The Cubs are re-signing reliever Yency Almonte to a minor league deal, reports Jesse Rogers of ESPN. Chicago outrighted him off their 40-man roster at the end of last season.
Almonte, 30, landed with the Cubs as a secondary piece of last winter’s Michael Busch trade. He stepped into Craig Counsell’s middle relief group and made 17 appearances. Almonte surrendered seven runs (six earned) across 15 2/3 innings. He fanned 20 opponents and issued eight walks. That all came before the second week of May. The righty sustained a shoulder strain and underwent season-ending surgery in July.
Rogers suggests that Almonte is healthy now. There’s little downside for the Cubs in giving him another look as a non-roster player. Almonte has 223 major league innings under his belt. He owns a 4.44 earned run average with a decent 22.5% strikeout percentage and a 9.9% walk rate. His fastball has sat in the 95-96 MPH range at its best. It was down a tick in the early going last year.
Almonte has over five years of major league service. If the Cubs call him up at any point, they couldn’t send him back to the minors without his consent. The Cubs have limited roster flexibility in their bullpen. They have six relievers who cannot be sent down by virtue of their out-of-options status or service time: Ryan Pressly, Ryan Brasier, Tyson Miller, Caleb Thielbar, Keegan Thompson and Julian Merryweather.
If Colin Rea doesn’t get the fifth starter job out of camp, he’d add a seventh reliever without options. Porter Hodge is locked into a late-game role, while Nate Pearson and Eli Morgan should be in the mix. Almonte joins Trevor Richards, Phil Bickford, Brandon Hughes and Ben Heller among minor league signees who have MLB experience.
Any relation to the late great Danny Almonte?
Yes, they are related. And Danny isn’t dead.
So basically Jed has put together a club with no proven reliable option at third base and a whole bunch of flotsam and jetsam in the bullpen.
Yes, basically. But a greater problem is how mediocre and thin the rotation is. And another problem is that Tucker is not the lineup-transforming presence that Cubs propogandists are saying he is. He is about as good as Bellinger, who he is replacing. It is going to be a long year, and that will be obvious just a few weeks in, with the bizarre and punishing early-season schedule they face.
“He is about as good as Bellinger”
Ok so now we know you aren’t serious
I’m serious–but, hopefully, wrong. I hope I turn out to be as stupid about this as you think I am. But I’ve spent a lot of time at Minute Maid Park, or whatever it is called now, and I saw him play there–and let me tell you, not just to left field but to all fields, that place inflates hitters’ averages, and reputations. We’ll see what happens.
Have you been to every other ballpark in the league to witness how they inflate stats as well? I ask only because Tucker’s career home/road splits are nearly identical (slightly better on the road, in fact).
Tucker is ranked as a top 7-8 player in all of MLB, let the man play 30-45 games with the Cubs before u start hollering that the sky is falling
Which is why i pick them 3rd behind tithe reds and brewers. They haven’t done nearly enough except to add fringe players except for a tucker in which offset somewhat with loss of bellinger.
The Cubs aren’t just signing depth—they’re manipulating MLB’s roster rules to extend their control over as many relievers as possible without exposing assets to waivers. This is a calculated hedge against bullpen attrition that ensures they don’t run out of arms midseason.
I’m going to start calling the Cubs the manipulators.
Ben Brown has awesome bullpen stuff maybe one of the best in the league if he was told thats his future with Hodge as 7/8 innings guyz.this might be the team strongest part of the staff
The problem isn’t that the rotation or bullpen isn’t deep, With Hoyer it’s always quantity and trying to catch lightning in a bottle. Ricketts has always let them spend up to to the Tax, He knows what his budget is every year. Does he plan accordingly? No never. With 241 million to spend you can have 3 or even 4 35 million dollar players. Elite talent. Does he do that? No, The Cubs had Nico Hoerner playing SS. Very Solid. Not to mention he has about 10 SS’s in the system if he wants to move Hoerner to 2nd. What does Jed do? Signs a SS to a long term contract clogging up 27 million a year until 2030. Does that make sense to anybody? Every time he’s had a good young player about ready to hit MLB he signs an expensive FA to put in front of him. The payroll isn’t the problem. The Cubs had Brown, Wicks, Horton and Birdsell MLB ready. What does Jed do? Goes out and signs a guy for 30 million bucks for 2 years to put in front of them and who is always injured. Not only that he needed a Closer. Instead of getting the best he chases a guy who is old and fading away instead of again, Getting quality. Then he signs a bunch of guys who are no better than the guys they already have and have no options pigeon holing them into a corner. It’s not a question of money. It’s a question of spending it like an idiot.
It’s really under $200 million for 15 players (and I’m including Tucker here) to spend when benefits, minimum and arbitration salaries are figured in. So, you’d have about $95 million left to spend on 12 players if you spent $35 million on the top three.
Jed’s done pretty well so far with most of the big contracts left on the payroll– Happ, Hoerner, Shota, Swanson — with Taillon and Suzuki on the fence.
As for minimum salary players who would have to make the team out of spring training that I’d be happy to see on the Opening Day roster, I’d include just Shaw and Brown.
NL Central will be the black and blue division. Cubs nation buckle up enjoy the ride.