Former Sumter High star gets his shot to return to MLB, joining Cubs on minor league deal

Baseball has taken Charlie Barnes a lot of places. The former Sumter High star made a name for himself at Clemson and made it to Major League Baseball with the Minnesota Twins in 2021. He spent most of the next four seasons overseas pitching in Korea for the Lotte Giants before an injury last season brought him back stateside. Now, he's back at an MLB spring training camp for the first time since breaking through with the Twins.

Now Barnes is ready to prove himself as a member of the Chicago Cubs, bringing the total of left-handed pitchers from Sumter back up to three. Barnes' former Sumter High teammate Jordan Montgomery is returning to the Texas Rangers, with which he won the 2023 World Series, as he recovers from last season's Tommy John surgery, while former Wilson Hall standout JP Sears is with the Padres after being moved at last year's trade deadline.

"I think it's awesome for a town the size of Sumter to have three guys that have been as successful as the three of us have been. It's a testament to how hard all three of us have worked," Barnes said. "You look at the amount of work and the attention to detail and how hard it is to get to the place we are. Obviously, I haven't been in the Big Leagues since 2021, but for JP and Jordan, just how hard it is for them to be where they are. It's all of the details that not everybody sees.

"It makes me proud as a guy from Sumter. I've lived here my whole life, and it's cool to see them work and it's cool to see how far they've gone with it."

After his injury last season, Barnes came back home to recover and had a brief stint with the Cincinnati Reds AAA affiliate in Louisville, but it's not quite the same as starting off the year with a proper spring training.

"It'll be nice to get into camp, get into a routine and just get built up the correct way into the season and just kinda go with the flow," Barnes said before heading to Arizona to take the mound with the Cubs.

Several clubs were interested in Barnes' services this offseason, but he landed with the Cubs because of his relationship with Tyler Zombro, their vice president of pitching.

"I've known him for a few years now, and I just felt really comfortable with him. He's really good in terms of the development and the analytical side, so I was excited to work with him," Barnes said. "It's a good team; we felt like it was a good place for me to go and continue to develop because this is really going to be my first year since 2021 where I'm back on the American side in terms of development and the way the game has changed with all the analytics and the advanced metrics they use now."

Barnes has also been involved in the data side of baseball through his work with Tread Athletics. Tread has become pretty mainstream through its videos that show the process of analyzing body movement and pitch metrics to help pitchers improve their stuff on the mound. Barnes thinks he's been able to catch up to where baseball has been moving stateside because of his work with Tread.

"It's nice to have an organization and facility like Tread because they're independent, so it doesn't matter which organization you're with, whether you're overseas or in the States. They want what's best for the player; it doesn't matter where you are," Barnes said. "When you pair it with the organization now, you get two sets of eyes on everything. As a player, you can take what clicks with you."

The southpaw from Sumter made six starts for the Louisville Bats last year. While he didn't have great results, going 1-3 with a 7.13 ERA, he was able to learn a lot about how to get outs against American hitters again.

"It was definitely nice to get back and kinda get reintroduced to the American-style game. Threw the ball a little bit better than what my numbers suggest, but it was such a small sample size, so you mix in a rough one or two, and it'll kinda blow your year up," Barnes said. "But there was a ton of stuff I could take away from being back, just being in the clubhouse, seeing what teams are looking for, how scouting reports were run, so it was nice to get back and see all that. Now I feel like I'm in a good spot going forward."

Barnes then took a different approach to his offseason. The lefty went to the Dominican Winter League and balled out, pitching to a 2.84 ERA across five starts. Barnes' run in the winter league kept him busy from October until just before Thanksgiving, which is typically a rest period for him. He's optimistic that the extra work will pay off this spring as he competes for a roster spot.

"I kinda tried what I wanted to work on down there and had good success with it, so I'm excited going forward with what the plan is and what I think can work," Barnes said. "I really haven't taken any time because by the time I got back, it was (when) in a normal year you start ramping up, throwing bullpens in December. I took a week or two, and that was really it. It's been pretty much full-go since I got back healthy, but - knock on wood - I feel great right now, and hopefully it stays that way through spring and through this year."

Barnes joins a Cubs organization that has been aggressively adding talent this offseason. They already had a strong pitching staff with an All-Star in Matthew Boyd alongside Shota Imanaga, Cade Horton and Jameson Taillon and expect to get Justin Steele back after he injured his elbow last year. Their big addition on the pitching side was a blockbuster trade for Edward Cabrera, while they also signed third baseman Alex Bregman to a five-year, $175 million contract. Barnes is invigorated by the prospect of joining an organization that's hungry to win.

"It shows they're trying to win, which is all you can ask for," the lefty said. "My goal is to get myself right in the mix at the Big League where I can help the team win. I think they're doing a great job. They want to win, and I think that's going to be fun to be a part of."

He also knows that their stacked lineup of arms doesn't leave a ton of space for him at the Major League level. He's not focused on a roster spot heading into spring training; he just wants to pitch well. Everything else will fall into place.

"My expectations are just go pitch well; I can't control what happens in terms of where I end up," Barnes said. "Most likely, I'll start in Iowa in Triple-A, I know that, but at the end of the day, the biggest thing for me is to just go pitch well. You never know between injuries and the World Baseball Classic is this year and the Cubs have a few players pitching in that, so you never know what could happen. My job is to just go pitch and get people out; whatever happens after that happens."