The Chicago Cubs have one fairly obvious need to address at the 2025 trade deadline.
Due to early-season injuries to Shota Imanaga and Justin Steele (the latter of whom will miss the entire season), the Cubs are short on starting pitching. In particular, they're missing big-game experience and pitchers with the ability to save a bullpen by pitching deep into most of their starts.
This far out from the Jul. 31 deadline, it can be tricky to project which arms will be available. Teams are teetering on the edge of playoff contention and irrelevance, and the Cubs have to hope some of the teams with good starters fall into the second bucket.
In particular, the Cubs would be highly intrigued if the Arizona Diamondbacks fell out of the race, because they have a playoff-tested potential ace that would likely become available.
On Tuesday, ex-major league general manager Jim Bowden of The Athletic named D-backs ace Zac Gallen, a former All-Star and third-place Cy Young finisher, as the ideal target to solve the Cubs' starting pitching woes.
"The Cubs could use one more starting pitcher and Gallen would be the perfect target even though he’s having a down year," Bowden wrote. "Two years ago, he was the starting pitcher for the NL All-Star team and finished third in the Cy Young Award voting.
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"Gallen would need to have three to four strong starts before the deadline for the Diamondbacks to get the strong prospect package they’d want, but if they fall further out of contention, they might have to trade the impending free agent."
With a 5.15 ERA in 14 starts, Gallen certainly isn't pitching up to his $13.5 million salary, not to mention whatever nine-figure contract he was hoping to earn in free agency. But if the 32-34 D-backs continue to sputter, he might be able to rebuild his value in a better pitcher's park.
However, there's certainly no guarantee Arizona will sell at this point, so as much as Chicago might want Gallen, they'd be wise to continue assessing all their options.
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