Cubs sign Edwin Jackson to four-year, $52 million deal

Chicago’s top pitcher, Matt Garza, is a free agent after this season. Like Dempster before him, he’s unlikely to stick with the Cubs all year unless they surprise, and are legitimate competitors for a playoff spot. When Garza leaves, the Cubs are going to have a rotation full of depth pieces, back-end arms like Wood, and a pitcher in Samardzija who, while useful, isn’t exactly dependable or an impact arm yet. Jackson might not be an impact arm, but he has proven dependable, and as has been discussed, the Cubs can use that, both now and later.

The Cubs still have a long way to go, as a consistent pipeline of talent hasn’t been fully formed yet, but is in the works. In the meantime, they need to field a capable team built through trades that don’t sacrifice the talent they do have, and free-agent money is one thing the Cubs do have at their disposal. Reassembling the rotation into the form it will take now that these four new arms are on board is a solid way of achieving this goal, and it leaves the Cubs’ season open to myriad possibilities -- some of them even positive -- rather than just another season like the ones that brought Theo Epstein and Jed Hoyer into power in the first place.