{"id":773606,"date":"2026-07-01T16:02:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-01T16:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773606\/"},"modified":"2026-07-01T16:02:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-01T16:02:10","slug":"former-phillies-starter-leaves-cubs-to-explore-mlb-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/773606\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Phillies starter leaves Cubs to explore MLB free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The talk of the season for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/chicago-cubs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Chicago Cubs<\/a> has been the pitching staff.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Of course, injuries have derailed Chicago&#8217;s starting rotation. Still, the NL Central club maintains a Wild Card spot in the National League.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, the Cubs lost a veteran pitcher to free agency. The right-hander rejected an outright assignment to Triple-A Iowa after being designated for assignment on Sunday.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>According to a report from <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mlbtraderumors.com\/2026\/06\/vince-velasquez-elects-free-agency-2.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors<\/a>, Vince Velasquez elected free agency instead of remaining with the organization.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This is the second time Velasquez has elected free agency after being outrighted by the Cubs,&#8221; Franco wrote.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He quickly re-signed last time on a minor league contract. That\u2019ll probably be the case again. This is Velasquez\u2019s first season with some MLB action in three years.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Velasquez <a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/chicago-cubs\/news\/cubs-select-phillies-pirates-righty-edward-cabrera-injury\/0a5ae0712ce42adcd6ac527b\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">made two appearances with the Cubs<\/a>, totaling 3.1 innings. He struck out one batter and allowed one hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>From 2016-21, the 34-year-old was a member of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/philadelphia-phillies\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Philadelphia Phillies<\/a> rotation but never posted an ERA below 4.85.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>MORE:\u00a0<a target=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/www.sportingnews.com\/ca\/mlb\/atlanta-braves\/news\/3-reasons-why-braves-perfect-fit-tarik-skubal-trade-deadline\/0e9b948cbc4f1a1fbfd95bb3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">3 reasons why Braves are perfect fit for Tarik Skubal at MLB trade deadline<\/a><\/p>\n<p>As Franco noted, Velasquez may be back with the Cubs in the next few days on a minor league deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Or another club could see an opportunity to give him a chance.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The talk of the season for the Chicago Cubs has been the pitching staff.\u00a0 Of course, injuries have&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":773607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-773606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773606","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=773606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/773606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/773607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=773606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=773606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=773606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}