{"id":911417,"date":"2026-11-09T16:18:15","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T16:18:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/911417\/"},"modified":"2026-11-09T16:18:15","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T16:18:15","slug":"report-cubs-unlikely-to-enter-bidding-war-for-skubal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/911417\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Cubs unlikely to enter bidding war for Skubal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Cubs will pursue starting pitching during the offseason, but they&#8217;re unlikely to enter a bidding war for two-time Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, sources told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7764521\/2026\/11\/09\/cubs-tarik-skubal-pitching-needs-offseason\/?unlocked_article_code=1.PFE.dHbl.fFZOVgQ4m7rh&amp;source=emp_shared_article&amp;smid=ta-ios-share\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">The Athletic&#8217;s Sahadev Sharma<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Labor uncertainty and other roster holes are reportedly among the reasons that Chicago will stay out of the race for Skubal.<\/p>\n<p>The Cubs are expected to check in on every other free-agent starting pitcher, with a focus on hurlers with high ground-ball rates, such as Clay Holmes and David Peterson, Sharma adds.<\/p>\n<p>Holmes posted the highest ground-ball percentage among starters with at least 100 innings pitched last season, while Peterson ranked eighth in the same category, according to FanGraphs.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago had one of the best defenses in baseball last season, but its starting pitching allowed the third-most homers in the majors.<\/p>\n<p>If the season started today, the Cubs&#8217; rotation would consist of Justin Steele, Edward Cabrera, Ben Brown, Javier Assad, and Braxton Garrett.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Chicago Cubs will pursue starting pitching during the offseason, but they&#8217;re unlikely to enter a bidding war&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99],"class_list":["post-911417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}