Rising Twins starter could become Cubs’ ideal trade deadline alternative to Joe Ryan

Joe Ryan has been the Chicago Cubs' dream trade target for what feels like forever. Rumors really started kicking up around last summer, but he ultimately stayed put when the Minnesota Twins couldn't find any deals they deemed satisfactory.

That rumor mill was expected to plunge forward with full force yet again in 2026, but Ryan's recent bout with elbow soreness has rightfully given everyone a lot of pause. He did make his next scheduled start and pitched well (one run allowed in six innings), but it's going to be difficult to justify trading a haul of prospects for a pitcher who might be one fastball away from needing Tommy John surgery.

Don't lose faith in the Cubs' deadline plans just yet, though. When one door closes, another opens.

Bailey Ober is hardly considered in the same tier of pitcher as his Twins teammate, but the towering 6'9" right-hander is delivering an elite campaign on the mound at the moment. Still just 30 years old with 1.5 years of team control remaining and fresh off a Maddux, might he become the apple of Jed Hoyer's eye once the trade deadline rolls around?

Cubs' success with Kyle Hendricks makes them the perfect team to take a chance on Bailey Ober

That Maddux (a complete-game shutout on fewer than 100 pitches) is actually a good place to start when stumping for Ober to the Cubs; the last time the North Siders got such a performance, it was courtesy of Kyle Hendricks in 2019 against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Despite wildly different statures (Hendricks is six inches shorter and about 70 pounds lighter), both succeed in similar ways. Like The Professor, Ober has little velocity to speak of; his 88.6 MPH average on his fastball this year is the third-lowest in the league, directly ahead of Cubs reliever Hoby Milner.

Ober makes a living by inducing weak contact and limiting walks, and his breaking balls are always among the best in the league (by run value) thanks to his ridiculous 7.2-foot extension off the mound. Because he doesn't throw hard, he doesn't strike out a ton of batters, meaning he needs a good defense behind him to succeed. It just so happens that the Cubs rank first as a team in Outs Above Average (+19) this year.

Seeing as the Cubs' rotation is currently decimated due to injuries -- Cade Horton is out for the season, while both Justin Steele and Matthew Boyd have vague timelines -- it's only natural that they'll be targetting pitching in trades over the coming months. Ober (3.46 ERA, 3.85 FIP) isn't the kind of ace-caliber arm that could swing a postseason series, but he's the exact type of pitch-to-contact savant that the Cubs have longstanding success with.

As far as trade-deadline reinforcements go, he'd be more Dan Haren than Aroldis Chapman, but Haren ate nearly 60 innings for the Cubs down the stretch of the 2015 season. At Ober's current run-prevention pace, that'd be a wildly valuable pitcher to have in August and September.

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