3 potential 2026 Cubs closers not named Daniel Palencia

Last year was a breakout campaign for Chicago Cubs right-hander Daniel Palencia. After flashing some promise over the prior two seasons with his high-90s fastball and wicked slider, he finally put it all together in 2025 with a 2.91 ERA and 3.05 FIP. He was still prone to the occasional bout of wildness, but managed to fix his one glaring weakness by vastly reducing walks and adding an extra tick to his heater on average. By the end of the year, whenever "Gasolina" started playing, fans generally felt safe.

As good as he was, the Cubs haven't gotten many repeat performances out of relievers of late. That fact, paired with Craig Counsell's hesitance to lock pitchers into specific roles, could mean we see multiple guys close out ballgames in 2026. Here are three non-Palencia options we could see in the ninth inning this year.

3 dark-horse Cubs arms we could see in the ninth inning this year

Hunter Harvey

When the Cubs signed Hunter Harvey for $6 million, it was a notable gamble. That's a decently high price for a reliever, especially for one with as frightening an injury history dating back to when he was drafted in 2013. His time as a top-100 prospect with the Baltimore Orioles was largely derailed by an endless string of ailments, including Tommy John surgery, and 2025 alone saw him miss most of the season with multiple injuries.

Harvey is one of the only other pitchers in the Cubs organization that can rival Palencia in pure stuff, boasting a high-90s fastball of his own. Unlike Palencia, control issues haven't been a huge problem and he's averaged nearly 10 strikeouts per nine in his career.

There are some notable downsides, though. Harvey has generally been prone to hard contact and, last year, his fastball lost a step and averaged around 96 MPH instead of 98 MPH. However, his 3.11 career ERA and 3.16 FIP show that, when healthy, he almost always finds ways to be effective. The big test is just availability.

Phil Maton

At first glance, Phil Maton is not the ideal image of a closer. In 2025, his fastball wasn't just slower than Palencia's — it landed in the third percentile of all fastballs at 89.6 MPH. Under the hood, however, he had a monster season between the Cardinals and Rangers that his already great 2.79 ERA doesn't do justice. He actually bested Palencia's 10.42 K/9 with an absurd 11.89 in 61 1/3 innings. That kind of strikeout rate is exactly what's needed in a closer, even if it's not accomplished by blowing the ball past opponents.

Across the board, Maton had pretty eye-popping peripherals, with perhaps the best being his 99th percentile average exit velocity of 84.8 MPH, 99th percentile hard hit rate of only 30.7 percent, and 98th percentile whiff rate of 36.2 percent. A nasty curveball that averages more than 5.4 inches of vertical break is a huge weapon that, paired with a cutter, offset his lack of fastball velocity.

Now, these stats alone are not an indicator that he's one of the best pitchers in baseball or anything. However, the combination of swing-and-miss stuff with an ability to limit hard contact at an elite rate certainly justifies the two-year, $14.5 million price tag. If you slapped those stats on someone with velocity, he might be getting elite closer money right now. Instead, he looks more like a savvy pickup that could surprise people if he had to step up in the ninth inning.

Porter Hodge

He's done it before, so let's go back to the well. Hodge fell off a cliff last year after his 2024 breakout that saw him post a 1.88 ERA/2.75 FIP with nine saves. However, the reason for that fall off may have been, at least in part, to injuries. His early-season struggles were notable, but he was at his worst when dealing with reduced velocity coming off his IL stints. After he got healthy, September proved to be by far his best month. His ERA left much to be desired, but from Aug. 31 through Sept. 17, he looked much sharper, throwing 8 1/3 innings with 13 strikeouts.

One other sign of hope lies in the expected stats. Hodge's disastrous ERA may not be entirely reflective of how pitched given that his expected ERA was a much less bleak 4.17. His expected FIP, too, sits lower at 4.03. It all points to a bit of bad luck that compounded his woes in 2025.

Perhaps starting the year healthy again will create an opportunity for Hodge to bounce back with some better luck. Again, at his best, he's shown what he's capable of. A return to form would add another high-velocity arm to Counsell's pen. A quartet of Hodge, Palencia, Harvey, and Maton would be a force to reckoned with at the back end of ballgames.