{"id":365514,"date":"2025-12-24T07:47:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/365514\/"},"modified":"2025-12-24T07:47:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T07:47:09","slug":"cubs-sign-jacob-webb-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/365514\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Sign Jacob Webb – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cubs announced the signing of righty reliever Jacob Webb<\/a> to a one-year deal that includes a club option for the 2027 season. The KHG Sports Management client will reportedly make $1.5MM in 2026. The option comes with a $2.5MM base salary, and there are $500K available in annual incentives. Chicago\u2019s 40-man roster count climbs to 35.<\/p>\n

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Webb, now 32, is coming off three straight solid seasons. He doesn\u2019t overpower hitters or have pinpoint control but he can miss bats and also miss barrels.<\/p>\n

He has thrown at least 53 2\/3 innings in each of the past three campaigns. His earned run average has been 3.69 or lower in each of those. He walked 10.3% of batters faced in that time, a rate a bit higher than average. His 34.1% ground ball rate was also worse than par. His 23.5% strikeout rate was better than average but just barely.<\/p>\n

Despite those underwhelming peripherals, he has kept runs off the board. He has perhaps had some help from the baseball gods, as he has allowed just a .235 batting average on balls in play over those three years, about 55 points below par. His 77.6% strand rate also leans to the fortunate side. His 4.11 FIP and 4.10 SIERA are skeptical of his 3.22 ERA for that span.<\/p>\n

It might not be entirely luck, however. Statcast has pegged Webb\u2019s exit velocity allowed as being in the 70th percentile or better in each of the past three years, including in the 95th percentile in 2025. His hard hit rate was middle of the pack in 2023 but 82nd percentile or better in each of the past two seasons. His barrel rate was 85th percentile or better in 2023 and 2025, though with a dip to 46th in 2024.<\/p>\n

Despite the solid run of results, Webb has been fairly nomadic, perhaps since his arsenal isn\u2019t dominant. His fastball has averaged in the 93 to 95 mile per hour range while he also throws a changeup and a sweeper in the low 80s. Teams love velocity and strikeouts these days and have perhaps been a bit skeptical of Webb\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n

He was stuck in the minors in 2022 and sent through waivers unclaimed that year. Going into 2023, he settled for a minor league deal with the Angels. He eventually got a roster spot in Anaheim but went to the Orioles on waivers.<\/p>\n

He stuck with the Orioles for a little over a year, from August of 2023 through the end of 2024. He posted a 3.02 ERA for Baltimore in 2024 and could have been retained for 2025, with MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz<\/a> projecting him for a modest $1.7MM salary, but the O\u2019s surprisingly non-tendered him.<\/p>\n

The Rangers scooped Webb up and gave him a $1.25MM guarantee plus incentives. That turned into a great investment for Texas, with Webb posting a flat ERA of 3.00 this year. But once again, Webb found himself non-tendered, despite a modest $2MM salary projection<\/a>\u00a0for 2026.<\/p>\n

The Cubs love to build a bullpen on the cheap. President of baseball operations Jed Hoyer got his current title in November of 2020 and went five offseasons without giving a reliever a multi-year deal. Their 2025 relief corps featured contributions from Brad Keller<\/a>, Caleb Thielbar<\/a>, Drew Pomeranz<\/a>, Ryan Pressly<\/a>, Andrew Kittredge<\/a> and Taylor Rogers<\/a>, who were all acquired via trade or signed modest one-year deals, or sometimes even minor league deals.<\/p>\n

That strategy has been effective for the Cubs as they have had some decent results from the bullpen without burdensome commitments. The downside is that so many short-term commitments means a big slate of guys reaching free agency at season\u2019s end.<\/p>\n

Going into 2026, there was work to do in rebuilding the relief corps. Hoyer finally broke his streak and gave a two-year deal to Phil Maton<\/a>, though the $14.5MM guarantee was still quite affordable. The club has also added lefty Hoby Milner<\/a> to a one-year deal with a $3.75MM guarantee. Perhaps coincidentally, each of Maton, Milner and Webb finished the 2025 season with the Rangers.<\/p>\n

In addition to digging a runoff trench from Arlington to Wrigley, the Cubs also brought back Thielbar on a $4.5MM guarantee. Those four signees should slot in next to Daniel Palencia<\/a> in the bullpen. The Cubs could give the final slots to in-house arms like Porter Hodge<\/a>, Ethan Roberts<\/a>, Luke Little<\/a> and others but those guys still have options, so the Cubs could still find more external additions in what remains of the offseason.<\/p>\n

Patrick Mooney of The Athletic<\/a> first reported the Cubs and Webb had agreed to a one-year deal with a club option. The Athletic\u2019s Will Sammon<\/a> had the $1.5MM guarantee and $2.5MM option value with $500K in incentives. Photo courtesy of David Frerker, Tim Heitman, Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cubs announced the signing of righty reliever Jacob Webb to a one-year deal that includes a club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,135791,462,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-365514","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-jacob-webb","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}