Ryan Pressly Excited for Fresh Start at Wrigley, Entering Camp Competing for 9th Inning
Family was at the center of Ryan Pressly‘s decision to accept a trade to the Cubs, and that even carried over to his introductory press conference on Wednesday. The reliever actually joined the Zoom call from his car as he waited in the parking lot before heading into a parent-teacher conference for one of his kids, which is pretty cool. There wasn’t much revelatory about the media session or Pressly’s subsequent conversation with 670 The Score, but it’s still worth looking at.
“Playing in Chicago has kinda always been a dream of mine and I’m excited to get out there and put on a Cubs uniform.”
Ryan Pressly on what made the Cubs appealing to him. pic.twitter.com/i2666A0XML
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) January 29, 2025
“It was a very difficult decision, leaving Houston,” Pressly told Bernstein, Holmes, and Rahimi. “This is where my family’s at, it’s where we live, had a lot of success here, fans were great here, teammates were awesome, organization was great. I just, opportunity presents itself and you get a chance to pitch in one of the more historical ballparks and put on a pretty historical uniform, you don’t get those opportunities very often. When it came about, [I had] long, hard conversations with family and friends, and we ultimately decided that this is something that we wanted to pursue.”
Even more than the chance to pitch at Wrigley, it was the ability to close games again that prompted Pressly to leave Houston a year early. Not only will he be able to serve in a role he prefers, but he’ll be in line for a bigger payday in free agency if he racks up 30+ saves. Whether that’s a matter of mentality or getting past a mechanical issue that dogged him in 2024, it’s entirely possible he’ll return to form.
“It was tough” Pressly admitted when asked about being displaced by Josh Hader in Houston. “You get demoted and then you’ve got to go out there and be professional and try to lead the right way…The best way I could do that was to show my teammates how I can carry myself.”
Despite what he said about how great the Astros organization was to him, the relationship with management cooled when Hader was signed and given the 9th inning. That became public knowledge earlier in the week when Astros GM Dana Brown spoke to the media about the trade.
“Any time you take a major-league player out of a role where they feel comfortable, it’s going to fracture your relationship some,” Brown explained. “I think we continued to communicate. He was a true professional and I kept it real as a true professional myself. Ultimately, I wouldn’t say (the relationship) was the same as (when) we first met, but I think there was some frustration, which I totally understand from a competitor.”
It’s very easy for fans to view professional athletes as automatons who should be able to go out and perform despite their circumstances, but that’s not always the case. We see all the time how closers struggle in non-save situations, and it’s possible that was the case for Pressly to an extent. It’s also possible his confidence in himself and faith in the organization was shaken by the Hader move, so a change of scenery bump could be two-fold.
That’s certainly what the Cubs are hoping, which is why they targeted him as their biggest bullpen addition so far. Pressly knows he’s going to be the closer in Chicago, but he also understands what it takes to win big games from his wealth of postseason experience with the Astros. He acknowledged the job Porter Hodge did late last season and said they’ll make a “pretty dynamic duo” in the late innings, regardless of who pitches when.
“Postseason’s completely different, it doesn’t matter who pitches what role as long as you get 27 outs with a win, that’s all that really matters,” Pressly explained. “But leading up to the postseason, I’ve only talked to [Craig Counsell] one time. We haven’t really discussed, it was really more of an introduction. I’m sure we’ll get more in-depth when we get down to camp.
“They told me that I was gonna be the 9th-inning role, but in my mindset, I’m gonna go into camp competing for that role because you obviously know everything is not guaranteed in this game. So I just wanna have that mindset going in there, just of competing. So, again, in the long run I just wanna help this team win and the goal is to not just win a division but the entire thing.”
As unfortunate as it is that the Cubs have to effectively synthesize a winning culture by bringing in players from other organizations, namely the Astros, that’s what happens when no one is left from their championship window. Pressly noted how he, Kyle Tucker, and Dansby Swanson know what it’s like to win titles, but it’s more than just that. All of them have been praised for leading by example and showing rather than just telling. That kind of impact can last far longer than just the lone season Pressly figures to spend on the North Side.