The Cubs have agreed to a minor league contract with right-hander Trevor Richards, reports Aram Leighton of Just Baseball. Richards, a client of Apex Baseball, will be in big league camp as a non-roster invitee this spring.
The 31-year-old Richards has spent the bulk of the past four seasons with the Blue Jays but was traded to the Twins just prior to the 2024 trade deadline. He posted a 4.55 ERA with a 22.4% strikeout rate and a career-high 12.6% walk rate between Toronto and Minnesota this past season and carries a 4.60 earned run average over the past four seasons.
Richards has posted a combined 29.1% strikeout rate in 266 1/3 innings dating back to 2021, showing a clear ability to miss bats. He’s battled command troubles along the way, however, both in terms of finding the strike zone at all (11.3% walk rate, 29 wild pitches) and in terms of precision when he does put the ball over the plate (1.39 HR/9).
Although Richards is right-handed, he’s been far more effective against lefties than against righties, due in large part to his top secondary offering being a plus changeup. Lefty batters have hit just .220/.315/.371 against Richards in his career, while righties have a more productive .248/.320/.433 slash.
The Cubs have worked to add to their bullpen this offseason but thus far have made primarily marginal acquisitions. Chicago bid aggressively on top closer Tanner Scott — a notable departure from president Jed Hoyer’s aversion to multi-year deals for relievers — but were reportedly the runner-up prior to the Dodgers. The Cubs have signed Caleb Thielbar and acquired Eli Morgan from the Guardians. They’ll both be in the Opening Day bullpen. Other offseason pickups include DFA additions Matt Festa (acquired for cash) and Rob Zastryzny (claimed off waivers). Richards joins a group of non-roster signings also featuring Phil Bickford, Ben Heller and Brooks Kriske.
This is our 2025 closer!!!
Huge move for my Cubbies
Can’t wait for 2026
Dang it—-my son called me about this yesterday morning and I was holding out hope that it didn’t become a story on MLBTR to avoid the landslide of dumpster type comments.
Although I appreciate Cubcentric news—minor league signings aren’t quite newsworthy other than a possible recap of minor league signings every second or third day, listing them all that have been announced or reported.
Or, you could just scroll past the news that YOU think isn’t newsworthy. That’s always an option.
I do that quite often—like always if it isn’t a Cub story. Point really being if it wasn’t good newsworthy enough to be a story when it happened, why today?
these guys are human. its not like they have one writer to cover each team. sometimes smaller deals slip through the cracks, but for those of us that missed it now we know
Yeah, but sharing is caring.
Arrieta 2.0 here we come
Ahh, Twins big trade deadline grab Trevor Richards. What a legend.
Richards was great for Toronto at times and then he would lose it and be awful for stretches. His change up is pretty good when he is on.
So he is the perfect cub. Can look good and then totally crap hoimself
It’s amazing how many people here (and it’s even worse on more casual places such as Reddit) cannot distinguish between major league signings and NRIs. As a veteran, Richards has opt-outs built in so the Cubs are just giving him a place to throw during spring training and have some insurance against a rash of early injuries. If Richards doesn’t get any interest from other teams, he can go to Iowa and be a break glass guy, or he can just retire.
You are right but the average fan looks at other teams and see that they are making bold moves and the Cubs are just basically doing very little.
I mean they didn’t even make a courtesy call to Juan Soto’s team. The Cubs act like they are broke. Ricketts bought the team for a little over 800 million and now its valued over 4 billion. If you are not going to spend money just say so upfront. Don’t BS the fan base.
I agree about the not spending part. Hoyer boxed himself in by giving full NTCs to both Suzuki and Happ. So other than swapping Tucker in for Bellinger they don’t have any position player starting lineup spots to fill.
That said, Jed still has a responsibility to build a credible Iowa pitching staff since it’s likely that most MLB clubs will go through 20 pitchers in a season. Richards may or may not be on that staff by May 2, but let’s see if anyone gets injured in spring training first. I am assuming that since Ben Brown will be on an innings limit that he will start the season on the 60 day IL as a procedural move and rehab in EXST and then Iowa until mid-May.
GARBAGE IN GARBAGE OUT. DUMPSTER DIVING JED STRIKES AGAIN
Looking at your username I’m not gonna be one to judge, but u might wanna think before you say something like that
Yeah not sure why he’d put White Sox in his username it’s embarrassing to publicly be associated with the team, or why HE IS SHOUTING too. Anyway besides Trevor Richards would probably be the Sox #1 starter.
Have to shout in the South side to hear over the gunshots ringing.
Every year I tell myself it’s only a spring training arm. And every year Hoyer turns it into his bullpen “philosophy”.
The World Champion Dodgers used THIRTY EIGHT pitchers last year, with 32 of them having at least 5 IP. It’s everybody’s philosophy today. If Iowa has a 15 man pitching staff (since they have the non-playing development list) on opening day, it’s highly likely that most if not all 15 of those guys are going to see time in a 2025 major league game either with the Cubs or elsewhere.
They could of signed Scott, Sign Flarrety , they miss out every year. They just not committed to winning that’s all
Not every organization can have the white Sox commitment to winning.
The Chicago Cubs were one of the top contenders to sign Tanner Scott but ultimately lost out to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who secured the left-handed reliever with a four-year, $72 million deal, with a $20 million signing bonus and $21 million in deferred payments. That’s some serious money for a reliever, making it one of the biggest deals in MLB history for his position.
The Cubs were runners up with a respectable offer of a reported offer of 4 years 66 million. That’s also some serious money. Looks like Tanner Scott went with a team much,much closer to being a World Series champion.
The cubbydumb way. Juuussstttt miss out a little then sign someone else’s sloppy seconds or thirds.
Could HAVE.
I don’t think it will sink in.
It takes two…the Cubs earnestly tried to sign Scott, he took more $$ from Dodgers…no one has signed Flaherty yet so relax. Stick to being a WSox fan because obv they’re committed to winning, lmao.
Sometimes when he has a really good touch for his changeup he goes on a month run where he is simply un hittable.
His 4.95 ERA over the past 3 years leads me to believe that he’s mostly hittable.
Control is a big problem for this guy.
Meanwhile, Nick Pivetta made the mistake of rejecting the QO and is twisting in the wind. Somebody is going to get him at 3/49, unfortunately since the Cubs barely went over the CBT threshold last year it would take 2 draft picks to sign him.
The answer my friend, is twisting in the wind. The answer is twisting in the wind
Wrong Trevor , tight asses
Trevor is dead to MLB. If a team signs him, they’re desperate.
This is Jed’s big move to solve all his bullpen problems. Watch out dodgers here come those big bad cubbies!
Say good bye to Tucker! If he wants to win, it won’t be here.
He’ll be signing with the Dodgers along with the other top ten players that year that were available here in the USA and the half dozen of the top Japan players that get posted as well.
Someday soon, the Dodgers eventually will blow up financially with all of those contracts and deferred money. They will then be asking MLB to bail them out. And the other 29 teams will have to cough up their unspent billions to bailout the Dodgers who while they were good and took home a decade’s worth of WS championships. Meanwhile the other 29 teams were happy over the years to get their “participation trophies” for the fans to enjoy.
“Nup. We good”. – Dodgerland
Richards is a useful arm as long as he doesn’t get abused as he was with the Jays.
Used and abused. Thursdays on Lifetime.
Only thing we can do is boycott spending money . I won’t go back to Wrigley until there’s at least an attempt at a decent team . Wtf would it hurt them to sign Bauer? #boycottCubs
And the worst part is when the bullpen fails in season he will trade more prospects to bring someone in..instead of just paying for someone now..just another of long line of epic fails from him
Jed Hoyer if youre going to continue to be dumpster diving at least got behind a Walmart
Richards can pitch and I trust Council to figure out the roles.
Or the Star Chamber. Will be crucial to see if Mace Windu and Yoda concur
Ace
Watching Jed make the same mistakes for the 3rd offseason in a row is killing me inside. The Cubs need a legitimate guy or two at the backend, not depth, not a maybe, not a reclamation project, a legit dude who can secure a win. This is getting borderline insanity.
Between Jed and Theo, I think Jed wins by a landslide when it comes to dumpster diving. The man really doesn’t like signing quality bullpen arms…
Now that Yates also off the table, Jed were sure is plotting his next move and after alvarez also gone he’ll turn to Robertson on a 4 year guaranteed contract or better yet, he’ll trade 3 of our top prospects for a closer whose contract expires at end of year in which he’ll walk away from cubs.
Buckle up Cubs nation gonna be a fun summer and October.
Rich hill and Jesse Chavez available. Right up your alley, go for either but preferably both. Get going before the bidding starts and the dodgers or some other major market team jumps in.
When the cubs won in 2016,they quickly went about dismantling that team. When the dodgers won 2024, they’re looking to repeat and get even better. Stark unmistakable differences of management of these teams even though cubs should be labeled as anything but cheap.
They didn’t dismantle in 2017, they added, the simple fact is that the core of Bryant, Baez,and rizzo all fell way short of expectations, along with contreras, almora, zobrist and Russell all having personal issues or freak foul ball accidents or temper tantrums
The team should have been traded away in 2017 in hindsight, they could have gotten huge returns on those pieces
Trevor Richards will be a stud for 2 months and then be the worst pitcher in baseball for the next 2 months. There is no in between.
Watched Richards on the Blue Jays the last few years. Nasty changeup, they touted how he has the 2nd highest spin change-up in the majors, just behind Devin Williams. Achilles heel last year was walks but if he can prove his command in spring training, should be a good depth piece to the bullpen.