{"id":22621,"date":"2024-12-31T22:28:46","date_gmt":"2024-12-31T22:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=22621"},"modified":"2024-12-31T22:28:46","modified_gmt":"2024-12-31T22:28:46","slug":"cubs-sign-caleb-thielbar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=22621","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Sign Caleb Thielbar"},"content":{"rendered":"<article>\n<header>By Mark Polishuk | <time datetime=\"2024-12-31T13:13:45-06:00\">December 31, 2024<\/time> at <time datetime=\"2024-12-31T13:13:45-06:00\">1:13pm CDT<\/time><\/p>\n<\/header>\n<div>\n<p>The Cubs announced that left-hander <strong>Caleb Thielbar<\/strong> has been signed to a one-year, Major League contract.\u00a0 Thielbar (who turns 38 in January) is represented by ISE.<\/p>\n<p>Chicago is the seventh different MLB team Thielbar has been a part of since his pro career began as an 18th-round pick for the Brewers in the 2009 draft.\u00a0 Despite this journeyman resume, all Thielbar\u2019s 320 big league innings over eight seasons have come with the Twins, in two separate stints from 2013-15 and then 2020-24.\u00a0 That second stretch with Minnesota revived Thielbar\u2019s career entirely, as he had taken on a coaching job in college following the 2019 season before he was lured back with another minor league deal from the Twins.<\/p>\n<p>Thielbar\u2019s second act saw him emerge as a quietly effective weapon out of Minnesota\u2019s bullpen.\u00a0 He posted a 3.21 ERA, 30.2% strikeout rate, and 7.4% walk rate over 174 innings from 2020-23, inducing a lot of soft contact along with those missed bats and limited free passes.\u00a0 Over his career, Thielbar has limited left-handed batters to a meager .213\/.265\/.328 slash line over 553 plate appearances, and his splits against righty-swingers (.240\/.310\/.401 in 773 PA) is also very respectable, even though right-handed bats have hit Thielbar harder over the last two seasons.<\/p>\n<p>2024 was a much more difficult season, as Thielbar struggled to a 5.32 ERA and his walk rate shot upwards to 11.1%.\u00a0 The southpaw\u2019s strikeout rate was still above the league average but it also sharply dropped off to 24.5%.\u00a0 An early-season hamstring strain might have been partially responsible, as Thielbar had an 8.04 ERA in his first 15 2\/3 innings of the season before somewhat stabilizing to a 3.98 in his remaining 31 2\/3 frames.<\/p>\n<p>Thielbar\u2019s short-term, cost-efficient contract fits Jed Hoyer\u2019s preferred model for reliever contracts during Hoyer\u2019s four-year tenure as Chicago\u2019s president of baseball operations.\u00a0 The Cubs were thin on left-handed bullpen candidates, and Thielbar now joins a list of options that includes <strong>Rob Zastryzny<\/strong>, <strong>Luke Little<\/strong>, and potentially <strong>Jordan Wicks<\/strong> unless the Cubs want to keep Wicks stretched out for starter duty.\u00a0 Chicago figures to augment this group with at least one more southpaw before the season opens, whether on another guaranteed deal like Thielbar or in the form of trades or minor league signings.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<p>View Comments (51)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cubs add veteran left-hander Caleb Thielbar to their bullpen. Visit MLB Trade Rumors for more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":22622,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[698],"class_list":["post-22621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb","tag-caleb-thielbar"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cubs Sign Caleb Thielbar - NEWS USA<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sportnews.azontree.com\/?p=22621\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cubs Sign Caleb Thielbar - NEWS USA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Cubs add veteran left-hander Caleb Thielbar to their bullpen. 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