Chicago Cubs: 3 free agent relievers who could make all the difference

Chicago Cubs: A Blake Parker-Carter Hawkins reunion could make sense

Blake Parker pitched for the Cubs during the proverbial dark years of 2012-2014 and struggled to ever find success, but he’s since turned himself into a solid middle reliever, and would fit well into the Cubs bullpen. Coming off a solid 2021 campaign in Cleveland that saw him pitch to the tune of a 3.09 ERA and a solid 2.64 SO/W ratio, the right-hander would be a perfect piece to the Cubs bullpen puzzle.

As far as stuff goes, Parker is hardly working with shutdown stuff. Baseball Savant pegs him in the bottom 10 percent of the league in curveball spin rate, bottom seven in fastball spin rate and bottom 14 in fastball velocity. Still, across more than 300 career big league frames, he’s regularly gotten the job done – so maybe we shouldn’t look too much into the nuts and bolts of it all.

There may be a reason to believe the Cubs may be interested, as new Cubs GM Carter Hawkins was Cleveland’s assistant GM in 2021, and he may push for the team to sign an arm he’s familiar with. Parker is also likely to be inexpensive and would slot in perfectly to the middle relief role.