The Cubs and right-hander Colin Rea have agreed to a one-year, $5MM deal, reports MLBTR’s Steve Adams. There’s a club option for 2026, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN. The righty is represented by Joe Speed. The Cubs have a full 40-man roster and will need to open a spot in order for this deal to become official.
Rea, 34, is coming off a solid two-year run with the Brewers. Over the 2023 and 2024 seasons, he tossed 292 1/3 innings for Milwaukee, making 49 starts and nine relief appearances. He allowed 4.40 earned runs per nine. His 19.9% strikeout rate was a bit below league average, but he showed strong control with a 6.6% walk rate.
The Brewers could have retained Rea for 2025 via a modest $5.5MM club option, but they somewhat surprisingly put him on waivers to see if any other club wanted him at that price point. No team ended up claiming him, so the Brewers simply went for the $1MM buyout instead. By getting $5MM from the Cubs on top of that $1MM buyout, Rea will come out marginally better financially than if the Brewers had simply picked up the option.
By joining the Cubs, Rea will be reunited with manager Craig Counsell, who was the skipper in Milwaukee before coming to Chicago a year ago. Rea was also with the Brewers in 2021, though he only got to pitch six innings in the majors that year. He then headed to Japan for the 2022 season, parlaying his decent performance over there into a return to the Brewers two years ago.
Rea doesn’t overpower hitters, averaging around 93 miles per hour on his fastball over the past two years, but he can keep them off balance with a diverse mix of six pitches. Per Statcast, he also threw a sinker, cutter, sweeper, splitter and curveball. He also didn’t lean on any one pitch too often, topping out with his sinker in each of the past two seasons, around 30% of the time in each year. That’s helped him have fairly neutral splits, with lefties hitting .257/.308/.465 against him last year and righties at .258/.315/.429.
For the Cubs, Rea is likely to slot into a similar swing role to the one he served with the Brewers. Chicago signed Matthew Boyd earlier this winter, adding him to a rotation mix that already had Justin Steele, Shota Imanaga and Jameson Taillon. Rea and Javier Assad have somewhat similar numbers over the past two years and could perhaps compete for the fifth spot in the rotation if everyone is healthy, with the other perhaps getting a long relief role in the bullpen.
Of course, rotations shift over the course of a season. Injuries are inevitable and some players will perform better or worse than expectations. The Cubs have guys like Jordan Wicks, Caleb Kilian, Ben Brown and Cody Poteet also on the 40-man roster, though they all still have options and are fairly lacking in experience. Prospect Cade Horton is not yet on the roster but could force his way into the mix during the upcoming season.
It’s also possible that the Cubs will make further moves to change the rotation plan. Since acquiring Boyd and trading Wesneski, they have been connected to free agent Jack Flaherty and trade candidates like Luis Castillo and Jesús Luzardo. The latter was already traded from the Marlins to the Phillies but another rotation acquisition of some kind is not off the table.
Rea’s role figures to be determined by those moves as well as the health and performance of everyone on the roster, including his own. He improves the depth of the pitching staff at a fairly low cost, relatively speaking. The starting pitching market has been aggressive this winter, as guys like Justin Verlander and Alex Cobb got $15MM guarantees despite being relatively older veterans coming off injury-marred seasons. Rea doesn’t have the same track record or ceiling as those guys but has been healthy and performing well lately, with just one third the salary commitment.
RosterResource now has the Cubs at a payroll of $181MM and a competitive balance tax number of $198MM. Last year, they eventually got to a $228MM payroll and went narrowly over the tax line. It’s unclear if they want to get to the same levels in 2025, but even if they want to avoid the tax, they can still add about $40MM to their CBT number while doing so. This year’s base CBT threshold is $241MM.
What is happening, 5 mil!?!?
He’s made 20+ starts the past two years. With the way pitchers are used today, you’d think he’d get more than $5 million.
I wish we signed him for 5 million dang.
He was DFA’d at the end of 2024 and could’ve been picked up for $5.5M.
It was a big deal because he had just thrown 167.2 IP. That’s a lot of innings for such a “small” amount. And they were decent innings from a 5th starter.
This makes Patrick Corbin and his 174 IP in 2024 look contract eligible for $5M.
As of now, the Cubs have at least 6 SPs that could be legitimate rotation options. I’m not saying Rae is going assume a MOR spot – but for $5M, he would seem to be a nice insurance piece – as well as allowing Counsell the ability to rest and reset his rotation at times during the season. It is heavy on LH options.
If Brown, Horton, or Birdsell make their way into the mix by July – it give them also options to make the bullpen stronger.
Well Counsel is familiar with him.. Ok middle back of the end guy. Not sure why a team like the Halos would not be in on him.
I’m guessing Craig Counsel had a hand in this signing. He must like Rea if he got Hoyer to get him for the Cubs.
Looks like Colin Rea is about to Rea some eyebrows in Chicago with his new deal!
That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Money saved by dunking on Mother Tucker in arbitration will pay half the juice on Rea.
While the fans are thinking Flaherty or a Cease/Castillo trade, Hoyer’s thinking he just needs someone with a pulse.
Sometimes moves like this allow things like that to happen. Not saying it will, but it certainly looks like it could when you start to look at the depth.
Ordinarily I’d agree, but Hoyer seems to always stop just short of making a strong pitching commitment. Look at his jigsaw bullpen philosophy- Evry offseason he says he didn’t do enough for the BP and every new year it’s the same cobbled together puzzle with pieces that don’t quite fit.. and are cheap pickups.
He will, no doubt, sing the national anthem as well as a collection of his Country Music hits at all home games.
While Twins fans are stuck with his brother Diya.
MAN this would be funny if his last name was pronounced “Ree-uh” and not “Ray!”
I’d rather have 34 year old Collin Rea at one year, $5 mill. plus an option over 37 year old Alex Cobb at 1 yr. $15 mill. What am I missing besides the obvious fact I’m not a GM or POBO? I hope MLB Coach of the Year Chris Fetter can help Cobb, but a great pitching coach can’t help a pitcher with an injury history.
Supply demand. Same floor but Cobb much higher ceiling. Should be better.
Does this make Assad expendable? I understand depth but damn you still have wicks and Ben brown, Assad, Cade Horton should be coming up at some point this year with Brandon Birdsell. This signing seems unnecessary. Give that same contract to Andrew Chafin I don’t get it.
I agree. This smells fishy. Maybe a trade is imminent.
Assad faded in the second half last season and Brown and Horton are coming off season ending injuries. Can’t have enough pitching. Although I was hoping for a notch up from Rea.
I like the rotation depth in case Horton and Brown are not second half options.
The Cubs really just need two more bullpen pieces. I don’t want Hodge or Pearson closing. At least one of Tanner Scott, Carlos Estevez, AJ Minter.
Rondon- Assad faded in the 2nd half? He faded to a 3.73 ERA? There are a lot of guys who would love to ” Fade” To the season he had. I wish Hoyer would fade to another job. Nobody can really defend what this moron is doing any more can they? Gimme a break. Case in point if you needed one. Any hope you people had to re sign Tucker just went up in flames when they Pi**ed him off by cheaping him out of 2.5 million bucks so they can sign clowns like this.
Yep. The only thought I can think of this signing is Rea opens a handful of games throwing 2, 3 innings or so with the bullpen finishing to keep the starters well rested. Is that worth a 5 million contract? No. What a dumb signing as there are already many options for this role if that’s what Counsel wants.
Cubs probably cooking something. Sometimes a rook can clear the way for a pawn to become a Queen.
Boyd and Rea. What happened to the cubs looking for a frontline starter? Guess this closes the book on that idea.
Let’s hope now maybe they can at least get a real closer
Like I said many times, in the cheap. What a bargain in today’s baseball climate as the cubs not the dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Braves, Phillies team have now struck pay dirt. Forget Dasani now he’s asking too much for a 23 year old phenom when u can obtain a 34 year old.
Huh?
I like how $1 million is “marginal” these days–a mere rounding error, I guess.
and the crowd goes mild
I don’t mind this if he’s the sixth starter and pitches multi-inning relief the rest of the time. We know that in the modern game eight decent starters is a necessity. Leave Wicks stretched out in Iowa as #7 and eventually Horton if he’s healthy is #8.
Imanaga, Steele, TBD, Taillon, Assad… now go sign a true 3rd starter and an experienced 8th inning guy and get going.
Marlin legend Colin Rea lol
Solid signing.
Only if we didn’t have 5 or 6 SP that are better.
I just think it’s a solid signing as opposed to a “clearanced” Stroman…
After two solid seasons as a back of the rotation starter, it is surprising no one claimed him off waivers and exercised his $5.5 million opti9n, although if he had been claimed, the Brewers might have pulled him and asked for a player to be named later for his contract rights. Seems like a good, low risk pickup for the Cubbies.
Plus tea is a strikeout pitcher which is what they need and at 34 whose velocity will be trending up, exactly what the need to put them over! Way to go cubbies!
Grats!
I have zero idea what Hoyer is thinking. I would hope somebody would send him out for CTE testing. I know you have to be dead first but hasn’t he flat lined yet? There is no plan here. Assad is a perfectly fine rotation piece. They have others. Not sure what Rea brings to this team at all. Hoyer makes as much sense as a cigarette machine in thee Cancer Society building.
Uncle—I’m bouncing back and forth here.
Does this move make so much sense that is it odd?
Or it is so odd that it makes sense?
This hopefully pushes Assad to the pen where he would be a much more stabilizing factor—and also may add Wicks and Brown to the pen. Which all of a sudden really strengthens the pen.
Or does it signify that there is a lack of confidence in Brown bouncing back from the neck injury.
Still—I was hoping the #1 priority behind getting a impact bat (done) this winter needed to be grabbing a pitcher that would make Taillon #4 (or 5) in the rotation and he still sits at #3.
And playing our little game that we always do—as it’s not listed as of me typing this—my guess is Holowell is the 40 man DFA with this move.
Jed has completely lost his gd mind. A big hole at 3B after the Candelario and Paredes for Tucker trades. Spits in Tuckers face over a few $Mil in arb. Signing a whole rotation of garbage, soft-tossing depth arms while the team has no power RH to slot between Steele and Shota. No proven closer, few reliable setup arms. No depth at 1B is Busch goes down. Very thin INF depth. Weak catching tandem. What are we doing here. Ol’ one splash a year Jed.
Well it was Cam Smith not Candelario( Which is worse by the way). The Tucker thing was mystifying but I never really believed they had any intention of re signing Tucker anyway. When you add up all this crap he’s signing at weigh that against signing Walker Buehler for 20 million bucks what would help the team more? If you need any more proof that the Cubs have ZERO shot at signing Sasaki this would be it because if you believed that you could would you pick up all this trash? Ricketts has made a big mistake keeping Hoyer as a Lame Duck. Hopefully he comes to his senses sometimes this year and cans him.
I love your priceless post.
All the money Jed blows on mediocre depth… I’d rather have one Jeff Hoffman than junk like Theilbar, Festa and Rea.
If Hoffman gets hurt you bring up Cade Horton to fill whatever role he was in. Or Ben Brown. Or Birdsell.
Instead they’ll end up cutting some of these guys and pay them not play.
Cubs are turning into the Bears, taking all the Brewers castoffs these days!
So frustrating that we sign Rea for 5 million but balk at the extra 2.5 million Tucker wanted in arbitration. I am so tired of being a big market team and dumpster diving. Smart spending would have given Tucker the money in a good faith gesture when we try to negotiate next year.
I hate this signing. My wife buys things purely because they’re on sale regardless if we need them or not. She’s always trying to justify the purchase purely on the value of the sale. This signing feels like that, Jed is so enamored with value he’s lost all perspective of quality. For me, Jed’s value first (maybe value only) mentality has run its course.
Went pretty big quality with Tucker.