Cubs Sign Jake Woodford

The Cubs have signed right-hander Jake Woodford to a big league contract, MLB Trade Rumors’ Steve Adams reports.  The news comes just two days after Woodford triggered an opt-out clause in his minor league deal with the Brewers, so Milwaukee chose to release the righty rather than add him back to its active roster.  Chicago will need to make at least one corresponding move to create space on its 26-man and 40-man rosters.  Woodford is represented by Excel Sports Management.

This is Woodford’s second stint with the Cubs, and it was almost exactly one year ago that Woodford opted of a minor league deal with Chicago and then quickly signed another minors contract with the Diamondbacks.  Woodford’s previous tenure with the Cubs was spent just at Triple-A Iowa (21 2/3 innings of 4.57 ERA ball), and his only Major League action of the 2025 season came with Arizona, where Woodford posted a 6.44 ERA over 36 1/3 relief innings.

The Rays then inked Woodford to a minor league deal during the offseason, but traded him to the Brewers just prior to Opening Day, after Woodford had exercised another upward mobility clause in his contract.  The move to Milwaukee created another opportunity for big league playing time, but Woodford struggled to a 6.94 ERA over 23 1/3 innings before the Brewers designated him for assignment in early June.  That DFA led to an outright assignment and Woodford electing free agency, only for the right-hander to re-sign with Milwaukee on a fresh minors deal.

Woodford’s SIERA this season is a much more respectable 4.02, as his ERA has been greatly inflated by a .378 BABIP and a below-average 62.5% strand rate.  Woodford doesn’t miss many bats, though his 17.9% strikeout rate with the Brewers is an improvement over the 14.9K% he posted over his first 256 MLB innings from 2020-25.  Probably because of his usage in a full-time relief role, Woodford’s velocity has been up a tick, but the right-hander relies on his four other pitches (primarily a cutter and a sinker) far more often than a traditional four-seam fastball.

In Woodford, the Cubs are getting a known quantity who can immediately step into any number of roles for the club’s injury-riddled pitching staff.  The lack of pitching health has been the chief storyline of the Cubs’ season, and 13 hurlers are currently on what has been a revolving door of an injured list.  Woodford hasn’t started in either the majors or minors over the last two seasons, but Chicago could use him as a multi-inning reliever or possibly in a piggyback capacity with a starter as the Cubs continue to seek out ways of covering innings.