The Cubs are weighing pitching additions before Monday’s trade deadline, and the names on their board now include José Soriano, Luke Weaver, Jeff Hoffman and George Kirby. The club is still trying to decide whether to land two starters and a reliever or the reverse, but the need is clear: it wants three pitchers, and it wants them fast.
That is why the search has turned toward the Cubs top prospects conversation around arms that can help right away. Patrick Mooney and Sahadev Sharma reported that Soriano, Weaver and Hoffman are the newest controllable options on the Cubs’ radar, while another report added Kirby to the mix. Jesse Rogers has said the team is very likely talking to any available pitcher, and the pattern fits a front office that has already been linked to Tarik Skubal, Freddy Peralta, Casey Mize, Robbie Ray, Clay Holmes, Adrian Morejon, Reid Detmers and Emerson Hancock.
Soriano is the most intriguing of the group because his case mixes performance, age and control. He is making $2.9MM this season and remains arbitration-eligible through 2028, which gives a club years of team control if it pays the price. In 123 innings, he has a 3.29 ERA and a 4.06 SIERA, and since becoming a starter in 2024 he has posted a 3.73 ERA with a 4.03 SIERA. He has also led pitchers with at least 200 innings pitched with a 59.9% groundball rate since that move to the rotation, the kind of profile that can appeal to a team trying to stabilize run prevention quickly.
The catch is that the Angels do not have to move him. They are at least listening as the market heats up, but they are not under pressure to deal him, even after Soriano was scratched from his scheduled start. That gives them leverage, especially with contenders looking for controllable pitching and willing to pay for it. Weaver and Hoffman bring similar appeal on the contract side: both are under control through 2027, Hoffman is owed just under $4MM for the rest of this season and $11MM next season, and Weaver is owed just under $3MM for the rest of 2026 and $11MM for 2027.
Kirby adds another wrinkle because the Mariners were at least open to hearing offers on him even after Seattle moved Luis Castillo to the White Sox. The Cubs had already been out of the running on Tarik Skubal early, which makes the current search more practical than headline-driven. Monday is the deadline, and Chicago now has to turn a wide list of names into an actual package, with the only real question left being whether it lands the mix it wants before the clock runs out.
