MLB Rumors: New Team Emerging for Zac Gallen

January 30, 2026 ,
Arizona Diamondbacks starting pitcher Zac Gallen reacts during 2025 game.

The Chicago Cubs keep circling back to Zac Gallen. 

Jon Heyman has put the Cubs in the small group still showing serious interest, alongside the Baltimore Orioles and a possible return to the Arizona Diamondbacks, with the Los Angeles Angels and San Diego Padres more in the “checked in” bucket than true favorites.

Why the Cubs make sense for Gallen right now

Even after adding arms and stacking depth, Chicago has a very real reason to keep the phone lines open. 

Jed Hoyer has basically admitted modern seasons turn into survival contests where you need nine or ten starters, and the Cubs have enough uncertainty behind their top names to justify chasing a higher-end option. 

Gallen’s 2025 line was rough by his standards, a 4.83 ERA over 192 innings with 175 strikeouts, but he still has the “front-half rotation” track record teams pay for, including an All-Star nod and a third-place NL Cy Young finish, plus multiple top-10 Cy Young placements overall.

Over his seven-year career, however, Gallen has recorded a strong 3.58 ERA, 1.16 WHIP, with 1,060 strikeouts across 1,007.1 innings and 176 starts.

The catch is the qualifying offer and the price tag

The tricky part is that Gallen declined the Diamondbacks’ qualifying offer, so signing him comes with draft-pick compensation attached, which always makes the math feel heavier for a team trying to build sustainably. 

That said, Chicago emerging here tracks with the way this winter has played out. They have acted like a club that expects to win now, and adding Gallen would give them another legitimate big-game starter type to stabilize the early months and protect them if the injury dominoes start falling, because they always do.

Photo Credit: Robert Edwards-Imagn Images 

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