The Chicago Cubs made a trade with the Houston Astros. Cue the excitement, right? Wrong. This is one of those deals that sounds promising in a headline and falls apart the second you actually read the details.
Jed Hoyer has gone back to a familiar well — the Astros have quietly become one of his go to trade partners in recent years — but this particular swap is not the rotation reinforcement Cubs fans have been desperately hoping for.
The Actual Deal
Chicago acquired right-handed reliever Jayden Murray, who was designated for assignment by Houston just last week, in exchange for High-A first base prospect Cameron Sisneros. That’s it. A bullpen arm nobody wanted anymore for a low level prospect who isn’t exactly a top tier asset.
The Cubs absolutely need pitching depth right now — nobody is disputing that. But Murray is a strange answer to a very real problem.
Why This Signing Doesn’t Move The Needle
Murray has never been successful at the big league level, and the underlying numbers paint a genuinely concerning picture. Sure, he posted a 1.17 ERA with Houston last season — but that came across just 15⅓ innings, and virtually every meaningful advanced metric told a completely different story. He ranked near the bottom of the league in strikeout rate, whiff rate, hard hit rate and barrel percentage allowed.
A good chunk of his career has been spent at Triple-A, where he carries a 5.62 ERA. He leans heavily on a fastball-slider combination that makes up nearly 70 percent of his pitch mix, with a sweeper mixed in occasionally. Projection models aren’t exactly thrilled about what’s coming from the 29-year-old going forward.
Depth is depth, sure. But this is the kind of depth that makes fans squint at the transaction wire and wonder if there’s more coming.
The Bigger Problem Chicago Still Hasn’t Solved
This trade arrives on the back of a genuinely brutal Saturday for the Cubs bullpen. Colin Rea pitched brilliantly, only for a string of relievers to surrender eight combined runs across the seventh and eighth innings — squandering a real opportunity to gain ground on a struggling Brewers team that had just dropped three straight games.
The injury list tells its own story. Jameson Taillon, Matthew Boyd, Justin Steele and Cade Horton are all out of the rotation. Closer Daniel Palencia remains sidelined in the bullpen. And the two big offseason bullpen additions — Hunter Harvey and Hoby Milner — simply haven’t delivered the production Hoyer was hoping for.
All eyes have understandably been on rotation help ahead of the deadline. But this Saturday meltdown is a glaring reminder that the bullpen needs just as much attention.
The Verdict
Murray isn’t the answer to that problem. He’s a low cost depth move that fills a roster spot without genuinely addressing the underlying issue plaguing Chicago’s pitching staff.
The Cubs front office clearly knows the bullpen needs reinforcement. This trade just isn’t the reinforcement anyone was hoping to see. ⚾🔥
