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You know the drill by now – I mean, I just said it earlier today with the Joe Biagini signing: “The Chicago Cubs haven’t done a ton yet this offseason to make firm and fast additions to the big league roster, but they have certainly done what we expected them to do on the bullpen side of things: accumulate interesting, upside arms on the cheap. Don’t read that as a criticism, either. They’ve been good at it for a couple years now, and I’m not going to start betting against the approach: get a huge volume of guys in the door who do one or two things that you can’t teach, try to m...

The Chicago Cubs haven’t done a ton yet this offseason to make firm and fast additions to the big league roster, but they have certainly done what we expected them to do on the bullpen side of things: accumulate interesting, upside arms on the cheap. Don’t read that as a criticism, either. They’ve been good at it for a couple years now, and I’m not going to start betting against the approach: get a huge volume of guys in the door who do one or two things that you can’t teach, try to massage some other part of their game to get overall improvement, and figure that you can hit on mayb...

Head over to FanGraphs to see the particulars on each player, because I’m planning to just discuss the groups more generally. A blanket caveat, I guess, is that because the NL Central figures to suuuuuuck in 2021, the Cubs don’t have to look like a behemoth to be competitive. Indeed, it kinda seems like they’re banking on that. And in the aggregate, FanGraphs sees the Cubs as more or less competitive. Is that good enough to keep the band together? Good enough to make additions? Or should the Cubs sell further from here? Starting Rotation An extreme version of what we say narratively, wh...

Not much else doing right now for the Chicago Cubs, but they’re sticking to their now-usual route when it comes to the bullpen: find and sign as many “interesting” and “unique” guys as possible. As Bryan points out on Twitter, Kelley, 27, is a sidearmer who had the ninth lowest release point in baseball in 2020. So that’s definitely “interesting” and “unique.” The long-time Red Sox farmhand was exceptional in the minors, but hasn’t translated it in the big leagues yet, either in his debut with the Red Sox in 2019, or with the Phillies this past year (both very small samp...

Gulfport alum Jonathan Holder reaches deal with Chicago Cubs Gulfport alum Jonathan Holder reaches deal with Chicago Cubs By Michael Dugan | December 18, 2020 at 10:48 PM CST - Updated December 18 at 10:48 PM GULFPORT, Miss. (WLOX) - Former Gulfport standout Jonathan Holder reached a deal with the Chicago Cubs on Thursday after being non-tendered by the New York Yankees on December 2. Holder began to find his groove at the start of the 2020 season, striking out 14 batters and posting a 2.08 ERA in his first 16 appearances. If he can begin the 2021 season how he did last year, the Cubs bu...