{"id":768157,"date":"2026-06-29T16:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/768157\/"},"modified":"2026-06-29T16:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-29T16:58:12","slug":"cubs-sign-drew-pomeranz-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/768157\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Sign Drew Pomeranz To Minor League Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cubs quietly brought Drew Pomeranz<\/a> back to the organization on a minor league deal late last week. The team never formally announced the signing, but Pomeranz suited up for the Cubs\u2019 Triple-A affiliate in Iowa last night and tossed a scoreless inning with a walk and two strikeouts.<\/p>\n

Pomeranz had a resurgent season with the Cubs last year, tossing 49 2\/3 innings with a 2.17 ERA, a 28.1% strikeout rate and a 7.4% walk rate. That marked his first major league work since he tossed 25 2\/3 innings with the 2021 Padres. He pitched only 19 1\/3 total innings from 2022-24 \u2014 all in the minors \u2014 due to various injuries, including flexor surgery late in the \u201921 season and a \u201ccleanup\u201d procedure on his elbow in \u201923.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old Pomeranz parlayed last year\u2019s outstanding comeback effort into a one-year, $4MM guarantee with the Angels in free agency during the offseason. He hasn\u2019t been able to recapture last year\u2019s form in Anaheim. Pomeranz pitched 23 1\/3 innings with the Halos and was knocked around for a 5.01 ERA with even more concerning rate stats (14.8 K%, 11.1 BB%) before being designated for assignment and released.<\/p>\n

The Cubs\u2019 pitching staff has been decimated by injuries both in the rotation and among the relief corps. Starters Cade Horton<\/a>, Justin Steele<\/a>, Edward Cabrera<\/a>, Ben Brown<\/a> and Jameson Taillon<\/a> are all on the shelf. Horton\u2019s season is over, and if Steele comes back at all, it\u2019ll be as a reliever late in the season. In the \u2018pen, the Cubs lost Porter Hodge<\/a> to Tommy John surgery back in April and also have Hunter Harvey<\/a>, Phil Maton<\/a>, Hoby Milner<\/a>, Riley Martin<\/a> and closer Daniel Palencia<\/a> shelved at the moment.<\/p>\n

All of those injuries have forced to the team to patch things together in skipper Craig Counsell<\/a>\u2018s bullpen. Jacob Webb<\/a>, Caleb Thielbar<\/a> and Ryan Rolison<\/a> have been working in high-leverage spots of late. Ethan Roberts<\/a> and just-recalled Jordan Wicks<\/a> represent homegrown arms in the big league \u2018pen at the moment, while each of Webb, Thielbar, Rolison, Trent Thornton<\/a>, Tyler Ferguson<\/a> and Bryse Wilson<\/a> were low-cost pickups who\u2019ve joined the organization since this past January (Wilson just last week). Given the patchwork nature of the relief group, there could be an opportunity for Pomeranz in the big leagues before long if he can string together a few strong appearances in Des Moines.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cubs quietly brought Drew Pomeranz back to the organization on a minor league deal late last week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":768158,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,116270,591,85],"class_list":["post-768157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-drew-pomeranz","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=768157"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/768157\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/768158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=768157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=768157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=768157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}