Cubs Designate Jameson Taillon For Assignment

Taillon, 34, is having the worst season of his career. He has made 15 starts for the Cubs, missing about six weeks due to a hamstring strain. In his 76 innings pitched, he has allowed 5.96 earned runs per nine. He has allowed 25 home runs, second-most in the majors. Jeffrey Springs is ahead of him at 27, but Springs has made 21 starts and also pitches for the Athletics, who play their home games at a hitter-friendly minor league park.

The Cubs are deciding to move on. Given his results, it’s understandable, but it’s also mildly surprising given the larger context of the club. The Cubs have been really hit hard on the injury front this year, particularly in the rotation. Cade Horton required Tommy John surgery and is out for the season. Justin Steele has hit a few setbacks in his attempt to come back from last year’s internal brace surgery. He may come back this year but only as a reliever. Ben Brown is sidelined by a stress reaction in his neck and has an uncertain timeline. Edward Cabrera is out with a hamstring strain.

With all of those injuries, the Cubs have turned to the trade market, picking up David Peterson and Aaron Civale in the past five weeks. Civale has been in a long relief role as the Cubs have gone with Taillon, Peterson, Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and Colin Rea.

They are moving on from Taillon without a ton of depth behind him, though perhaps that’s a moot point with the trade deadline now just a week away. Due to their injuries, it has been long suspected that the Cubs will add some starting pitching this summer. They already made the aforementioned Peterson and Civale deals but will presumably make some even more impactful acquisitions before the clock strikes 5pm Central on August 3.

Taillon was likely going to be bumped from the rotation soon anyway, so the Cubs are doing it now. This gives them some time to see if Taillon himself has any trade interest. With this year’s struggles, it would be surprising if any club wanted him, though some teams may overlook the home run troubles as fluky. Taillon has a 21.4% home run to fly ball rate this year. The league wide number is 11.8%. Taillon had a 12.2% rate in his career coming into this season.

A home run spike in a small sample can sometimes be fluky. SIERA is an ERA estimator that operates with that approach and has Jameson at 4.53 this year. The three previous seasons all ended with his SIERA in the 4.29 to 4.40 range. This year’s 20.9% strikeout rate is actually up from the previous two seasons. His 8.3% walk rate is also higher than previous campaigns but still better than league average.

Even if some club thinks Taillon can be a viable back-end starter, they won’t be falling over themselves to get him. The veteran is in the final year of the four-year, $68MM pact he signed with Chicago ahead of the 2023 season. He is making $18MM this year, with just under $6MM still to be paid out.

Perhaps the Cubs could eat some of that money to line up a deal but a more straightforward resolution is that Taillon is released in the next week. He has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment to the minors while keeping all his money. If he is released, another club could sign him and would only owe him the prorated league minimum for any time spent on the roster. That amount would be subtracted from what the Cubs pay.

The contract wasn’t a disastrous investment for the Cubs but they probably don’t view it as a big win either. They signed Taillon to be a serviceable mid-rotation or back-end guy and that’s essentially what he was for the first three years. He made 81 appearances for the Cubs from 2023 to 2025 with a 3.93 ERA, 19.6% strikeout rate, 5.5% walk rate and 37.5% ground ball rate. FanGraphs credited him with five wins above replacement for that stretch. That’s not great return on a deal with an average annual value of $17MM but the Cubs probably weren’t expecting too much more than that. They signed him after he gave the Yankees 4.3 fWAR over 2021 and 2022, a marginally better pace. This year’s struggles really sour the wide view of the contract since he’s at -1.1 fWAR this year, but he pitched roughly as expected before this season.

Wantz, 30, made one appearance for the Rays earlier this year. After that, he was designated for assignment, elected free agency and landed a minor league deal with the Cubs. He has a 4.20 ERA in 120 career big league innings, mostly with the Angels. Since signing with the Cubs, he has been in a swing role. He has logged 25 innings over seven appearances with a 4.32 ERA, 22.8% strikeout rate and 13.2% walk rate.

He gives the Cubs an extra reliever capable of going multiple innings. They are down to a four-man rotation for now but, as mentioned, should be making some moves in the next week. Wantz is out of options and could get squeezed off the roster as the Cubs add new guys on.

Photos courtesy of Kamil Krzaczynski, Imagn Images