1:03 PM: The Cubs and right-hander Hunter Harvey have agreed on a contract, said Will Sammon and Sahadev Sharma of Athletics. The deal will become official once Harvey (a Beverly Hills Sports Council client) passes a physical test.
Harvey is looking to bounce back from an injury-plagued 2025 season in which the reliever made just 12 appearances out of the Royals bullpen. A teres major strain in early April kept Harvey out of action until late July, and he pitched in just six more games before a Grade 2 adductor strain sidelined him for good. The frustration of these two significant injuries was compounded by the fact that Harvey looked great when healthy: he didn’t allow a run during his 10 2/3 innings, while walking one against 11 strikeouts.
Between those injuries and the back issues that marred the end of his 2024 campaign, Harvey threw just 16 1/3 innings in a Royals uniform after Kansas City acquired Washington’s righty in July 2024. Unfortunately, health issues are nothing new for Harvey, as his time as a top-100 prospect in the Orioles’ farm system has been frequently interrupted by stints on the injured list.
It wasn’t until the 2022 season that Harvey (now with the Nationals) finally got a taste of MLB playing time. He went on to post a 3.17 ERA, 27.83% strikeout rate, and 6.36% walk rate over 145 relief innings during his time in DC, working in a high-impact role and occasionally as a closer with the Nats.
Harvey was prone to allowing a lot of hard contact, but his control and strikeout ability allowed him to get out of trouble when allowing base runners. Harvey has always been a hard thrower, although his 96.1 mph fastball in 2025 was the slowest he has achieved in his MLB career. Of course, it’s hard to draw any conclusions from that 10 2/3 IP sample size, and it’s certainly possible that Harvey will get another tick or two on his heater once he’s healthy.
Availability is the lingering question for Harvey, but there are plenty of upsides for the right-hander as he enters his age-31 season. He’s a perfect fit for Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, who has traditionally looked for cheaper bullpen arms that (if all works out) can provide a lot of bang for the buck.
Chicago’s two-year deal worth $14.5 million Phil Maton counts as a relative splurge by Hoyer’s bullpen spending standards, but the Cubs now have Maton, Harvey, Hobby Milner, Jacob Webband old friend Caleb Thielbar in what has quietly become quite an extensive renovation of the auxiliary corps. Daniel Palencia remains the Cubs’ top choice for saves, but Harvey now provides some backup as a reliever with some ninth-inning experience.
It wouldn’t be a surprise if the team pursued more experienced relievers on relatively cheap contracts to give the Cubs as much depth as possible ahead of what Chicago hopes will be a deeper postseason run. The Cubs have been linked to a number of bigger ticket players and starting pitchers, but Maton’s deal remains their largest investment in a new player this offseason.
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