{"id":543189,"date":"2026-01-29T00:24:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:24:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/543189\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T00:24:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T00:24:22","slug":"chicago-cubs-reliever-trent-thornton-agree-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/543189\/","title":{"rendered":"Chicago Cubs, reliever Trent Thornton agree to minor-league deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Veteran reliever Trent Thornton and the Chicago Cubs have agreed to a minor-league contract that includes an invitation to major-league camp for spring training, the team announced Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The 32-year-old right-hander is recovering from season-ending Achilles tendon surgery with the Seattle Mariners. He was 2-0 with a 4.68 ERA in 33 appearances before he was injured coming off the mound on a ground ball against the Texas Rangers on July 31. The recovery was expected to take six to eight months.<\/p>\n<p>Ten days before his injury, Thornton had to be helped off the field by training staff after he wobbled on the mound during the eighth inning of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2025\/06\/21\/chicago-cubs-seattle-mariners\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a steamy game against the Cubs<\/a> at Wrigley Field. The temperature at first pitch was 94 degrees.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" lazyautosizes lazyload\" alt=\"Mariners pitcher Trent Thornton is helped off the field after losing his balance in the eighth inning against the Cubs on June 21, 2025, at Wrigley Field. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)\" width=\"4500\" data- src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/CTC-CUBS-MARINERS-062125-44_230637130_e666af.jpg\" data-attachment-id=\"23922064\" \/>Mariners pitcher Trent Thornton is helped off the field after losing his balance in the eighth inning against the Cubs on June 21, 2025, at Wrigley Field. (John J. Kim\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n<p>Thornton is 14-19 with a 4.38 ERA in 235 appearances over seven seasons with the Toronto Blue Jays and Mariners.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, veteran catcher Reese McGuire, who played for the Cubs last season, has signed a minor-league contract with the Milwaukee Brewers that includes an invitation to major-league camp.<\/p>\n<p>McGuire, who turns 31 on March 2, batted .226 with a .245 on-base percentage, nine homers and 24 RBIs in 44 games for the Cubs in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>He has a .248 average, .293 OBP, 25 homers and 106 RBIs in 399 career games with the Blue Jays (2018-21), Chicago White Sox (2022), Boston Red Sox (2022-24) and Cubs. The Pittsburgh Pirates selected McGuire with the 14th pick in the 2013 draft.<\/p>\n<p>Two-time All-Star William Contreras and 23-year-old prospect Jeferson Quero are the only catchers on the Brewers\u2019 40-man roster. Danny Jansen, who had been Contreras\u2019 main backup after arriving from the Tampa Bay Rays at last season\u2019s trade deadline, signed a two-year, $14.5 million contract with the Rangers in the offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Veteran reliever Trent Thornton and the Chicago Cubs have agreed to a minor-league contract that includes an invitation&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543190,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2379],"tags":[5,138,24,49,2561,41017,59,4,3529,15567,65,7985,396,2562],"class_list":["post-543189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago-white-sox","tag-baseball","tag-chicago","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicago-white-sox","tag-chicagowhitesox","tag-cubs-spring-training","tag-milwaukee-brewers","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-spring-training","tag-reese-mcguire","tag-seattle-mariners","tag-trent-thornton","tag-white-sox","tag-whitesox"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115975545145715999","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543189","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=543189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543189\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}