With the bullpen being an obvious area to address this winter, the Chicago Cubs made a move to bring in an intriguing big league arm.
On Wednesday, the Cubs made a deal with the Cleveland Guardians to acquire Eli Morgan, a 28-year-old right-handed reliever. In return, the Cubs are sending outfield prospect Alfonsin Rosario to Cleveland, and in a corresponding move, they designated Patrick Wisdom for assignment.
Morgan debuted for the Guardians in 2021 and started all 18 games he pitched that season, but over the last three years, 142 of his 143 appearances have come out of the bullpen. He missed some time in 2024 with stints on the injured list due to inflammation in his right shoulder and then in his right elbow, limiting him to 32 appearances (though he’d not hit the IL prior to that).
But Morgan was otherwise a productive arm (1.93 ERA, 0.98 WHIP in 42 innings) for a Cleveland bullpen that finished with the best ERA and WHIP of all major league teams (2.57 and 1.05).
Though he utilized a cutter and curveball earlier in his big league career, according to Statcast, 2024 saw his arsenal consist of a four-seamer, slider and changeup. Morgan’s average fastball velocity sat at 92.2 mph, so he isn’t relying on elite velo to get outs.
Instead, Morgan pitches to soft contact — his average exit velocity (85.2 mph), barrel rate (2.5 percent) and hard-hit rate (28.1) percent would’ve all ranked in the top-five among relievers last season if he qualified. His strikeout rate has dropped over the last few seasons, but Morgan helped offset that by not giving out too many free passes (6.6 percent walk rate in 2024).
The Cubs went into the offseason with bolstering the bullpen a priority. At his end-of-season presser, president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer acknowledged the team didn’t have the depth to sustain early-season injuries and/or underperformance from some of their expected key relievers.
“Being self-critical, I feel like that’s something that I didn’t do a good job of last offseason,” Hoyer said. “When I look at our bullpen, I’m really proud of the work our whole staff did during the season. … But when Adbert [Alzolay] struggled early, when [Héctor] Neris struggled early, when Julian [Merryweather] got hurt, we didn’t have the depth at that point that we needed, and that’s something that I think we’ll certainly look to improve going forward, because I feel like that hurt us early.”
With Morgan, the Cubs aren’t necessarily getting the answer to some of their late-inning woes from last season. He primarily pitched in middle-relief for the Guardians last year, he’s been given just seven career save opportunities.
But they are acquiring an established big league arm who was a strong piece of a dominant bullpen and has shown the ability to pitch multiple innings. That, along with Morgan being under club control through 2027, should give the Cubs confidence they’ve added a strong piece to the relief corps for at least the near future.
The move to DFA Wisdom doesn’t come as a complete shock, considering he was a non-tender candidate. He began his Cubs career in 2020 and burst onto the scene with 28 home runs in 2021 (setting the franchise’s single-season rookie record for homers), and he proceed to hit 25 and 23 in 2022 and 2023, respectively.
However, his playing time was reduced during his Cubs tenure, to the point that he was primarily a bench/platoon option in 2024. He had only 158 at-bats spread out across 75 games, many times coming in pinch-hit, matchup-based situations. Though those were often the best spots for him to potentially change the game with one swing of the bat, he overall hit only .171 with a .629 OPS and eight homers.
Wisdom could certainly still serve a big league role considering his raw power, but that likely won’t come with the Cubs.
In trading Rosario, the Cubs are sending away a 20-year-old outfielder with promising upside.
Rosario, who was most recently ranked No. 21 in the Cubs’ system by MLB Pipeline, earns strong grades with his arm strength, speed and power potential. He struck out at a 32.2 percent clip in 456 plate appearances with Low-A Myrtle Beach in 2024, but he did post a .767 OPS and slugged 16 home runs.
With his upside, he could turn into a strong player for Cleveland. But the Cubs went the route of trading potential for a current major league contributor, and the fact they have strong outfield talent at the upper levels of the minors (like Owen Caissie and Kevin Alcántara) probably gave them a little more comfort in trading away Rosario.
