{"id":93685,"date":"2025-01-10T16:52:51","date_gmt":"2025-01-10T21:52:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=93685"},"modified":"2025-01-10T16:52:51","modified_gmt":"2025-01-10T21:52:51","slug":"colin-rea-one-year-deal-cubs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/01\/10\/colin-rea-one-year-deal-cubs\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Add Experienced Arm to Roster Under Craig Counsell&#8217;s Guidance"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a move aimed at bolstering their pitching staff, the Chicago Cubs have agreed to a contract with right-hander <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/reaco01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Colin Rea<\/a>. As reported by ESPN&#8217;s Jesse Rogers, the deal is worth $5 million for one year, pending a physical, and has yet to be officially announced by the club. The deal also includes a club option for 2026.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Cubs have an agreement with righty Colin Rea, a source confirms to ESPN. He pitched for them in 2020. And for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/counscr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Craig Counsell<\/a> in Milwaukee in 2021 and 2023.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Jesse Rogers (@JesseRogersESPN) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JesseRogersESPN\/status\/1877818854606250336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">January 10, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The Milwaukee Brewers declined Rea&#8217;s $5.5 million club option for 2025 in November. However, between his $1 million buyout and new deal with the Cubs, he&#8217;ll earn a little more instead of having the option of being picked up. Rea posted a 4.29 ERA and 1.26 WHIP across 32 appearances (27 starts) and a career-high 167 2\/3 innings. But his ERA was inflated by a poor finish to the season. Through his first 24 appearances, he posted a 3.52 ERA.<\/p>\n<h2>Colin Rea Agrees to Deal with Cubs<\/h2>\n<p>By joining the Cubs, Rea will reunite with manager Craig Counsell. Counsell was the manager for the Brewers before joining the division rival a year ago.<\/p>\n<p>Rea isn&#8217;t an overpowering pitcher, averaging no higher than 95 mph on his fastball. He can keep hitters off balance with a diverse mix of pitches, including a sinker, cutter, sweeper, splitter and curveball. Rea doesn&#8217;t lean on any pitch too much, but his sinker is something else. He achieved neutral splits by limiting left-handers to .257\/.308\/.465 and right-handers to .258\/.315\/.429 last year.<\/p>\n<p>For Rea, he will likely be a swingman, much like he was with the Brewers. Chicago <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/02\/matthew-boyd-cubs-contract-details\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">signed left-hander<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=boydma01,boyd--002mat&amp;search=Matthew+Boyd&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Matthew Boyd<\/a> in early December, adding him to a rotation mix that has Justin Stelle, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/i\/imanash01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shota Imanaga<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/taillja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Jameson Taillon<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/a\/assadja01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Javier Assad<\/a>. He will certainly get a chance to compete for a starting spot but could end up as a long-reliever candidate.<\/p>\n<p>After finishing second in the National League Central, the Cubs have <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/12\/13\/kyle-tucker-astros-cubs-deal\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">acquired<\/a> outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/t\/tuckeky01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kyle Tucker<\/a> while parting ways with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bellico01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-10_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Cody Bellinger<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: \u00a9 Michael McLoone-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a move aimed at bolstering their pitching staff, the Chicago Cubs have agreed to a contract with right-hander Colin Rea. As reported by ESPN&#8217;s Jesse Rogers, the deal is worth $5 million for one year, pending a physical, and has yet to be officially announced by the club. The deal also includes a club [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3686,"featured_media":93686,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_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":[899,3886,2238,1060,28469,5933,2319,28586,28268],"class_list":["post-93685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-mlb","category-news","tag-cody-bellinger","tag-colin-rea","tag-craig-counsell","tag-jameson-taillon","tag-javier-assad","tag-justin-steele","tag-kyle-tucker","tag-matthew-boyd","tag-shota-imanaga"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93685","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\/3686"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93685"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":93687,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93685\/revisions\/93687"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93686"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}