{"id":84197,"date":"2024-08-26T21:59:11","date_gmt":"2024-08-27T01:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=84197"},"modified":"2024-08-26T21:59:11","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T01:59:11","slug":"cubs-pitcher-drew-smyly-waivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/08\/26\/cubs-pitcher-drew-smyly-waivers\/","title":{"rendered":"Fan-Favorite Cubs Reliever Placed on Waivers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chicago Cubs reliever, one-time starter, and fan favorite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/s\/smylydr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-26_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Drew Smyly<\/a> entered waivers on Monday as the Cubs chase a Wild-Card bid, as reported by Bob Nightengale. The left-hander and 2021 World Series champion has posted a 2.84 ERA and a 1.184 WHIP through 39 games in relief this season. The Cubs currently sit 5 1\/2 games out of a Wild-Card spot, trailing the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/08\/15\/cardinals-schedule-postseason-road\/\" target=\"_self\">St. Louis Cardinals<\/a>, San Francisco Giants, <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/08\/18\/five-mets-players-to-watch-rest-of-2024\/\" target=\"_self\">New York Mets<\/a>, and Atlanta Braves. With the logjam surrounding the third and final Wild Card spot, the Cubs are clearly cutting off weight in anticipation of another season <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/08\/13\/cubs-2024-playoff-chances\/\" target=\"_self\">outside of the bubble.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Chicago Cubs put veteran pitcher Drew Smyly on outright waivers for postseason contenders looking for lefty reliever.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BNightengale\/status\/1828227344206831738?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">August 27, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2>Cubs Place Drew Smyly on Waivers<\/h2>\n<h3>Why Make the Move?<\/h3>\n<p>Before the trade deadline, Jed Hoyer, president of baseball operations for the team, said the team would not pursue &#8220;a lot of moves that only help [them] for this year.&#8221; This somewhat unambiguously indicated that they were largely future-focused in their deals for the rest of the season. However, they followed this up with a <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/08\/22\/cubs-newly-acquired-third-baseman\/\" target=\"_self\">major trade<\/a> involving <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/morelch01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-26_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Christopher Morel<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/p\/paredis01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-26_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Isaac Paredes<\/a> to shore up their third-base conundrum, complicating their direction at the deadline.<\/p>\n<p>Smyly was on the second year of a two-year, $19 million contract for the Cubs with a mutual option for 2025. This represents, primarily, a cost-cutting measure, something teams have pursued more frequently under the new trade deadline rules.<\/p>\n<h3>Where Will Smyly End Up?<\/h3>\n<p>Smyly began his time with the Cubs as a starter, starting 55 games between the 2022 and 2023 seasons. However, his inconsistencies as a starter and the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/09\/shota-imanaga-signs-cubs\/\" target=\"_self\">signings<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/i\/imanash01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-26_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shota Imanaga<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/taillja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-08-26_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jameson Taillon<\/a> left him demoted to the bullpen. Although he has had an overall productive season and provides versatility as a potential long reliever, the Cubs obviously felt that his contract was not worth the value to a team on the outside of the playoff bubble.<\/p>\n<p>Many teams in contention will be looking for that bullpen versatility, and Smyly has a good chance of landing with a team before postseason eligibility ends.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Patrick Gorski-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Chicago Cubs reliever, one-time starter, and fan favorite Drew Smyly entered waivers on Monday as the Cubs chase a Wild-Card bid, as reported by Bob Nightengale. The left-hander and 2021 World Series champion has posted a 2.84 ERA and a 1.184 WHIP through 39 games in relief this season. The Cubs currently sit 5 1\/2 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5241,"featured_media":84208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1071,35],"tags":[6192,672,4076,1060,28268],"class_list":["post-84197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-mlb","category-news","tag-christopher-morel","tag-drew-smyly","tag-isaac-paredes","tag-jameson-taillon","tag-shota-imanaga"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5241"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}