BREAKING NEWS: Jed Hoyer Cubs President named Casey Jacobson assistant pitching coach

Earlier this week, Cubs assistant pitching coach Daniel Moskos left the team to become the head pitching coach for the Marlins.

The Cubs wasted no time in filling this vacancy, naming Casey Jacobson to the assistant pitching coach position. Details from Sahadev Sharma in The Athletic:

Jacobson just wrapped up his fifth season with the organization and his second as minor-league senior coordinator of pitching development.

Jacobson is a former instructor at Driveline Baseball, a well-known player development academy in Washington, and spent six years coaching in the college ranks.

Those within the organization laud Jacobson for his interpersonal skills and ability to connect with young pitchers by earning their trust by clearly delivering messages and tying it into what the player actually values. Multiple people in the organization noted his empathy with players and staff as he works to know who the human is in order to ensure that it’s clear he cares about a player’s development over his own self interests, which has helped with buy-in.

This all sounds quite positive, and Sharma’s article also indicates that Jacobson spent quite a bit of time with Porter Hodge, Daniel Palencia and Jordan Wicks during his time as coordinator, helping them develop various pitches.

There are still a couple of coaching positions to be filled for manager Craig Counsell’s staff, including a first-base coach. Sharma’s article says a coaching staff announcement should be coming “shortly,” so as always, we await developments.

Cubs President of Baseball Operations Jed Hoyer has had some success, in the past, signing pitchers who have had rough years, or injuries, or both, and rehabbing them into useful relievers. Julian Merryweather was one of those, at least until he was injured again in 2024. Hoyer signed David Robertson, who had pitched only 19 games between 2018 and 2021, and turned him into Ben Brown. Andrew Chafin brought Daniel Palencia, who still might become a decent MLB reliever.

The Cubs are past that sort of “sign this guy and flip him” signing, or at least they should be.

But one of the things that hurt the team last year was a bullpen that couldn’t lock down anyone until late in the season.

I looked through the list of non-tenders and minor-league free agents and have identified five pitchers who are free agents who might be able to help the Cubs going forward. Some of these guys have been quite successful in the past and been derailed by injuries or other issues.

All of them, I believe, would be worth a minor-league deal to Spring Training. Let’s have a look