The Cubs announced today that they have selected the contract of catcher Christian Bethancourt. He’ll take the roster spot of fellow backstop Tomás Nido, who has been placed on the 10-day injured list with a right knee sprain, retroactive to July 25. To open a 40-man roster spot, right-hander Ben Brown was transferred to the 60-day injured list.
Bethancourt, 32, began the year with the Marlins but struggled significantly with that club. He hit .159/.198/.268 through 88 plate appearances and was released by the end of June. The Cubs had just two catchers on their 40-man roster in Nido and Miguel Amaya, so they brought Bethancourt over on a minor league deal.
He hasn’t done much to inspire hope that he’s put his offensive woes behind him since then. In seven Triple-A games since signing that pact, he has a line of .192/.222/.192. That’s a tiny sample size but the combination of that with his work with the Marlins earlier this year is fairly bleak.
The Cubs will seemingly be hoping for a bounceback. As recently as 2022, Bethancourt hit .252/.283/.409 in the majors for a wRC+ of 100. But he slipped to .225/.254/.381 and a wRC+ of 74 last year and, as mentioned, has been awful this season.
Even if he doesn’t hit, Bethancourt is fairly well regarded for his work in controlling the running game, though his framing metrics aren’t that strong. The move will at least come with a minimal cost, as the Marlins are on the hook for the majority of his $2.05MM salary, with the Cubs only having to cover the prorated version of the league minimum salary for any time spent on the roster. That will be subtracted from what the Fish pay.
As for Brown, he landed on the 15-day injured list June 9. His ailment was initially listed as a neck strain though it was later reported to actually be a stress reaction in his neck. He’s now ineligible to return until 60 days from that initial IL placement, which would be early August. He has yet to begin a rehab assignment and will presumably need at least a week or two to ramp up whenever he’s cleared to do so. Taking that into consideration, this may not indicate any kind of setback in his recovery.
Another negative WAR catcher! Yeeeeee!
I predict he will perform poorly and be released.
Just like everything Hoyer does…..why?
Signing Shota deserves a why?
It does if the moron decides to trade him and eat money it does. But then that’s Hoyers big thing. Stupid.
Easy mike. No where have we seen where Hoyer suggests trading Shota.
Of course we do have among us, a baseball savant who suggests trading Steele and Taillon. Now that’s what I’d call deeeep thinking – lol.
Trading both of them, and then having to replace probably both, with older, higher salaried arms. Brilliant!!
I don’t want to trade any of them so it definitely isn’t me. LOL
I suggesting trading one or the other if it landed us a true impact bat and then replacing him with a free agent signing… “this is chess not checkers…” your simple mind can’t figure it out so make jokes. That’s what stupid people do.
Jed’s like the Dollar Tree shopper that once or twice a year goes to Target and considers that a shopping spree.
Will fit in well with those numbers. At least it lets Amaya play every day for awhile
Why not just call up Moises Ballesteros?
To DH fine. To Catch? Don’t make me laugh.
Superstar, he’s only 20 years old. No need to start his clock this year. The Cubs problems run deeper.
That too Plus he can’t catch. He’s horrible with not much of a future at C. But I just know the Cubs will keep trying to pound that square peg into the round hole.,
I don’t mean this to start a fight or anything but do you love the Cubs that much or hate them that much? lol. I see you post on nearly every Chicago story, and have a lot of good points, but good god do you seem to hate those teams. Is it more of a love the team, hate the management? I can understand that if so.
I’m a Cubs and Sox fan. the Sox are what the Cubs were 5 years ago starting over so not much to root for there yet. As far as the Cubs go the decision making is totally suspect. They do one good thing then 4 dumb things. They finally get another good farm system ( Good), Then sign a bunch of FA’s to block them. Some good, Most bad. Now they’re talking about competing next year and thinking about trading the good moves they made( Tallion and Imanaga) While paying them to play somewhere else for more prospects they can block later? Does that make any sense to you? They hand out NMC’s like Cotton candy and give all the power to the players for no reason( Bellinger) after his market had all but evaporated. All while obviously with a directive to stay under the Tax. This could be a good team, Even great with someone with a plan at the helm. They have everything they need, Money, Fan support, they can be very good with a decent GM. I don’t know who is really running this but I’m pretty sure it’s Hoyer because I think Hawkins has all the power of an expended AAA battery. So call it what you want, Frustration? Delusion? Faith? I’m a fan but I tell the truth the way I see it and it bothers a lot of the Cub fan sheep. I’m not one of them.
While I agree there’s not much to root for, the Cubs 5 years ago are not where the Sox are now. No team is like the Sox this year. The way they’re “playing,” they’ll probably beat the ’03 Tigers record.
I don’t get the need to save money on the Cubs part. They own half of the surrounding real estate making money hand over fist and that’s not even counting the Marquee revenue that will start to show for them soon.
So you’d be cool going to your boss and saying look I took the 237 million you gave me for salaries and made some horrible mistakes. Now I’m going to sell some of those assets but we’re going to have to keep paying some of the money for the next 2 years. Then I’m going to go out and buy some more assets that will cost you 1 1/2 times what I pay for them so that’s not a problem right? You wanna guess what should happen to you? Spare me.
Definitely not what I mean. It’s the BS they spout about not being able to spend money. And then when they get the permission to, they don’t spend it wisely. I don’t mind the Shota or Suzuki contracts, but the Barnhart or Homer or Mancini…. bad budget moves.
You’re right. The problem isn’t the money. It’s the way it’s spent. Please stop saying Ricketts is cheap if that’s what your implying. I’m quite sure if it meant a winning team for a playoff run he’d go by the tax. But this year surely isn’t it as I watch Hendricks get battered again, That was a great use of 16 million wasn’t it? No matter who’s idea it was. That money would have gotten a pretty good closer and maybe 10 more wins. What have they blown like 18 leads? Give Ricketts a logical reason to spend and he probably will. I’m actually curious to see if he figures out the problem this year and addresses it himself. If there’s a year t0 cut bait on the FO this is it. If Ricketts gives Hoyer one more year( signed through 2025), Expect more of the same this off season. The big prize this off season is Sasaki, So I would highly recommend that Hoyer keep Imanaga and Suzuki to even be a player in that game.
Unc, you are WAY too worked up about this. Why is this so important to you? It’s baseball. It’s fun.
Clocks can stop. Starting it should never be an issue.