The Cubs got a real return when they sent Jackson Ferris to the Dodgers in the Michael Busch deal, but the left-hander still has a path to the big leagues in Los Angeles.
Ferris, who was drafted by Chicago in the second round out of high school in 2022 after the Cubs took Cade Horton, has not exactly torn through the Dodgers’ system. He ranks 17th overall in the organization after posting a 5.12 ERA and 4.47 FIP in a full season at Triple-A Oklahoma. Even so, he’s just 22, and the door is still open.
That door may open sooner than later. Ferris will be Rule 5 eligible, which means the Dodgers are essentially expected to place him on the 40-man roster to keep him. He also finished 2026 strong, working six games from mid-August on and throwing 36 innings with a 1.00 ERA.
MLB’s Sonja Chen singled him out as a possible big-league contributor in her Dodgers’ Beat newsletter, alongside Josue De Paula and Mike Sirota, though not necessarily as a starter. That fits the shape of Los Angeles’ roster picture.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Roki Sasaki are all expected in the rotation, while Justin Wrobleski, Emmet Sheehan and Gavin Stone are in the mix for the final spot. Shohei Ohtani is also expected to return to the mound at some point, and the Dodgers are among the likeliest teams to re-sign Skubal.
Ferris has only been a starter so far, but there’s a case for his stuff playing up in relief. His 55 percent groundball rate in Triple-A was elite, and during those final six outings his strikeout rate jumped to 35 percent.
For the Cubs, the bigger issue isn’t that Ferris might help the Dodgers. It’s that Chicago could have used him itself.
The current 2027 rotation picture is thin, with Justin Steele, Edward Cabrera, Ben Brown, Braxton Garrett and Javier Assad listed as the projected group. Even with Ferris, the Cubs would still need plenty of outside help, but another young arm in the pipeline would have mattered.
That’s the real sting here: Chicago has produced very little pitching since the trade, aside from Horton. Jaxon Wiggins is the closest thing they have to a near-term impact arm, and even he comes with plenty of questions. Cade Townsend is still far away, and the organization has not delivered many meaningful developmental wins on the mound.
So while Ferris could have been useful for the Cubs, the trade itself isn’t the main problem. The larger cost is the pitching pipeline they still have to rebuild, and the premium they’ll likely pay this offseason to patch the rotation because of it.
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Control, though, kept getting in the way, and that is part of why the Cubs moved on after the season. Kelly elected free agency and has since landed with the Guardians on a minor league contract, giving Cleveland a chance to see whether it can clean up the command issues that limited him in Chicago and turn him into something more than a fleeting bullpen look. [Read more 🡒]