As observers of the Chicago Cubs, we’ve all become accustomed to their standard process in building a bullpen. It’s the waiver claims, the projects, and the last-chance veterans. Somehow, they’ve made it work. In the face of that success, though, Jed Hoyer and Carter Hawkins chose to revamp the approach this winter in creating more early certainty that (they hope) will yield some long-term stability.

The Cubs’ leaders in relief innings in 2025 were Brad Keller, Caleb Thielbar, and Drew Pomeranz. Chris Flexen was a bit further down the list, in sixth. Keller was a minor-league signing who’d last flashed upside nearly seven years prior. Thielbar was a 37-year-old coming off the worst year of his career with the only team for which he’d ever pitched. Pomeranz was in camp with Seattle on a minor-league deal prior to being acquired by the Cubs that April. Flexen was on a non-guaranteed pact of his own. That’s four of the top-six arms in terms of volume bearing very little margin for error on a career-level scope. A last chance, if you will. Let’s work back farther in the chronology. 

In 2024, the Cubs had the likes of Tyson Miller, Héctor Neris, Mark Leiter Jr. and Jorge López logging a good chunk of innings in relief. Miller had thrown for three teams the year prior, Neris went unsigned deep into the offseason due to some wildly concerning peripherals, Leiter was an active reclamation project for the team, and Lopez was a very public castoff from the New York Mets. Even the year prior, the Cubs were led in relief innings by waiver claim Julian Merryweather, Leiter on his second minor-league deal, and free-agent signee Michael Fulmer who was playing on a cheap one-year pact. It obviously doesn’t account for all of said innings, but it speaks to what we’ve come to understand as a part of Jed Hoyer’s process. 

Not that the results illustrate reason to be critical of such process. The Cubs ranked 11th in bullpen ERA in 2025 (3.78), 12th in 2024 (3.81), and 13th in 2023 (3.85). If anything, they’ve managed to improve the process every so slightly over the past handful of years.

Results notwithstanding, though, the Cubs, simply, have not been a team that likes to invest heavy finances into their bullpen. They prefer to work it on the cheap via the development of their own arms, a waiver claim of an arm with upside, or hope they can catch fire with a buy-low free agent either past his prime or aimlessly searching for the upside they flashed earlier in their career. Given that, the 2025-26 offseason has represented a sharp deviation from the team’s modus operandi in matters of the relief corps.

At the onset of the winter, the Cubs lost a number of names to free agency. Keller, Pomeranz, Taylor Rogers, Ryan Brasier, and Aaron Civale were all among those who departed this offseason after logging time in relief for the 2025 Cubs. They also traded Andrew Kittredge back to Baltimore before things even really got moving. Ryan Pressly was gone before the season was. They did, however, re-sign Thielbar. Which means that, of the team’s top 15 arms in terms of relief volume, only six remain in the organization: Thielbar, Daniel Palencia, Porter Hodge, Colin Rea, and Jordan Wicks. Only three of those are even likely to be guaranteed work (Thielbar, Palencia, and Rea). 

In replacing such volume, the team sought a new approach. The waiver claims and collection of minor-league signings are still there. But it may be difficult for them to log too many innings with the likes of Thielbar, Hoby Milner, Phil Maton, Jacob Webb, and Hunter Harvey in the mix. 

This means that five of the team’s (likely) eight relief pitchers are not only established big league arms, but still working to enough effect to be on guaranteed contracts. Maton is coming off the best year of his career. Thielbar and Milner are extremely efficient against hitters of the same handedness. Although limited by injury, Harvey didn’t allow a run across 12 appearances last year. Even Webb threw to a 3.00 ERA in 55 appearances. That’s a robust group of arms that each feature a track record of sustained success. Sure, there might be a niche quality to some of them (Milner, most notably), but this group takes on an entirely different shape than previous bullpen iterations on the North Side of Chicago.

Now, instead of requiring more inexperienced or erratic arms to shoulder innings loads, you’re able to put them in more favorable spots and deploy them as supplemental pieces to the puzzle. It’s not necessarily about getting a group that favors one result more than the other. Jed Hoyer didn’t drive up the strikeout rates or the groundballs. He limited variance. That’s the key here. 

Perhaps even more notably, the Cubs have built this group with an eye on 2027, too. Webb has a club option for the following year. Maton has a second year on his deal. Harvey and Thielbar each have mutual options, which stand as good a chance at being non-fiction entities as any other mutual option in the sport. Let’s not overlook Shelby Miller in all of this, who was signed with the express purpose of being part of the year-after’s group. Rather than waiting for the bullpen picture to take shape, Hoyer and Hawkins have been much more explicit in shaping it themselves. 

And while the multi-year factor may be significant, it’s ultimately that decrease in variance that rings as the true victory for how the relief corps has been assembled this winter. In a division with a team like the Milwaukee Brewers, you want to force a degree of certainty on your opponents. Rather than let the natural happenings of a game unfold, a bullpen comprised of established guys helps to generate some stability and clearer outcomes, rather than letting a level of control escape your grasp.

It won’t all work, and the Ryan Rolisons and Trent Thorntons of the world may very well have their day. But the direction is encouraging for a team that hasn’t sought to establish certainty in the bullpen this early in a calendar year in quite some time.