{"id":129162,"date":"2025-12-07T11:26:53","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:26:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=129162"},"modified":"2025-12-07T11:26:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:26:53","slug":"bob-nightengale-updates-premature-report-that-cubs-were-signing-zac-gallen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=129162","title":{"rendered":"Bob Nightengale updates premature report that Cubs were signing Zac Gallen"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 2025 Major League Baseball season ended last month. In some ways, the 2026 season has already begun, as we have our first Bob Nightengale misreported free agency signing of the offseason.<\/p>\n<p>It feels good to be back.<\/p>\n<p>Around noon on Saturday, the USA Today baseball columnist and reporter broke a big one, reporting that the Chicago Cubs were close to signing free-agent starter Zac Gallen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe Chicago Cubs are close to finalizing an agreement with free-agent starter Zac Gallen on a multi-year deal that will pay him an average of $22 million a year,\u201d wrote Nightengale on X at 11:59 p.m. ET. \u201cGallen, with three top-10 Cy Young finishes, has averaged 32 starts a year for the past 4 seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Now, Nightengale has a reputation, earned or not, of jumping the gun on breaking news or misreporting news altogether. So it was not entirely surprising to see ESPN MLB insider Jeff Passan refute the news just 10 minutes later.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cZac Gallen does not have a deal and is not close to finalizing one,\u201d wrote Passan on X.<\/p>\n<p>Nightengale must\u2019ve gotten the memo around the same time as he updated his X post to add some context and dial back the immediacy of the transaction.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">UPDATE: The Chicago Cubs are HOPEFUL of finalizing an agreement with free-agent starter Zac Gallen on a multi-year deal, but the deal is NOT DONE with others still in contention. Gallen, with three top-10 Cy Young finishes, has averaged 32 starts a year for the past 4 seasons.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) December 6, 2025<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cUPDATE: The Chicago Cubs are HOPEFUL of finalizing an agreement with free-agent starter Zac Gallen on a multi-year deal, but the deal is NOT DONE with others still in contention,\u201d read his updated post. \u201cGallen, with three top-10 Cy Young finishes, has averaged 32 starts a year for the past 4 seasons.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gallen, who was an All-Star in 2013, went 13\u201315 with a 4.83 ERA and 175 strikeouts in 192 innings last season with the Arizona Diamondbacks.<\/p>\n<h2>Recent Posts<\/h2>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div>\n<header>\n<h3>What\u2019s really the point of CBS Viewpoint?<\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<section>The new CBS feature feels like technology for the sake of technology.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not really the Major League Baseball free agency period until Bob Nightengale jumps the gun of a potential signing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":129163,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-129162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - 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