{"id":569619,"date":"2026-02-13T06:08:17","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:08:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/569619\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T06:08:17","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T06:08:17","slug":"cubs-craig-counsell-names-his-opening-day-closer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/569619\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs\u2019 Craig Counsell Names His Opening Day Closer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Craig Counsell has already named his closer for 2026 and to no one\u2019s surprise his name is Daniel Palencia. <\/p>\n

To no Chicago Cubs fan\u2019s surprise, manager Craig Counsell has named his Opening Day closer already: Daniel Palencia.<\/p>\n

According to Jesse Rogers of ESPN, on Wednesday, when he asked Counsell if Palencia would get the ninth inning if the regular season were starting now<\/a>, he said yes.<\/p>\n

Palencia, who had a breakout first half of the 2025 season, jumped into the closer\u2019s role rather quickly, thanks to then-closer Ryan Pressly\u2019s poor start to the season.<\/p>\n

In his first 33 appearances of the season, Palencia posted a 1.57 ERA with 39 strikeouts, 11 walks, a 2.67 FIP, 12 saves, and six holds in 34.1 innings pitched.<\/a><\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Palencia\u2019s second half was not as dominant as his first. In 21 appearances post All-Star Break, the righty posted a 5.40 ERA with 5 walks, 22 strikeouts, 11 earned runs, and gave up a .301 batting average to opposing hitters in 18.1 innings pitched.<\/a> He also gave up one run in 6-12 appearances in August, as well as a nasty five-run outing in September in which he did not record an out.<\/p>\n

Story continues below.<\/p>\n

More Sports News<\/p>\n

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Although Palencia\u2019s second half was nothing to brag about for the young closer, he still proved to be a solid piece in a loaded Cubs\u2019 bullpen in 2025. In 54 games, he collected 22 saves while posting a 2.91 ERA with 61 strikeouts, 16 walks, and a .224 opponent\u2019s batting average in 52.2 innings pitched<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Of course, it\u2019s early, being the first day of Spring Training, and I get it, Counsell has to say Palencia is the Opening Day closer right now. But Cubs fans need to see Palencia make the leap from being just a solid bullpen arm with a fast fastball to that dominant, elite, shut-down ninth-inning man fans think he can be.<\/p>\n

If Palencia can continue to develop his slider and command his splitter, I would not be surprised to see the Venezuela native easily hold the closer role for all of 2026. \u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Craig Counsell has already named his closer for 2026 and to no one\u2019s surprise his name is Daniel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":532832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[5,24,888,2328,2304,4,2305,2303],"class_list":{"0":"post-569619","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago-cubs","10":"tag-daniel-palencia","11":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","12":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-mlb-playoffs","15":"tag-mlb-postseason"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116061831416488092","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569619","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=569619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569619\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/532832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}