Cubs Reportedly ‘On Verge’ of Acquiring Ryan Pressly, Who Has Not Yet Waived NTC
Bob Nightengale of USA Today tweeted early Thursday evening that the Cubs were “on verge of acquiring closer Ryan Pressly from the Astros,” but the report may have been a bit premature. Pressly has a no-trade clause as a function of the $14 million player option he activated by making at least 50 appearances in each of the last two seasons, and Chandler Rome of The Athletic tweeted that the reliever has not waived it. What’s more, Rome said “no deal is imminent.”
A deal could still be done, of course, particularly if Pressly is amenable to joining a team that will use him as its closer. It may also be a matter of haggling over how much money the Astros will eat. After saving 92 games for the Astros from 2020-23, Pressly was displaced from the 9th inning by the addition of Josh Hader. Having just turned 36 with just one year left on his deal, putting up a big save number this season would certainly aid Pressly next winter in free agency.
We recently took a look at him as an option for the Cubs, who have seen several of their late-inning targets come off the board recently. Given the cost of pitching on the open market, Jed Hoyer apparently feels there’s more value to be found in a trade even if it means going back to the well in Houston. Of course, adding Pressly would mean picking up two potential rentals for a not-insignificant haul of prospects and MLB talent.
Pressly doesn’t have the big right arm of Robert Suárez or many other big-time closers, but his experience in big innings for a perennial contender counts for something. He sets off a cutty 94 mph fastball with a tight slider at 90 mph and sweepy slurve at 82-83 mph. Pressly also has a firm 90 mph change that gets good results. It’s interesting that his heater is a tick slower than average while his breaking and offspeed stuff is 2-4 mph higher.
Ed. note: That cut/sweep tells me Pressly is a supinator, which means he’s probably an aerial mover as well. That makes me wonder whether he throws a cut two-seam change.
That combo of deception and movement allows him to get grounders at a little over a 50% clip, which limits homers and erases a lot of mistakes. I tend to believe some of the falloff in his stats this past season was due to being moved into a setup role. Age can’t be eliminated as a culprit, but we’ve seen time and again how closers struggle when they appear in non-save situations. The mental side of the game is real, so maybe Pressly gets a bump in performance with a change of scenery and role.
More to come…