{"id":31975,"date":"2025-05-16T18:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-16T18:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/31975\/"},"modified":"2025-05-16T18:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-16T18:54:10","slug":"cubs-agree-to-minor-league-deal-with-pitcher-kenta-maeda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/31975\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs agree to minor league deal with pitcher Kenta Maeda"},"content":{"rendered":"

CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs<\/a> have agreed to a minor league contract with Kenta Maeda<\/a>, giving the struggling right-hander another chance to regain his form.<\/p>\n

Cubs manager Craig Counsell confirmed the deal before Friday’s game against the White Sox<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old Maeda had a 7.88 ERA in seven relief appearances for Detroit<\/a> before he was designated for assignment on May 1. He went 3-7 with a 6.09 ERA in 17 starts and 12 relief appearances in his first year with the Tigers after agreeing to a $24 million, two-year contract in November 2023.<\/p>\n

“I think it’s a player that you got to have a constant conversation with, and see where we can maybe make some adjustments and see where he’s at,” Counsell said.<\/p>\n

Maeda made his major league debut with the Los Angeles Dodgers<\/a> in 2016, going 16-11 with a 3.48 ERA in 32 starts. He went 6-1 with a 2.70 ERA in 11 starts for Minnesota<\/a> during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, finishing second in AL Cy Young Award balloting.<\/p>\n

Maeda, who missed the 2022 season because of Tommy John surgery, is 68-56 with a 4.20 ERA in 226 major league games, including 172 starts.<\/p>\n

The NL Central-leading Cubs have three key starting pitchers on the injured list. Shota Imanaga has a mild left hamstring strain, and Javier Assad<\/a> has an oblique issue. Justin Steele<\/a> is out for the rest of the season with an elbow injury.<\/p>\n

Imanaga got hurt during a 4-0 loss at Milwaukee on May 4. Counsell said the team wants to get through this weekend before laying out a plan for Imanaga’s return.<\/p>\n

“For now, we’re just continuing to throw,” Counsell said. “He’s kind of having a high day, a medium day, a low day throwing, but continuing to throw every day on that kind of rotational cycle.”<\/p>\n

The Cubs also are playing without left fielder Ian Happ<\/a>, who is on the 10-day IL with a left oblique strain. The three-time Gold Glove winner got hurt on a swing last week.<\/p>\n

“I think tomorrow is kind of a bigger day to see where we’re at with Ian, because obviously we have to progress towards hitting if we’re talking about (activating him on) Tuesday,” Counsell said.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2025 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — The Chicago Cubs have agreed to a minor league contract with Kenta Maeda, giving the struggling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":31976,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[12215,5,138,24,4245,161,649,36,12214,4,169],"class_list":{"0":"post-31975","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-12215","9":"tag-baseball","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-chicago-cubs","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-espn","15":"tag-ian-happ","16":"tag-maeda-kenta","17":"tag-mlb","18":"tag-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/114519032751789553","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31975\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31976"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}