BCB After Dark: What can we learn from the Cubs’ recent additions of Tyler Zombro & Eli Morgan?

The Cubs need some pitching help. They might have some on and off the field.

We begin tonight’s festivities at the late week indie coffee shop with a bit of a mea culpa. Obviously last night’s opening didn’t go as planned. Our staff had a ridiculously early morning flight from Chicago to New Orleans for a conference and despite best intentions to open up the coffee house last night, the combination of a disorienting schedule and a 3 a.m. wake up call thwarted that attempt. We hope you’ll accept today’s two-part question in lieu of last night’s festivities.

Standard rules apply, we have beverages to fuel your all-nighter or beverages to fuel your happy hour. It’s a real choose your own adventure type of spot. Just remember to bus your tables on the way out the door, we’d hate to leave a mess for the late night jazz spot that returns next Monday.

The Cubs made some moves of note last week and two of them deserve a bit more attention as they may indicate a direction for this team moving forward. The player addition probably jumped out at everyone first, with the Cubs trading for Guardians reliever Eli Morgan. The Cubs must think highly of Morgan, because they parted with a prospect but the roster move also meant they had to clear room on the 40-man roster, which meant designating Patrick Wisdom for assignment. More on all of that below.

The non-player addition is at least as interesting to my eye with the Cubs welcoming Tread Athletic’s Tyler Zombro as a special assistant to the team. Both of these moves are about raising the floor of the current pitching staff in different ways, but before we get into all of that…

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I’m not sure if the hotel hosting the conference that I’m at this weekend is playing the greatest hits of the late nineties because they know most of us are of a…certain age, but man it’s been a playlist. You know, one of those times you know all the words. Of every song. And can debate some of the details in the liner notes with everyone else, who also happy to know all the words to all the songs.

One of the top pop hits of the nineties was Blink 182’s All The Small Things. I apologize in advance for the earworm:

The thing about All The Small Things is that it’s remarkably uncomplicated. The song is about the small things you do for the people you care about. It’s inspired by the writer’s new relationship with his girlfriend. This verse is literal, literal:

Late night, come home
Work sucks, I know
She left me roses by the stairs
Surprises let me know she cares

The most abstract thing in the song is below:

Na na, na na, na na, na na, na, na
Na na, na na, na na, na na, na, na
Na na, na na, na na, na na, na, na
Na na, na na, na na, na na, na, na

It’s apparently an homage to the Ramones.

But honestly, in a time where things are pretty complicated, it’s lovely to have something that isn’t all that complicated at all. It turns out catchy beats, words we all know and facts are a sort of comfort food for the soul.

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Speaking of things that are complicated — it’s roster churn season here in baseball-landia. Patrick Wisdom and Nick Madrigal are no longer Cubs. Thank you for your services. I will miss the Wisdongs, for sure. As for Madrigal, I’ll never understand why a team that already had Nico Hoerner thriving would trade for Madrigal, but Jed Hoyer’s genius clearly evades me.

Let’s take a look at movement toward the future, though. The Cubs traded for Morgan and signed Zombro. Both of these are far more intriguing moves than the DFA’s/non-tenders above.

Let’s start with Morgan who had an excellent 2024 for the Guardians. He put up a shiny 1.93 ERA in 42 innings for the Guardians last season, but you’ll forgive me if I believe more in the 3.64 FIP or 4.46 xFIP. Actually, don’t believe me at all, believe Eno Sarris:

(Click here for the above Bluesky post if you’re on Apple News.)

Look, I’m glad the Cubs are bolstering their bullpen. It was the weakest link in 2024 to my eye. They needed more arms Craig Counsell could trust with a lead last season and did not have them. I’m also just not sure a guy who had a career-best ERA while overperforming his FIP and xFIP with suspect stuff numbers is the answer.

The far more interesting move to my eye, was signing Tyler Zombro as a special assistant to the team. The guys at Bleacher Nation really were on top of this one you should click through there to see tweet after tweet after tweet from well-regarded Cubs types absolutely lighting up social media about this move. I agree with pretty much everything they said, and you should read both pieces in full:

Although the Chicago Cubs will need to make moves on the big league roster heading into 2025 if they want to put themselves in the best position to compete, there are undoubtedly also things they can do behind the scenes to have an impact in 2025 and beyond.

Hiring pitching specialist Tyler Zombro as a special assistant in the front office is one of those things, and it’s become evident just how impactful he might be. The recently-retired 30-year-old pitcher had a lot options available to him, and the Cubs won out in the end. Just search his name on any platform, and the praise you’re going to see in the last 24 hours from the smartest minds in baseball is almost overwhelming. Zombro is very early in this phase of his career, but he’s already turned a lot of heads.

Perhaps the most interesting note in that second Bleacher Nation piece is the Tread acknowledgement that while Zombro is joining the Cubs, he’s not completely leaving Tread. His role is being “adjusted”:

That’s interesting for a number of reasons to me, but most notably, if Zombro is still connected to Tread then the Cubs are connected to that information system. Obviously roles and responsibilities will be rescoped to limit conflicts, but that type of organizational connection is worth a lot.

In fact, it’s kind of like the time that Jed Hoyer went out of his way to stealth hire the best manager available in baseball rather than really upgrading the Cubs 40-man roster in meaningful ways. I obviously know that’s over simplistic. Shōta Imanaga was a better pitcher in 2024 than Marcus Stroman. Michael Busch was an upgrade at first base over the non-Bellinger Cubs options.

But the trend is clear. The Cubs are willing to invest in premier coaching talent in a way they are unwilling to invest in premier player talent. It’s not all that surprising, since front office and coaching salaries don’t count towards the Competitive Balance Tax in the same way player salaries do. I flagged this when they signed Craig Counsell last year, and the Zombro signing seems to be in the same mold.

The thing is, Counsell had the same record David Ross did, with functionally the same team. Adding premier talent like Zombro seems like a way to double down on a strategy that hasn’t exactly worked to date. But who knows what the future holds? Maybe Counsell’s luck is just around the corner. Perhaps Zombro can unlock another level for Cubs pitchers throughout the system. One thing seems clear, the Cubs may be out on the top tier free agents available, but they have no intention of sitting out the top tier coaching talent that might make those second and third tier free agents better.

And join Josh on Monday for jazz and movies here at BCB After Dark.