The Chicago Cubs bullpen last year was catastrophic at times, especially early in the season.
With the flat-lining of crucial bullpen arms such as Adbert Alzolay, Hector Neris, and Julian Merryweather, the team was hapless in the areas of keeping leads and pulling the team over the finish line.
The full-on collapse pretty much removed the Cubs from any postseason push well before the second half of the season, when the bullpen rebounded with some new faces taking key roles.
Adding bullpen depth was a primary focus this offseason for Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, who went about acquiring several pieces to fortify the core bullpen left at the end of the 2024 season.
Picked up via trade or free agency, Eli Morgan, Ryan Brasier, Caleb Thielbar, and Ryan Pressly are new Cubs additions, added to a bullpen that looks like it might feature only one pitcher on last year’s opening day roster (Merryweather).
Thielbar, specifically, has recently been talked up as a possible key pickup.
The 38-year-old free agent lefty was signed to a one-year, $2.75 million deal by the Cubs in December and brought aboard to face left-handed hitters on a roster lacking in southpaw relief options.
The former Minnesota Twin had a disastrous 2024, posting a 5.32 ERA in 59 games and 47.1 innings. Prior to that, though, he was a consistently solid bullpen presence, with ERAs that generally hovered around the mid-3 mark.
Past success has proven his potential worth and his physical metric haven’t shown any real decline, so the Cubs are banking on his struggles being a one-year outlier to an otherwise successful career.
To echo the Cubs’ belief in the veteran pitcher, Fangraphs recently profiled Thielbar as one of the major league pitchers most likely to have a bounce back season in 2025.
Jordan Campbell of Cubbies Crib supports that assessment.