After a rocky MLB debut and a season spent refining his command in Triple-A, the 25-year-old right-hander is flashing dominant stuff this spring and reminding the Cubs why they acquired him in the first place.
Let’s talk about Jack Neely, the 25-year-old right-handed pitcher for the Chicago Cubs who was acquired in a trade with the New York Yankees that sent Mark Leiter Jr. to the Bronx at the 2024 trade deadline.
The Cubs liked his raw stuff — a mid-to-upper-90s fastball and a high-spin slider — and viewed him as a potential bullpen piece or multi-inning option. Just a few weeks after being acquired, the Cubs selected Neely’s contract and brought him up to the big-league level for his MLB debut at the end of the 2024 season.
He ended up pitching in six games for the Cubs and, in six innings of work, allowed six earned runs with seven strikeouts. That puts his career ERA at 9.00 and his strikeouts per nine at 10.5.
Neely has not pitched in Major League Baseball since the end of that 2024 season.
In 2025, Neely was viewed as depth for the Cubs’ bullpen and started the season in Triple-A Iowa. In the minor leagues last year, he was still able to miss bats but struggled to command his stuff, recording 11.6 strikeouts per nine innings while also walking eight batters per nine. That’s unacceptable control, and the Cubs couldn’t justify putting it on the big-league roster.
Still, Neely’s size (6-foot-8) and loud stuff make him an intriguing relief prospect who is impossible to ignore, especially as we enter spring training with endless possibilities for the season ahead.
And after one week of Cactus League action, Neely is already putting himself back on the map for the Cubs in 2026.
Through his first two spring training appearances, he has faced seven batters, walking one, allowing no hits, and striking out five. It’s been two nearly perfect innings and complete dominance from Neely thus far, including a 37.5% whiff rate in his most recent outing.
Neely’s fastball velocity has been a tick down from where it usually sits, but he has leaned on the slider as his primary weapon and, most importantly, has controlled his stuff well enough to stay competitive in every at-bat.
There’s really no telling how long he’s going to keep this up. And even if he does, it’s hard to picture a world where Jack Neely has a spot on the Cubs’ Opening Day roster.
Chicago’s front office has been jumping through hoops all offseason to build a bullpen with serious depth, adding Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey, Jacob Webb, and Hoby Milner while also re-signing Caleb Thielbar.
There just aren’t many bullpen spots to go around unless something unforeseen happens with Colin Rea or Javier Assad and the Cubs need to turn to someone like Neely as a multi-inning option out of the bullpen.
Still, when you have a 25-year-old arm who stands 6-foot-8 and 245 pounds with a wipeout slider, it’s hard to completely rule it out. If Neely keeps this up through the rest of spring training, he still may start the regular season in Triple-A Iowa, but he figures to be one of the first arms the Cubs call upon should they need bullpen reinforcements.
He remains on the 40-man roster, so recalling him from Triple-A would not require roster gymnastics. Neely does have one minor-league option remaining, though, so the Cubs can’t shuffle him back and forth too often in 2026.
This type of profile rarely gets through waivers. Teams would be salivating to get their hands on Neely and put him in their bullpen — especially clubs thin on relief pitching or rebuilding teams willing to take swings on upside.
And it’s for all of those reasons that Cubs fans should be encouraged by what they’ve seen from Neely so far this spring. You can never have enough pitching. Even for a contending team like the Chicago Cubs, a young, controllable arm is a valuable asset.
If the Cubs fully unlock Neely’s potential, they may have struck gold.