Latest offseason ranking reiterates the Chicago Cubs' need for urgency with the bullpen

Despite a solid offseason effort so far from Jed Hoyer and company, the Chicago Cubs still have much to do before games get back underway. Chief among their concerns that still need to be addressed is the bullpen, a problem that has plagued them for the past two years now. Thus far, Hoyer has kept to his approach of constructing a relief corps on the cheap with a smattering of minor-league signings coupled with the solid, if unremarkable additions of Eli Morgan and the underrated Caleb Thielbar.

The rest of the group relies on repeat performances from guys that, while good in 2024, haven't fully proven themselves yet. Porter Hodge is still set as the closer after his debut season in which he posted a 1.88 ERA while Nate Pearson and Tyson Miller look to continue playing bigger roles after joining the team throughout last year. Last season showed, however, the consequences of relying on relatively unproven arms over more established veterans with serious injuries to Julian Merryweather and Adbert Alzolay.

For those reasons and more, The Athletic (subscription required) featured the Cubs bullpen as the fourth-greatest weakness on any contending team in their recent write-up about the 15 greatest needs among the top 15 teams in baseball. Citing Steamer projections, they had the entire group worth only 1.4 WAR, with FanGraphs projecting only four bullpens to be worse than them. Finding the good in their group of arms requires buying into guys with a lack of a major league track record and hoping everyone can exceed their projections.

The caveat, of course, is that there's a ton of offseason to go and the relief market is only just starting to heat up. The Cubs are still roughly $50 million under the luxury tax after trading Cody Bellinger to the Yankees. Expectations after that deal are that the money would go back into helping the team in other areas. After acquiring Kyle Tucker for a year, they would be downright foolish to ignore a pursuit of the better arms available.

Tanner Scott will demand too much for Hoyer and company to consider, but just about everyone else among this deep free-agent class should be reasonable. The top prizes after Scott will be Kirby Yates, Jeff Hoffman, and Carlos Estevez, the latter of whom the Cubs were recently pegged as the top landing spot for. Estevez would add much-needed power to the back end coming off a strong season between the Phillies and Angels with a 2.45 ERA and 3.24 FIP.
Past them, there's a mix of veteran closers looking for new homes like Kenley Jansen and Jose Leclerc, old friends like David Robertson and Jorge Lopez, and other notable arms like AJ Minter, Tommy Kahnle, Kyle Finnegan, and Andrew Kittredge to pick from.

Cubs should be aggressive to get the relievers they prefer

Just because there are so many names available doesn't mean the Cubs should delay getting the upgrades they need though. The team has been content in previous years to wait and see what falls to them, but it's all too important to field a competitive roster this year. They've already shown they're willing to jump the market with their signing of Matthew Boyd to ensure they added some rotation depth with an arm they like. Given the dire projections for the bullpen after two seasons in which their relief corps helped sink their playoff hopes, their top priority needs to be adding certainty with whoever they like best from the mid-to-higher-end relief market before things start moving.

The Cubs have other needs to address, including adding a quality infield utility player and another starter, yet they've been publicly active in exploring options for both. Hyeseong Kim, Josh Rojas, and Yoan Moncada have all been on their radar as depth for the bench and they've kept tabs on Jack Flaherty while awaiting Roki Sasaki's decision. Time and again, however, all indications point to the bullpen as the spot where the biggest gap exists between them and the true contenders. They'll have to get their relief additions right to improve upon the 83-win record from the past two seasons.