Matthew Boyd, Carson Kelly Become Free Agents

Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd and catcher Carson Kelly are now free agents, the MLBPA announced Friday. Both players had mutual options — Boyd’s valued at $15MM and Kelly’s at $7.5MM. Boyd receives a $2MM buyout, while Kelly will receive a $1.5MM buyout. Both players likely declined their end of the deal, as players typically go first with mutual option decisions. Regardless, they’re now free agents who’ll be free to explore opportunities with other teams beginning early next week. In the meantime, they can talk with the Cubs about potentially re-signing in Chicago.

Boyd, 36 in February, missed a chunk of the 2026 season when he required arthroscopic surgery to fix a partial meniscus tear. He posted good results when healthy, logging 126 2/3 innings with a 3.91 ERA, 18.5% strikeout rate, 7.5% walk rate and 42.2% ground-ball rate.

Boyd managed only 202 2/3 innings from 2021-24 due to a series of injuries — most notably Tommy John surgery. He was healthy at the tail end of the ’24 campaign, however, which prompted the Cubs to place a medium-scale (two years, $29MM) bet that he could bounce back to his typical midrotation form. That bet paid off, as Boyd wound up making 53 starts and pitching 306 1/3 frames with a 3.50 ERA, 20.2% strikeout rate and 6.5% walk rate.

The 2026 season had some red flags even beyond the knee scope and subsequent absence, however. Boyd posted quality run-prevention numbers when he was reinstated, but his strikeout rate cratered to 15.5%. He missed a few more bats over the final month of the season but was still well below-average overall. Perhaps some of that is simply attributable to the lingering effects of that knee procedure, but interested teams will probably be a bit wary of the amount of contact he yielded over the season’s final three months.

Regardless, Boyd should still command a nice one-year deal in free agency. Multi-year deals for pitchers entering their age-36 season are rare, however, and typically reserved for high-end arms coming off big platform performances. It’s not out of the question that Boyd will secure a second guaranteed season, but one year feels much likelier.

Kelly, on the other hand, has a nice chance at a multi-year free agent contract. The 32-year-old is coming off a nice .258/.336/.376 showing in 2026 and has batted .254/.334/.402 over 846 plate appearances since signing a two-year deal with Chicago in the 2024-25 offseason. That production is nine percent better than the league-average bat, by measure of wRC+, and it’s well north of average for his position; the standard catcher tends to be 10 to 12 percent worse than average in the batter’s box.

Beyond the solid work with the stick, Kelly is a quality defender. He had some trouble controlling the run game in 2026, but that’s typically not an issue for him. He draws plus marks for his ability to block balls in the dirt and is usually an average or better framer. Kelly was also correct on a very strong 69% of his ABS challenges this season, though he was fairly passive when it came to actually making challenges, which weighs down the value of his ABS contributions in Statcast’s estimation.

Kelly has pummeled left-handed pitching throughout his career. His numbers against right-handed opponents are below average, but he’s held his own in that regard across the past couple seasons. He ought to draw interest from teams looking for help against southpaws and good defense behind the plate. There’s enough to like in Kelly’s overall skill set that a two-year pact covering his age-32 and age-33 seasons seems likely. There’s an outside chance at three years, but he’d probably need several very interested clubs to get there. Given the number of alternatives on the market (Ryan Jeffers, Tyler Stephenson in free agency; Hunter Goodman, Shea Langeliers on the trade market) that pressure might not surface.

The Cubs have plenty of work to do in replacing both veterans. Chicago is losing not only Boyd but also Kevin Gausman, Shota Imanaga, David Peterson and (presumably) Clay Holmes to free agency. (Holmes is widely expected to decline a $12MM player option.) Miguel Amaya and prospect Owen Ayers give Chicago some options behind the plate, but it wouldn’t be terribly surprising to see them pursue a Kelly reunion or bring in an outside option to create more certainty. Pitching, however, is going to be the team’s primary offseason focus, just given the sheer number of arms that are hitting the market.