{"id":586692,"date":"2026-02-22T15:17:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/586692\/"},"modified":"2026-02-22T15:17:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-22T15:17:02","slug":"2026-chicago-cubs-player-profiles-hunter-harvey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/586692\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 Chicago Cubs player profiles: Hunter Harvey"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Today we look at the Cubs\u2019 new flamethrowing reliever, a former first-round pick (#22 overall in 2013 by Baltimore), who has been in The Show since 2019.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/go.skimresources.com\/?id=1025X1734621&amp;xs=1&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.mlb.com%2Fplayer%2Fhunter-harvey-640451\" rel=\"sponsored nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Hunter Luke Harvey<\/a>, son of former MLB reliever <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harvebr01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bryan Harvey<\/a>, came to the Cubs as a free agent, signing on New Year\u2019s Eve, and is expected to take on a short relief\/setup role, perhaps picking up save opportunities if Daniel Palencia is tired or unavailable.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In seven years split between Baltimore (where he was their No. 1 pick in 2013), Washington and Kansas City, Harvey has posted career numbers of 10-11, 3.11, with 11 saves, a 4.0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harvehu01.shtml\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">bWAR<\/a> ( 3.6 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/players\/hunter-harvey\/15507\/stats\/pitching\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fWAR<\/a>) and a 1.10 WHIP. He is on a one-year, $6 million deal, with a 2027 mutual option. He\u2019s had 201 strikeouts, 51 bases on balls, and 17 home runs in 185 innings, all of which are just fine, but he has struggled with injuries since 2024. That\u2019s the risk, but he\u2019s a high-reward-potential kind of arm and should serve the Cubs well with judicious use.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Keep him healthy and there will be returns. He\u2019s a complementary arm but, as said, <a href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/hunter-harvey-640451\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">he brings the heat<\/a> \u2014 one of his offerings was clocked at 99.8 mph, and he has consistently thrown in the 97-99 zone, with a n average of 95.7-96.1, with a very (+2000) spin rate. That\u2019s good stuff, and a very different look for the Cubs\u2019 bullpen, which hasn\u2019t been very high-velocity, but seems to be turning that corner. He also throws a splitter (19.2 percent), slider (18 percent), and curve (9.6 percent).<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">He\u2019s extremely likely to head north with the team after Spring Training concludes and presumably will be locking down the seventh or eighth in preparation for Palencia to step in and close the deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The 31-year-old will need careful handling. But high 90s with +spin is in vogue, and for good reason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Today we look at the Cubs\u2019 new flamethrowing reliever, a former first-round pick (#22 overall in 2013 by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":586693,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2399],"tags":[5,138,24,70392,4245,161,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-586692","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago-cubs","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-chicago-cubs","11":"tag-chicago-cubs-player-profiles","12":"tag-chicagocubs","13":"tag-cubs","14":"tag-mlb"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116114950939531468","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586692","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=586692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/586692\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/586693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=586692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=586692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=586692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}