The Chicago Cubs — and, perhaps more specifically, Jed Hoyer — just cannot help themselves when it comes to the bargain bin.
Alex Bregman escaped them in free agency on a contract that was too rich for their blood, so they turned around and signed veteran Justin Turner to a one-year deal. A solid consolation prize, to be sure, but just that: a consolation prize.
Remember how the team set its sights on Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates as potential closer options, only to watch them — the two best relievers available this offseason — sign pricier deals with the Los Angeles Dodgers? Well, at least they saved face there by trading for the bullpen casualty of those signings, Ryan Brasier.
If you can think back that far, try to recollect the Winter Meetings and the following weeks, where the Cubs were rumored to be "big fish hunting" on the starting pitcher market. They let the free agent aces pass them by, but at least they were looking to Jesús Luzardo and the silly amount of high-quality arms the Seattle Mariners have been hoarding.
Well, they fell short of those pursuits too, but at least they brought in Colin Rea and Matthew Boyd to serve as the ever-important depth starters, right?
Fret not, Cubs fans, if you feel that the offseason on the North Side has been underwhelming, even when accounting for the blockbuster addition of Kyle Tucker. The team is here to soothe your worries with one final big move before they open the 2025 season in Japan against the Dodgers.
The #Cubs and free-agent RHP Lance Lynn have entered contract negotiations and are discussing a 1 year MLB contract, per @BNightengale pic.twitter.com/k0dyEJ45BY
— MLB Deadline News (@MLBDeadlineNews) March 13, 2025
Lance Lynn fits the Cubs' M.O. far too well
Credit where credit is due, the Cubs have clearly made it a point this offseason to add depth everywhere on the diamond. After an injury-plagued campaign in 2024, Hoyer and the front office have made it a priority to avoid that same fate this year.
In a vacuum, Lynn is a fine addition, assuming the Cubs seal the deal with the veteran right-hander. He was effective (3.84 ERA, 4.31 FIP) in 117 1/3 innings with the rival St. Louis Cardinals last year, and it was as recently as 2021 that Lynn finished third in AL Cy Young voting with the crosstown Chicago White Sox.
In fact, from 2019-21, Lynn finished top-six in Cy Young voting each season, producing 15.4 WAR and 511 strikeouts in nearly 450 innings for the White Sox and Texas Rangers, that stretch including the Covid-shortened campaign in 2020.
With Javier Assad and Brandon Birdsell already injured (the latter's shoulder injury being far more serious than the former's "mild" oblique issue), it's no wonder that the Cubs want to have another dependable, veteran starter on the team. Even if they had secured one of those elite starters they were pursuing over the winter, signing Lynn would make sense.
But whereas a rotation of (say) Luis Castillo, Shota Imanaga, Justin Steele, Jameson Taillon, and Lance Lynn would have looked solid in the face of numerous other injuries to the other depth options on the team, a doomsday scenario in reality would put Lynn in an uncomfortably important position. If Steele or Imanaga misses time along with someone like Boyd or Rea this season, Lynn could be asked to do far more than he's been capable of in recent years.
Ultimately, the news of this potential signing is really just a microcosm of the entire Cubs offseason.
In a vacuum, the move makes sense, and perhaps should even be applauded for being forward-thinking. In reality, though, it just highlights what the team failed to do all winter outside of Tucker: bring in a star.