Jed Hoyer already made one move that changed the feel of the Cubs’ deadline, and now the question is whether he can finish the job with another arm that actually solves something beyond this season.
The Kevin Gausman deal with the Toronto Blue Jays landed like a real win for Chicago, but it also made the next step pretty clear. The Cubs are not finished.
They still need a controllable starter, and there’s a strong case that a late-inning reliever belongs on that shopping list too. The bullpen market has barely started to move, and there are still starting pitchers out there who fit, including Los Angeles Angels left-hander Reid Detmers.
Detmers is 27 and arbitration-eligible for two more years beyond 2026, which matters because the Cubs are staring at a rotation future that could use some stability. He’d give them a long-term piece to line up with Cade Horton, Ben Brown and Edward Cabrera, health permitting. He also brings the kind of swing-and-miss stuff Craig Counsell would have every reason to want more of.
Brett Taylor summed up the appeal this way: "Very intrigued by Soriano, too, but Detmers has an ENORMOUS edge in K-BB, similar overall contact quality, and much better expected stats. Detmers gets dinged by the models on his fastball, but it gets results. We've seen that profile before ..."
That kind of profile would do more than just help the Cubs in the moment. It would also help soften what’s looming this winter.
Chicago already knows Shota Imanaga, Jameson Taillon, Matthew Boyd and David Peterson are heading toward free agency. Hoyer got an early start on that reality by DFAing Taillon and then trading him to Toronto, but the bigger issue hasn’t changed: the 2027 rotation has a lot of unanswered questions.
And that’s before getting into the uncertainty around Cade Horton and Justin Steele. If the Cubs are going to call this deadline a success, they need more than a short-term fix. They need a starter with years of control, someone who can actually stick around.
Detmers fits that bill. If Hoyer lands him, it would look a lot like a front office finally choosing aggression over hesitation.
In Other News...
Cubs Skubal Pursuit Exposed One Problem Chicago Couldnt Escape
Tarik Skubals move to the Dodgers on Saturday night offered another reminder of how thin the margin can be when a star pitcher comes available. Los Angeles got the deal done with a package that sent former Cubs prospect Zyhir Hope, along with pitching prospects River Ryan and Brady Smith, to the Tigers, and it quickly became clear why the market pushed this into a different tier than a typical deadline-style chase.
For Chicago, the bigger story is what it says about the limits of a pursuit that never quite had enough room to grow. Matching that kind of offer would have required the Cubs to part with significant major league talent and add more from a system that already had to be carefully protected, which helps explain why they stayed out of the final push. The result left the club watching a frontline arm land elsewhere while the cost of doing business kept climbing past the point Chicago was willing to go. [Read more 🡒]
Cubs Finally Moved Jameson Taillon And The Return Says Plenty
Jameson Taillon is on the move, and the Cubs have finally turned a veteran arm into something usable for the stretch run. Toronto landed the pitcher from Chicago, while the Cubs cleared a spot on the 40-man roster by shifting utility player Lenyn Sosa to the 60-day injured list.
What Chicago is getting back is not the kind of headline return that changes the conversation by itself, but it does speak to how the front office handled the deal. The Cubs are also taking on part of Taillons remaining salary, a reminder that this was as much about reshaping the roster and payroll as it was about the name going out the door. [Read more 🡒]
Cubs Deadline Pitching Hunt Just Took A Surprising Seattle Turn
The Cubs search for rotation help has already taken an unexpected route across the country, with Seattle suddenly sitting at the center of the deadline conversation. The White Soxs acquisition of Luis Castillo from the Mariners changed the pitching market in a hurry, and for Chicago it only sharpened the focus on what still needs to happen before the deadline. The Cubs have been expected to chase multiple arms, and the price for any starter who can help now appears to be rising fast.
Seattles involvement could matter even more from the Cubs perspective because George Kirby remains in play, and Chicago has been linked to him as well as Emerson Hancock. Kirby would be the kind of bigger swing that can reshape a clubs October outlook, but any discussion around him is complicated by what the Mariners are looking for in return. For the Cubs, the next move is less about whether they want to add pitching and more about how aggressive theyre willing to be to get the right one. [Read more 🡒]