11:05am: The Cubs have officially announced Rea’s contract. MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian broke down the contract structure, noting that Rea will earn $5.5MM in 2026 with a $1MM buyout on a $7.5MM club option.
7:24am: The Cubs have hammered out a restructured deal with right-hander Colin Rea, reports MLBTR’s Steve Adams. It’s a $6.5MM guarantee that includes a club option for the 2027 season and maxes out at $13MM over two years if that option is exercised. Rea is represented by Joe Speed.
Chicago had previously held a $6MM option or a $750K buyout for the upcoming season. The new deal supersedes the buyout, so Rea technically picks up $5.75MM in new money. That’s more than the $5.25MM difference between the option price and the buyout. Rea gets an extra $500K overall, while the Cubs secure an extra year of team control.
The 35-year-old Rea is coming off a solid season. He signed as a swingman and was pressed into the rotation by the middle of April because of the season-ending injury to Justin Steele. Rea was generally good for 5-6 competitive innings each time out. He turned in a 3.95 earned run average while ranking second on the team with 159 1/3 innings. Rea had a pedestrian 19.2% strikeout rate but he rarely issues free passes and did a decent job keeping the ball in the yard.
It’s the third straight season in which Rea has been a capable fifth/sixth starter. He spent the 2023-24 campaigns with the Brewers, combining for a 4.40 ERA with a near-20% strikeout percentage in a little less than 300 innings. Only Freddy Peralta threw more innings for Milwaukee over that two-year stretch. Rea’s flexibility has clearly endeared him to Craig Counsell, who managed him with the Brewers in 2023 and this year with Chicago.
Second-year righty Cade Horton projects as the team’s top starter at the moment. They could get Steele back at some point in the first half. Matthew Boyd, Jameson Taillon and Rea are in the mix at the middle to back end. Javier Assad, Jordan Wicks and Ben Brown could compete for back-end spots (though the Cubs might commit to Brown as a full-time reliever sooner than later).
It’s clearly a light group for a playoff team. The Cubs figure to take a swing for at least a #2 or high-end #3 arm via trade or free agency. That’s all the more true after they declined their three-year option on Shota Imanaga. While there’s a slim chance Imanaga returns if the Cubs make him a qualifying offer, that decision seems to signal that the Cubs are aiming higher in their rotation targets.
The Cubs opened the ’25 season with a player payroll just under $193MM. RosterResource projects them around $154MM, including arbitration estimates, going into next season. They’re more than $70MM shy of the luxury tax threshold. The Rea extension nearly closes the book on the team’s option decisions. Their only remaining one is a $10MM mutual option for Justin Turner. The Cubs will easily decline their end in favor of a $2MM buyout.
Image courtesy of Michael McLoone, Imagn Images.