NEW YORK – David Peterson won’t have to travel far to find his new team.
The Cubs swung a trade for the All-Star lefty, doing business with the Mets while in Queens for a four-game series.
The deal comes a day after the Cubs placed two more starting pitchers on the injured list, with righty Edward Cabrera’s hamstring strain and right-hander Ben Brown’s neck strain adding to the mountain of pitching injuries the team is facing.
Though lefty Matthew Boyd is slated to come off the IL for Thursday’s series finale at Citi Field, the Cubs, however briefly, had 80 percent of their Opening Day starting rotation, plus closer Daniel Palencia, on the shelf at the same time.
Peterson would figure to be just part of the front office’s ongoing quest for pitching assistance. He was an All Star last season after posting a 2.39 ERA in his first 13 starts of the campaign. But things fell apart a bit from there; he had a 6.34 ERA after the break.
Things haven’t been too much better so far this season, and he’s bounced between starting and relieving, with a 6.09 ERA in 16 appearances totaling 68 innings of work.
But the number that points to potentially better results ahead is Peterson’s 51.1 percent ground-ball rate, which entering Thursday was the eighth highest in baseball among pitchers who had thrown at least 60 innings. The last-place Mets stunned in Game 2 of Wednesday’s doubleheader, their infielders committing six errors in a losing effort that earned loud boos from the Citi Field crowd. The Cubs, meanwhile, have the best defense in the sport, with three Gold Glovers on the infield alone.
The 30-year-old Peterson is a veteran of seven major league seasons, his best coming in 2024, when he finished with a career-low 2.91 ERA and had a 136 ERA-plus that made him 36 percent better, statistically, than the average big league arm.
No matter which version of Peterson the Cubs end up with, at least he’s healthy.
That’s no small thing for the Cubs, who added Cabrera and Brown to a list of injured pitchers that includes righty Jameson Taillon (out weeks with his own hamstring strain), righty Cade Horton (out for the season with Tommy John surgery) and Justin Steele (unlikely to make starts this season while recovering from an elbow setback).
Just Wednesday, the Cubs’ pitching search took them to another veteran looking for a reclamation; they claimed righty Bryse Wilson – who pitched to a 6.65 ERA last season with the White Sox – off waivers from the Phillies.
In the deal, the Cubs parted with minor league infielder Cole Mathis, a second-round draft choice in 2024. Mathis was a noted two-way player in college but never pitched in the Cubs’ organization. He leaves having hit .272/.396/.585 with 10 homers in 39 games split between Class A affiliates in Myrtle Beach and South Bend this season.