Cubs Could Try to Retain Clay Holmes, Jays Expected to Pursue Seiya Suzuki and Kevin Gausman

The Cubs have a lot of work to do over the offseason, but they’ve only got about a month to get any work done before a lockout puts the kibosh on any activity for a while. Jed Hoyer said during his end-of-season press conference that they may look to be somewhat aggressive ahead of the current CBA’s expiration on December 1, noting that some deals make sense even without knowing the specific financial parameters of the next agreement. Given the number of players they’re about to lose to expiring contracts, the first five days of free agency could be key.

That’s the window of exclusivity for teams to negotiate with their own former players before the market opens fully. One of the players they are “expected to have interest in retaining” is Clay Holmes, who came over from the Mets with Tyrone Taylor in exchange for top prospect Jefferson Rojas. Holmes is expected to decline his $12 million player option for 2027, but could work out a new deal to keep pitching in front of baseball’s best defense. Rather than simply justifying the high acquisition cost, the Cubs are keen on stacking pitchers who generate grounders. Even if those pitchers don’t appear in the postseason.

“In so many ways, Clay fits our team really well,” Hoyer explained during his presser. “He puts the ball on the ground. Even with us, it was a high-60s ground-ball percentage. We convert the most groundballs into outs. We thought it was a perfect fit. He had some really good starts in August. He had a nice run in August for a while. He sort of tailed off.”

Holmes will turn 34 in March and saw his average fastball velocity dip to 93 mph this year, a significant decrease from his 96-97 mph as a reliever with the Yankees. That’s to be expected when you move to a starting role, but the Cubs really need to find some other pitchers who can run it up there a little faster. Their overall 93.6 mph average fastball ranked last in MLB, and their starters’ average of 93.0 mph was better than only the Rockies (92.6).

While velo isn’t everything, it’s been clear for quite some time now that throwing harder gives you a better chance at missing bats. The Cubs have finished no higher than 26th in average fastball velo since 2018, but they know it costs a lot to change this trend. One way is to focus on drafting big arms, which they’ve done more of recently. The other is to pay for it in free agency, which has not been a focus. At the same time, you have to find some balance in your pitching staff.

Homes only throws 93 and had a 23rd-percentile whiff rate in 2026, but his nearly 61% grounder rate was in the 99th percentile. Shota Imanaga, on the other hand, carried an 82nd-percentile whiff rate with a 23rd-percentile grounder rate. His propensity for giving up home runs stung the Cubs in each of the last two seasons, and he’s another who they’ll have to either replace or retain (the former is much more likely).

Then there’s Kevin Gausman, who had a solid whiff rate with a decent grounder rate and who is also a pending free agent. The Cubs coveted him going back to his days in Baltimore and might like to keep him around at the right price, but Mitch Bannon of The Athletic reported that a “reunion with Toronto seems likely” unless Gausman chooses to retire. That would be a blow to the Cubs, as Gausman’s 94 mph fastball was higher than average despite being just a few months shy of his 36th birthday.

The biggest issue facing the Cubs’ pitching was that they gave up more home runs than they hit, which might not be so bad if the offense wasn’t third in MLB with 220 homers. Their 231 dingers allowed were actually more than any team hit, and that’s not a great recipe for success. Cutting down on that figure is paramount, but it becomes even more difficult when you consider how much offense the Cubs figure to lose.

Between Seiya Suzuki (26), Ian Happ (24), Michael Conforto (15), and Carson Kelly (10), the Cubs could end up losing over a third of their power output. It might be possible to work out team-friendly deals with the latter three, but the Cubs don’t appear willing to win or even enter a bidding war for Suzuki. The Blue Jays have been mentioned in connection with him previously, and Bannon reported that they are “expected to pursue” the right fielder as an offensive upgrade.

Regardless of how you feel about the club’s ability to replace a multiple-Gold Glove left fielder whose numbers are as consistent as they are streaky — sounds weird, but you get it — filling the void left by Suzuki’s departure won’t be easy or cheap. Unless it’s actually both. The Cubs could opt to put Matt Shaw and Pedro Ramírez at the corner outfield spots, then allocate those savings to pitching improvements.

If that happens, they’d damn well get some guys who throw gas and miss bats. Grounders are all well and good, especially when the wind is blowing out, but you can’t hit homers if you don’t hit the ball first. Again, though, strikeout artists command the type of premium money the Cubs have thus far been unwilling to pony up. So unless Hoyer can find someone who prefers the security of a pre-lockout deal, it seems as though we’ll be waiting on a labor agreement for any significant upgrades.

Now, we must also acknowledge the idea that internal “replacements” will help on this front as well. Ben Brown (96.4) and Cade Horton (95.4) should be back in some form or fashion next year, and Jaxon Wiggins (95.8 at AAA) could be called up. Even if all of them are active, it’s going to take a lot more help in free agency to get the staff to the level it has to be for the Cubs to become legitimate contenders.

“We’re leaning on our defense too heavily,” Hoyer admitted. “The overall quality of the pitching has to improve. When I think about our offseason and seasons to come, that has to be the goal: to get our pitching infrastructure and pitching quality to the level of our position-player group.”

In order for that to happen, the front office has to press fast-forward on a philosophical change that is moving only slightly faster than evolution. Former team exec Jason McLeod first acknowledged failures in that area all the way back in early 2019, which is telling because it came right after the last time they finished above 26th in average velocity. There’s been massive organizational turnover since then, yet the Cubs have maintained a value-based approach that seeks to leverage underutilized talent.

While that can yield some nice bullpen surprises now and then, not to mention a guy like Matthew Boyd, it creates a high-floor, low-ceiling roster that isn’t enough to compete at the highest level. This is a pivotal offseason that will see the Cubs battling not just their divisional opponents and those who will be looking to pluck away some of their free agents, but also their own internal beliefs about roster construction.

This is the part where I will again question the wisdom of having a seemingly risk-averse GM like Carter Hawkins as a sounding board for Hoyer. When signing Hunter Harvey comes across as a big gamble for your front office, you know something has to change. Rather than letting the abject failure of that deal deter them from taking risks for big arms, the Cubs must lean into the mentality that led them to Harvey in the first place. Just maybe with someone whose health history wouldn’t excite Bobby Fischer and Garry Kasparov.

I’d also advise against pulling a David Stearns and creating the potential for an uncapped downside scenario, but these aren’t the Mets we’re talking about. Hoyer knows what he has to do, so the real question is whether he can muster the mettle to make it happen.