invitees, and it’s possible either could factor into the competition for the fifth starter job alongside Rea, Brown, and Wicks. One player who is unlikely to compete for the job is top pitching prospect Cade Horton, who is healthy this spring after what amounted to a lost season in 2024 but still has minimal experience at the Triple-A level under his belt. Whoever earns the fifth starter job could theoretically pitch themselves into a more permanent job that lasts even beyond Assad’s upcoming IL stint, given that the 27-year-old has both ample bullpen experience and minor league options remaining.

Poll: Who Will Be The Cubs’ Fifth Starter?

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As Spring Training gets underway, teams routinely find themselves dealing with unfortunate surprise injuries that can force a change in plans. That may prove to have been the case for the Cubs when presumed fifth starter Javier Assad was diagnosed with an oblique issue at the outset of camp. Given that the strain Assad is reportedly suffering from is mild, he hasn’t been ruled out for Opening Day. With that being said, The Athletic’s Sahadev Sharma discussed the club’s rotation outlook yesterday and suggested that the Cubs may not push Assad to be ready for Opening Day.

If Assad were to open the season on the injured list, that would leave the door wide open for another player to take that final rotation spot, and even if he’s healthy Assad seems to be less firmly locked into the rotation than Shota Imanaga, Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon, or Matthew Boyd. Fortunately for the Cubs, they have the starting pitching depth necessary to cover for Assad if he’s injured and consider other options even in the event that he’s healthy. Though they’ll only need two starting pitchers for their two-game set against the Dodgers in Tokyo that predates the normal start of the regular season, it wouldn’t be a surprise if the Cubs wanted to have a good idea of what their rotation was going to look like entering that first series of the year.

If he’s healthy, Assad remains easy to bet on for the job. After all, the right-hander delivered 29 solid starts for the Cubs in 2024, pitching to a 3.73 ERA in 147 innings of work. Those are fairly impressive numbers for a back-end starter, but it’s worth noting they also come with notable red flags: Assad wore down badly throughout the year after a hot start, with a 4.84 ERA from June onward and an ugly 6.86 ERA down the stretch in September last year. In addition to those deep struggles later in the season, the right-hander also posted lackluster peripherals with a 4.64 FIP, a strikeout rate of just 19.4%, and a hefty 9.9% walk rate. That’s one of the 10 worst seasons by K-BB% and one of the 15 worst seasons by FIP in all of baseball last year among pitchers with as many innings as Assad.

Should Assad’s combination of spring injuries and second-half struggles give the Cubs enough pause to turn to someone else on Opening Day, it’s possible that offseason addition Colin Rea could be the first to get the call. Rea, 34, signed with the Cubs last month on a one-year, $5MM pact. The righty had a brief stint with the Cubs during the shortened 2020 season, but spend the past two seasons in Milwaukee as a back-end starter for the Brewers. The right-hander posted a 4.40 ERA and 4.82 FIP in 58 appearances over the past two seasons, 42 of which were starts.

Rea posted a higher FIP (4.75) and a lower strikeout rate (18.9%) than even Assad did last year, but he made up for that gap in effectiveness with volume. Rea posted 167 2/3 innings of work for the Brewers last year between 27 starts and five relief appearances, and showed the ability to pitch deep into games as he did so with 19 starts lasting longer than five innings, 11 of which went at least six and five of which saw him pitch into the seventh inning. That ability to pitch into the seventh sets Rea apart from his competitors, as all of the other pitchers mentioned who started an MLB game in the majors last year combined for just two seven-inning starts in 2024. Rea is also notable as the only pitcher discussed here who is both already on the 40-man roster and cannot be optioned to the minor leagues, meaning he’s all but assured a spot in either the Opening Day rotation or bullpen so long as he’s healthy.

While Assad and Rea may be the frontrunners for the job, there are certainly other options worth considering. Chief among those may be right-hander Ben Brown, who stepped into a rotation role with the Cubs early last year and looked good doing so. Brown’s rookie campaign saw him post a 3.58 ERA and 3.11 FIP with an excellent 28.8% strikeout rate. Those are fantastic numbers for any pitcher, but it’s particularly impressive for a 24-year-old getting his feet wet in the majors for the first time.

Unfortunately, Brown’s debut season was limited to just 55 1/3 innings in total, as he was shut down in June due to what Sharma reports turned out to be an osteoma, which is a benign tumor made of bone growing on an existing piece of bone. Brown appears to be healthy and ready to go for the 2025 season and is likely the pitcher with the highest upside the Cubs could turn to for their final rotation job, but his lack of big league experience and long layoff could make the club hesitant to immediately plug him into the rotation.

Another legitimate contender for the role could be southpaw Jordan Wicks, the club’s first-rounder from the 2021 draft and a former top-100 prospect. Wicks has yet to find success at the big league level in 80 2/3 innings of work across 18 appearances (17 starts), with a 5.02 ERA and a nearly matching 5.05 FIP. Like Brown, Wicks also missed much of the 2024 season due to injuries which, in his case, consisted of forearm and oblique issues. That combination of big league struggles and injury history seem to suggest the 25-year-old might be best suited to start the season at Triple-A, but his peripheral numbers were quite strong last year before he got bit by the injury bug as demonstrated by his 25.9% strikeout rate against an 8.3% walk rate in five starts before hitting the IL for the first time.

The aforementioned quartet aren’t the only plausible options, but they’re by far the most likely. Top prospect Cade Horton is a potential front-of-the-rotation arm who would be an exciting addition to the club’s staff, but he suffered a lost season in 2024 due to a subscapularis strain and is all but certain to get more reps in at Triple-A before making the jump to the majors. Non-roster invitees Brad Keller and Chris Flexen are veteran depth pieces who have served as viable back-end starters in recent years, but Keller appears to be getting work in as a reliever this spring while Flexen offers a similar profile to Rea but with lesser results and no guaranteed contract. Nate Pearson was discussed as a potential starting option over the offseason but has success in relief with the Cubs last year pitched just one inning of relief in his first spring appearance.

Who do MLBTR readers think the Cubs will turn to in order to round out the rotation? Will Assad return healthy and effective from his oblique issue to lock down the role? Will the club prioritize Rea due to volume and roster considerations, or go with a higher-upside pitcher like Brown or perhaps Wicks? Have your say in the poll below:

Cubs Sign Colin Rea

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Jan. 13: The Cubs have announced Rea’s signing.

Jan. 10: The Cubs are in agreement with Colin Rea on a one-year, $5MM guarantee. Rea receives a $4.25MM salary for the upcoming season and is guaranteed a $750K buyout on a $6MM club option for 2026. The right-hander is represented by Joe Speed. The Cubs have a full 40-man roster and will need to open a spot in order for this deal to become official.

Rea, 34, is coming off a solid two-year run with the Brewers. Over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, he tossed 292 1/3 innings for Milwaukee, making 49 starts and nine relief appearances. He allowed 4.40 earned runs per nine. His 19.9% strikeout rate was a bit below league average, but he showed strong control with a 6.6% walk rate.

The Brewers could have retained Rea for 2025 via a modest $5.5MM club option, but they somewhat surprisingly put him on waivers to see if any other club wanted him at that price point. No team ended up claiming him, so the Brewers simply went for the $1MM buyout instead. By getting $5MM from the Cubs on top of that $1MM buyout, Rea will come out marginally better financially than if the Brewers had simply picked up the option.

By joining the Cubs, Rea will be reunited with manager Craig Counsell, who was the skipper in Milwaukee before coming to Chicago a year ago. Rea was also with the Brewers in 2021, though he only got to pitch six innings in the majors that year. He then headed to Japan for the 2022 season, parlaying his decent performance over there into a return to the Brewers two years ago.

Rea doesn’t overpower hitters, averaging around 93 miles per hour on his fastball over the past two years, but he can keep them off balance with a diverse mix of six pitches. Per Statcast, he also threw a sinker, cutter, sweeper, splitter and curveball. He also didn’t lean on any one pitch too often, topping out with his sinker in each of the past two seasons, around 30% of the time in each year. That’s helped him have fairly neutral splits, with lefties hitting .257/.308/.465 against him last year and righties at .258/.315/.429.

For the Cubs, Rea is likely to slot into a similar swing role to the one he served with the Brewers. Chicago signed Matthew Boyd earlier this winter, adding him to a rotation mix that already had Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. Rea and Javier Assad have somewhat similar numbers over the past two years and could perhaps compete for the fifth spot in the rotation if everyone is healthy, with the other perhaps getting a long relief role in the bullpen.

Of course, rotations shift over the course of a season. Injuries are inevitable and some players will perform better or worse than expectations. The Cubs have guys like Jordan Wicks, Caleb Kilian, Ben Brown and Cody Poteet also on the 40-man roster, though they all still have options and are fairly lacking in experience. Prospect Cade Horton is not yet on the roster but could force his way into the mix during the upcoming season.

It’s also possible that the Cubs will make further moves to change the rotation plan. Since acquiring Boyd and trading Wesneski, they have been connected to free agent Jack Flaherty and trade candidates like Luis Castillo and Jesús Luzardo. The latter was already traded from the Marlins to the Phillies but another rotation acquisition of some kind is not off the table.

Rea’s role figures to be determined by those moves as well as the health and performance of everyone on the roster, including his own. He improves the depth of the pitching staff at a fairly low cost, relatively speaking. The starting pitching market has been aggressive this winter, as guys like Justin Verlander and Alex Cobb got $15MM guarantees despite being relatively older veterans coming off injury-marred seasons. Rea doesn’t have the same track record or ceiling as those guys but has been healthy and performing well lately, with just one third the salary commitment.

RosterResource now has the Cubs at a payroll of $181MM and a competitive balance tax number of $198MM. Last year, they eventually got to a $228MM payroll and went narrowly over the tax line. It’s unclear if they want to get to the same levels in 2025, but even if they want to avoid the tax, they can still add about $40MM to their CBT number while doing so. This year’s base CBT threshold is $241MM.

MLBTR’s Steve Adams first reported that the Cubs and Rea had agreed to a one-year, $5MM deal. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reported the presence of a ’26 club option. MLBTR reported the option terms.

Colin Rea Clears Waivers, Brewers To Decline Club Option

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Right-hander Colin Rea has cleared waivers, as first reported by MLBTR’s own Steve Adams. The news leaves the Brewers poised to decline his $5.5MM club option for 2025 in favor of a $1MM buyout.

Rea, 34, finds himself headed to free agency after a surprising turn of events. The right-hander has generally performed solidly for the Brewers in two seasons since coming over from Japan following the 2022 season. He’s spent most of those two seasons in the rotation, providing roughly league average consistency with a 4.40 ERA (96 ERA+) in 292 1/3 innings of work over the past two seasons spread between 49 starts and nine relief appearances.

Given the elevated cost of even back-end rotation arms in recent years that’s seen veterans such as Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn land eight-figure salaries in free agency, it seemed likely the Brewers would exercise their option on Rea’s services for next year. That didn’t come to pass, however, and evidently it seems no team in baseball was willing to commit a $5.5MM salary to the right-hander this early into the offseason following an unusual winter in which back-of-the-rotation pieces such as Michael Lorenzen and Mike Clevinger lingered on the market deep into Spring Training and were available at deep discounts.

Amid ongoing uncertainty regarding TV rights for a number of clubs, it’s possible that clubs in the market for a back-end starter such as the Reds, Twins, and even the Brewers themselves would prefer to see how the market develops this winter rather than commit a salary to Rea in early November. For the Brewers, in particular, parting ways with Rea could be a sensible decision given the emergence of Tobias Myers in the rotation along with their mid-season deal for right-hander Aaron Civale. With Myers, Civale, and Freddy Peralta all back in the rotation next year and ace Brandon Woodruff also expected back from shoulder surgery, that leaves the club with four starters locked into a rotation that could see Aaron Ashby, DL Hall, and prospect Jacob Misiorowski all fight for the fifth starter job next spring if no further additions are made.

Given that depth in the rotation, it’s somewhat understandable that the Brewers would prefer to allocate the $4.5MM they declined to offer Rea elsewhere, particularly in an offseason where they’ll need to find a way to replace departing shortstop Willy Adames in the lineup. Given the strong defensive abilities of both Joey Ortiz and Brice Turang, that addition doesn’t necessarily need to come at shortstop, and the budget space being used to pay Rea could be reallocated to a free agent infielder such as Amed Rosario or Jose Iglesias. As for Rea, the right-hander will join free agent class that’s relatively deep in back-of-the-rotation options with Gibson, Lorenzen, and Martin Perez among the lengthy list of other similarly productive players available.

Brewers Place Colin Rea On Waivers

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The Brewers have placed right-hander Colin Rea on waivers, MLBTR has learned. He’s available for any club to claim. Rea has a $5.5MM club option for the upcoming season with a $1MM buyout.

It’s a surprising move, given the affordable nature of Rea’s option and the solid work he’s given to them over the past two seasons. The veteran righty has given Milwaukee 292 1/3 innings of 4.40 ERA ball since 2023, taking the ball 58 times and starting 49 games. Rea hasn’t been a top-of-the-rotation arm but has been a stabilizing presence amid myriad injuries and considerable turnover in the Brewers’ rotation. He’d have become a free agent if Milwaukee declined his buyout, but they’ll instead make a rather glaring cost-cutting move of waiving him to try to save that $1MM buyout in the event that another team claims him.

Any team in need of rotation help or perhaps an affordable swingman will now have the opportunity to claim Rea at the $5.5MM price point of his 2025 option. If he goes unclaimed, Milwaukee will seemingly pay that $1MM buyout, at which point Rea will become a free agent who’s able to sign with any club.

Given that he’s coming off a season that saw him pitch 167 2/3 innings with a 4.29 ERA, 18.9% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate, Rea should hold appeal to clubs seeking help at the back of the rotation — particularly lower-payroll clubs that have doubts over their ability to buy a comparable arm in free agency. One way or another, Rea will likely land on his feet, but it’s a tough pill to swallow for the righty, as he now has no say over choosing his next destination unless he surprisingly goes unclaimed and is subsequently bought out.

As a reminder, offseason waiver priority is based on the reverse standings from the 2024 season and is not league-specific. The White Sox will have first crack at claiming Rea, followed by the Rockies, Marlins, Angels, A’s, etc.

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