March 21: Brault’s deal has been reworked as a minor league contract with a non-roster invite to Spring Training and a July opt-out opportunity, tweets Bastian. The veteran lefty is now dealing with an “injury setback” of some type, per Bastian — hence the restructured deal. He’d earn at a $1.5MM rate in the big leagues and can tack on up to $400K worth of incentives.
March 16, 11:30am: Brault is signing a Major League contract with the Cubs, tweets Jordan Bastian of MLB.com.
10:44am: The Cubs are close to a deal with free-agent lefty Steven Brault, tweets Robert Murray of FanSided. The longtime Pirates southpaw became a free agent earlier this offseason when Pittsburgh cut him loose just prior to the non-tender deadline. Brault is represented by Warner Sports Management.
Brault, 30 in April, has tallied 70 1/3 innings for the Pirates since 2020. He was occasionally deployed as an opener in the shortened 2020 season, though he did close out that year by allowing only one earned run over 16 innings across two starts. In March of 2021, Brault suffered a lat strain, pushing his season debut to August 4. In seven starts, he completed five innings only twice, with his velocity down 1.4 miles per hour from the prior year. The lat strain re-occured on September 10, ending his season and six-year career with the Pirates.
Brault’s career high in innings in an MLB season is 113 1/3, back in 2019. In his big league career, he’s generally struggled with walks and hasn’t missed bats. Brault was a two-way player at Regis University, and was drafted by the Orioles in the 11th round in 2013 and traded to the Pirates two years later. The athletic lefty managed to hit .333 in 50 plate appearances back in 2019, and which point the suggestion arose that he could occasionally pitch in in the outfield. If Brault is healthy, there could still be a potential back-end starter in there for the Cubs. They badly need the depth, especially with Adbert Alzolay starting the season on the IL.
Ew. He’s hardly a depth piece.
So now the Cubs are taking Bucs cast-offs? “Spending intelligently” alright…
As always, we await developments.
Ahahahaha!
We can always depend on you. But where has Mr lol been lately?
Bright side, he’s a bullpen option
Correction: Bucs and Orioles castoff
I’m so confused with the cubs right now. Are they contending? Because that rotation and bullpen doesn’t say so, and then they get Suzuki and are linked to Correa? Must be an identify problem right now
Rotation isn’t all bad assuming Hendricks can keep the ball in the park. Miley and Stroman and Mills are decent enough and Steele showed some good stuff. The bullpen is pretty bad though as it stands.
Maybe you’re underestimating the players already on the roster.
I think they are being opportunistic. They might not be good this year but I expect them to be good in 2023.
Most winnable division in baseball
I think that title belongs to the NL East.
Cards pirates reds and brewers aren’t works beaters . Won’t take much for Cubs to battle for best of the division.
I think you under estimate the Cardinals and Brewers. Stay strong Cubbies fans!
Good sign……he’ll pitch a bit until he’s hurt again. Then he can sing the Anthem before the game.
As long as Julianna Zobrist never sings it again, Brault can sing it as often as he wants even if he has a 7.00 ERA.
Get Ditka to sing it. He was amazing singing “Take Me Out to the Ballgame.”.
I’m still torn on whether he was worse than Osborne.
He’s awful lol
Welp, I wasn’t expecting this after Seiya. Lol
Less risky than signing a Japanese player
Interesting comment; considering the most exciting and arguably best player in the league right now came from Japan.
That doesn’t make this one less of a risk. That’s like saying, “Well, Acuna, when healthy, is one of the league’s best players and he came up through the minors; thus, minor leaguers are safe bets.” A few Japanese players have had good success, but a number of others have been mediocre. $90M+ is a lot of money if he’s just ok.
Most larger contracts are given to just ok players. They rarely if ever pan out even with proven MLB players. That’s why we spend more time than anything complaining about the Heyward, Hosmer, Myers, Price, Lindor, and the list goes on forever contracts. All the value is in the guys making 3mil or so a year.
And yes, if some other player came through the minors with similar numbers and scouting reports as Acuna; I’d call him a pretty “safe bet.”
When you are a big market team, you should be able to take high risk-high reward contracts.
He would have one good start here and then get shelled in the next two. Very difficult to keep using the word “promising” when it’s been going on years.
He drove me absolutely bonkers.. He seemingly never could make it past the 5th inning. He would sometimes treat the strike zone as if it was radioactive. And like you said, he would have a start which would make you think “Wow”, and then for the rest of the month you would wonder why he was in the majors.
Yep, he’s the lefty version of Vince Velazquez for sure. Consistency eludes him no matter what he tries.
Brault is adequate. My guess Brault and Mills kind of fill out the 5th/6th starter role. Not great but the Cubs have absolutely nothing in the high minors.
Plus, he probably can hit about as well as half the Cubs bench anyways.
Yea … but heyward is not a bench player to sooooo …
Heyward will be a bench player after the Suzuki signing.
He is now.
Maybe you haven’t been keeping up, but Kilian is in the upper minors. He could definitely be a factor this year.
Absolutely nothing in high minors? Killian is expected to make the staff before long and Marquez is ready if healthy.
I don’t think it’ll be a major league deal
It is. I’m guessing Alzolay to the 60 day IL.
Then it has to be for a bullpen spot…. I’d like to think the Cubs can do better than Brault for the rotation.
As always, we await developments.
Alzolay is expected to miss 2 months.
Now*
If it’s a minor league deal, or a two-way deal where he agrees to be optioned, then fine. They are going to need arms in April to pitch in blowouts, and there are going to be a few DH where they will need an extra pitcher.
The Cubs have just clinched a playoff spot with this signing.
The guy can hit…too bad DH happening now in the NL. Brault is also one helluva singer…saw him perform at Heinz Hall
He should’ve stuck with singing… cuz he’s not a helluva pitcher
Just a depth signing. A guy who is also not far removed from an ERA in the 3’s during the shortened season. Team needs to eat innings this year. Not much to see here…
In the last 3 years Brault has made more appearances singing the anthem than pitching on the mound. So long, dude frickin stunk, and that’s saying a lot as a Pirates fan, all our players suck.
This is a uneducated comment. Obviously you have a huge love interest with nutting and blame the lack of spending for being in their position right now. I guess you just like looking out the small window instead of the big bay window. You will jump back on the wagon in a few years anyways.
Cubs are totally positioning themselves to win the Super Bowl.
I always thought that he was better than he showed but he always lacked consistency.Then I thought that this would be the year but he would get hurt.His forte was actually hitting.I believe that he holds the Pirates all time record for at bats before striking out.I wish him luck in Chicago, and this will probably be the year that he finally peaks.
Not a bad guy to have kinda like a 27th player. Lefty PH and three man relief role when needed.
Brault was great in 2020. He was healthy and nearly threw two shutouts to close out the season against playoff bound teams. If he’s right he’ll be pretty decent. That’s a big if though.
Glad Brault was able to escape the Pirates. He deserves a chance with a major league organization.
The Cubs are going to have the oldest average aged AAA in all of baseball….I hope a Mega Bus runs between Des Moines and Chicago for all the players moving back and forth this year.
If nothing else, the Cubs have a national anthem singer
Cool story, Brault.