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Cubs Designate Mark Leiter Jr. For Assignment

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The Cubs announced Friday that right-hander Mark Leiter Jr. has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to first baseman Eric Hosmer, whose one-year contract is now official.

Leiter, 32 in March, was drafted by the Phillies in 2013 and made his way up to the majors by 2017. He got into 47 games over the 2017 and 2018 seasons, mostly with Philly but also a brief stint with the Blue Jays after a waiver claim. He posted a 5.53 ERA over that two-year stretch with a subpar 20.5% strikeout rate but a strong 48.2% ground ball rate.

He was outrighted off the Jays’ roster and then required Tommy John surgery in the spring of 2019, which put him on the shelf for a while. He pitched well in the minor leagues of the Tigers’ system in 2021 but didn’t get called up to the big leagues. A minor league deal with the Cubs allowed him to return to the majors last season. He spent the year being shuttled to Triple-A and back, posting a solid 3.99 ERA over 67 2/3 innings with the Cubs, striking out 25.9% of batters faced, walking 8.9% of them and getting grounders on 48.9% of balls in play.

Despite those solid results last year, there are reasons the Cubs are moving on. Leiter’s earned runs were likely kept down somewhat by a .251 batting average on balls in play, almost 40 points below league average. He’s also now out of options, giving him less value from a roster maneuverability perspective. However, if some club is intrigued enough to give Leiter a roster spot, he’ll come with some cheap control since he has just over two years of MLB service time.

Cubs, Vinny Nittoli Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs and free agent right-hander Vinny Nittoli are in agreement on a minor league deal with an invite to big league Spring Training, tweets USA Today’s Bob Nightengale. The Gaeta Sports Management client would earn a $775K salary in the big leagues. The Phillies designated Nittoli for assignment last week and released him a couple days ago, but he’ll only have a brief stay on the free-agent market.

The 32-year-old Nittoli made his big league debut in 2021 when he tossed an inning for the Mariners, capping off an eight-year grind to the big leagues. The former 25th-rounder spent the 2022 season with three different organizations, logging time with the Triple-A affiliates for the Yankees, Blue Jays and Phillies. He reached the Majors with Philadelphia in September, tossing a pair of scoreless innings out of their bullpen in the season’s final month.

In 52 innings between those three Triple-A clubs, Nittoli turned in a 3.81 ERA with a stout 30.8% strikeout rate and a similarly impressive 6.7% walk rate. He’s not a flamethrower, as his average 93 mph heater in the big leagues has been about a half mile per hour slower than the leaguewide average. That said, Nittoli still has plus strikeout and walk rates throughout his minor league career, including parts of three Triple-A seasons. He also has a minor league option year remaining, so if the Cubs select him to the 40-man roster at any point, he can be shuttled between Iowa and Chicago in 2023 without needing to first clear waivers.

The Cubs have had a quiet offseason on the bullpen front, which is line with recent trends for them. The front office has generally eschewed large-scale, costly additions since the ill-fated signing of Craig Kimbrel. Thus far, Chicago’s lone big league addition has been a one-year, $2.8MM deal for veteran Brad Boxberger. Nittoli, meanwhile, will join a growing list of non-roster invitees hoping to win a spot in a generally inexperienced Cubs ’pen; Chicago has also added right-hander Nick Neidert and southpaws Ryan Borucki, Roenis Elias and Eric Stout on non-roster deals this winter.

P.J. Higgins Elects Free Agency

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Catcher P.J. Higgins has rejected an outright assignment from the Cubs in favor of free agency, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post (Twitter link). Chicago designated Higgins for assignment in late December in order to open a spot on the roster for newly signed Tucker Barnhart, and Higgins cleared outright waivers last week. It was the second time in his career he’d gone unclaimed and been assigned outright to a minor league affiliate, however, which granted him the right to reject that assignment and explore his opportunities elsewhere.

Higgins, 29, appeared in 74 games for the Cubs in 2022, batting .229/.310/.383 with six homers, 11 doubles and a triple in 229 plate appearances. He walked at a 9.6% clip and punched out in 25.3% of those trips to the plate. That marked just the second season in which Higgins has had big league experience, with the 2021 season — when he appeared in just nine games — standing as the only other.

A 12th-round pick out of Old Dominion back in 2015, Higgins has been a generally productive hitter in the minors but has never received a particularly long big league look with the Cubs — due in no small part to the presence of Willson Contreras in the Majors for the entirety of his pro career to this point. Higgins has torn through Triple-A pitching at a .338/.429/.535 pace, though that’s come through just 274 plate appearances in a generally hitter-friendly setting. Overall, he’s a career .279/.365/.378 hitter in parts of seven minor league seasons.

Higgins was touted as an average or better defensive catcher back when Baseball America ranked him 22nd among Cubs farmhands in 2017, but he had some struggles in the Majors this past season. Higgins threw out just 16% of runners who attempted to steal against him — well below the league-average 24% — and he ranked near the bottom of the league with his average “pop time” in such situations, per Statcast. Both FanGraphs and Statcast pegged him as a below-average framer, as well, and Defensive Runs Saved dinged him at -6 for his work behind the plate in 2022.

That said, there’s more to Higgins’ defensive skill set than just his work behind the plate. He was an infielder at Old Dominion and in his first season of pro ball, and the Cubs have continued to get him work at other positions throughout his career. Catcher has remained his primary position since 2016, but Higgins has a total of 732 innings at first base, 575 innings at third base and even 93 innings at second and 37 innings at shortstop. He’s unlikely to be viewed as a regular option at any of those infield slots, of course, but it’s a nice bit of versatility to be able to market to other clubs as Higgins looks for a new opportunity as a minor league free agent for the first time in his career.

Pitching Notes: Hendricks, Heuer, King

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The Cubs are hoping to be able to have veteran starting pitcher Kyle Hendricks ready for opening day, but it seems the team won’t be rushing him back, according to a report from Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times. Hendricks ended the season on the injured list rehabbing a capsular tear in his shoulder that limited him to just 84 innings in 2022.

Per reports at the end of October, Hendricks was a bit behind in his throwing schedule, having hoped to start playing catch by the end of the 2022 season. Instead, that target was shifted to November.

Pitching coach Tommy Hottovy provided an update to Lee, saying Hendricks is on a regimented throwing program and is playing catch off flat ground. Obviously there’s still a fair bit of rehab to go between that and pitching in baseball games, but it seems the Cubs are still hopeful he can be a part of the opening day roster.

“I’m so overly focused on getting Kyle back to being the best version of himself and not rushing it, not pushing it. We all know what Kyle can do when he feels great, when he’s healthy, when he’s locked in,” Hottovy told Lee.

The 16 starts Hendricks made in 2022 was the fewest he’d made in a season since 2014 (excluding the 2020 campaign). While his output has dropped back a bit in recent years, he’s still been a valuable starter over the past few seasons for Chicago, working to a 4.78 ERA over 265 1/3 innings over 2021-22.

The Cubs currently have him penciled into a rotation that also features veterans Marcus Stroman, Jameson Taillon and Drew Smyly. Left-hander Justin Steele took a step forward in 2022 and looks set to be the fifth option in that group. That makes for a solid five-man rotation, yet the Cubs have some good options should Hendricks not be ready for the season as well. Adrian Sampson had some success in 19 starts last season, and could get a look, while Keegan Thompson, Hayden Wesneski and Javier Assad are all young options who’ve done well in their brief time in the majors.

In the bullpen, the Cubs are counting on the return of Codi Heuer at some stage. Heuer had Tommy John surgery in spring training last year, but Lee’s reports he remains on track for a return to the mound sometime in late-June or early-July. After coming over to the Cubs in a cross-town trade with the White Sox that included Nick Madrigal and Craig Kimbrel, Heuer tossed 28 2/3 innings of 3.14 ERA ball in relief. He doesn’t get many strikeouts, but induces a lot of soft contact and with a strong Cubs defense behind him could do well. Heuer is projected for a modest raise to $800K through his first year of arbitration (courtesy of Matt Swartz’ projections) and is under team control for another three seasons.

Sticking with injured relievers, the Yankees bullpen was dealt a significant blow when Michael King went down with a fractured elbow. King had tossed 51 innings of 2.29 ERA ball, and had blossomed into a dominant multi-inning reliever for the Yankees. Chris Kirscher of The Athletic reports that King may not be ready for opening day, calling it a “tad optimistic” to think he’ll be up to speed for the first game of the season. In any event, Kirschner adds that King has begun his throwing program and is “progressing well”, so there doesn’t seem to be much concern that King is at risk of any major setback in his recovery.

Bill Campbell Passes Away

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Longtime major league reliever Bill Campbell passed away today after a battle with cancer, according to multiple reports. He was 74 years old.

A native of Highland Park, Michigan, Campbell began his professional baseball career with the Twins after a military stint in Vietnam. The war delayed his entry into pro ball until he was 22 years old, but the 6’3″ righty reached the majors within two seasons. A starting pitcher in the minors, Campbell broke into the big leagues as a reliever with Minnesota during the 1973 season. He threw 51 2/3 innings through 28 appearances as a rookie, posting a 3.14 ERA.

That kicked off a stretch in which Campbell was one of the sport’s better late-game weapons. Part of an era in which there were a number of multi-inning “fireman” relievers, Campbell served as a bullpen workhorse. He topped 120 frames in each season from 1974-76, allowing fewer than four earned runs per nine innings in all three years. During the ’76 campaign, Campbell led all big leaguers with 68 games finished and put up a 3.01 ERA over 167 2/3 innings out of the bullpen.

For his efforts, Campbell earned a seventh-place finish in AL Cy Young balloting and an eighth-place tally in MVP voting. That marked an excellent platform showing before he qualified for free agency. He signed with the Red Sox that offseason and had another great year during his first season in Boston. Campbell put up a 2.96 ERA across 140 innings, pacing the American League with 31 saves. He earned an All-Star nod and finished fifth in Cy Young voting and 10th in MVP balloting.

That was Campbell’s last elite season, as he was limited to fewer than 55 innings in each of the next four years with Boston. Campbell signed with the Cubs upon qualifying for free agency during the 1981-82 offseason. He’d top 100 frames again in his two seasons in Chicago, posting a 3.69 ERA during his first year. The Cubs traded him to the Phillies, where he pitched to a 3.43 ERA through 81 1/3 innings in 1984. He’d change teams each year for the rest of his career, following up with successive one-year stops as a Cardinal, Tiger and Expo. The ’85 campaign afforded Campbell his only opportunity to pitch in the postseason, as he tossed 6 1/3 innings of one-run ball for the National League champions.

Campbell appeared in all 15 major league seasons from 1973-87. He played for seven different clubs, particularly thriving during his early work with the Twins and Red Sox. Campbell was named the American League’s reliever of the year in both seasons in which he secured Cy Young and MVP votes. At career’s end, he owned a 3.54 ERA in 1229 1/3 innings over exactly 700 big league appearances. Campbell struck out 864 hitters, won 83 games and finished off 455 outings with 126 saves.

After his playing career concluded, Campbell had coaching stints in the Brewers and Red Sox organizations. MLBTR sends our condolences to Campbell’s family, friends, loved ones and former teammates.

Cubs Release Alfonso Rivas, Outright P.J. Higgins

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A pair of players recently designated for assignment by the Cubs have gone unclaimed on waivers. The team informed reporters (including Meghan Montemurro of the Chicago Tribune) that first baseman Alfonso Rivas and catcher P.J. Higgins each cleared.

Rivas had been placed on unconditional release waivers. He’s now officially a free agent. Designated for assignment on December 23 when the Cubs claimed Anthony Kay off waivers, Rivas will now head out in search of new opportunities. He spent three years with Chicago after being acquired from the A’s for Tony Kemp heading into the 2020 campaign. The left-handed hitter split the past two seasons between Chicago and Triple-A Iowa. He spent the majority of the 2021 season in Iowa, hitting .284/.405/.411 through 237 trips to the plate.

That earned the University of Arizona product an 18-game MLB look later that season. Rivas hit well in that brief audition but only managed .235/.322/.307 line with three home runs over 287 plate appearances last season. He walked at a robust 10.1% clip but didn’t hit for much power and struck out in more than 30% of his trips to the plate. Defensive Runs Saved credited Rivas with plus glovework at first base, but he doesn’t offer much defensive flexibility.

Higgins was placed on outright waivers and has initially been assigned to Iowa. It’s the second outright of his career, though, giving him the right to refuse the assignment and test minor league free agency. The Cubs haven’t announced whether he’ll do so.

A product of Old Dominion, Higgins has appeared in the majors in each of the last two seasons. He only logged brief time in 2021 before suffering an injury that required Tommy John surgery. Higgins returned to the organization last year and appeared in almost half the team’s games. He hit .229/.310/.383 in 229 trips to the plate, decent production for a catcher. The 29-year-old didn’t rate well behind the plate in the eyes of public metrics, though. Those defensive concerns squeezed him off the roster when the Cubs signed Tucker Barnhart to share time with Yan Gomes and apparently dissuaded the remainder of the league from putting in a waiver claim.

Cubs Sign Dom Nuñez To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs have signed catcher Dom Nuñez to a minor league deal, according to his transactions tracker at MLB.com. MLBTR has confirmed the pact and that the backstop will receive an invite to major league Spring Training.

Nuñez, who turns 28 this month, has spent the vast majority of his career with the Rockies. They selected him in the sixth round of the 2013 draft and he worked his way up to the majors to make his debut in 2019. Nuñez is generally considered a solid defender but hasn’t provided too much at the plate. He’s played in 111 MLB games over the past four years, striking out in 34% of his plate appearances but walking at a solid 12.4% clip. His career batting line currently sits at .180/.280/.373.

The only portion of his career that wasn’t spent with the Rockies was very brief. The Giants claimed him off waivers November 9 of 2022, only to designate him for assignment and non-tender him one week later. He elected free agency and will now jump to the Cubs’ organization.

The Cubs currently have three catchers on their 40-man roster, with Tucker Barnhart and Yan Gomes slated to the share the catching role on the big league roster. Prospect Miguel Amaya is also on the roster but he underwent Tommy John surgery in 2021. He returned to action last year but was limited to just 40 minor league games and has yet to reach Triple-A. Nuñez will give the club an experienced depth option to be called upon if an injury creates a need at the big league level.

Cubs In Agreement With Eric Hosmer

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January 4: Hosmer and the Cubs are now in agreement, per Jesse Rogers of ESPN.

January 3: The Cubs and first baseman Eric Hosmer are close to a deal, reports Jon Heyman of The New York Post.

Hosmer, 33, had the good fortune of having the best season of his career just as he entered free agency. He hit .318/.385/.498 in 2017, his last season with the Royals, leading to a wRC+ of 135 that indicates he was 35% better than the league average hitter. He was worth 3.8 wins above replacement that year in the eyes of FanGraphs, with that mark and his wRC+ from that season still standing out as his career best.

Prior to the 2018 season, Hosmer signed an eight-year, $144MM deal with the Padres that went beyond most predictions. That overpay became even more stark once Hosmer’s production dipped with his new team. Since signing that deal, he’s hit .265/.325/.409 for a wRC+ of 100, exactly league average. Though he has four Gold Glove awards, advanced defensive metrics are far less enamoured with his work in the field. All of Defensive Runs Saved, Ultimate Zone Rating and Outs Above Average consider him to be a below-average first baseman for his career. Taken all together, he’s essentially been a replacement-level player over the past five seasons, with his fWAR tally at 0.3 in that time.

Given his large contract and diminished performance, Hosmer’s name has popped up in trade talks for years. The Padres weren’t able to line anything up until this summer. They originally included Hoz in the Juan Soto deal but he used his limited no-trade clause to block that from happening. Luke Voit was put into that deal instead but the Friars then flipped him to Boston along with a couple of prospects, with pitching prospect Jay Groome going the other way. San Diego had to agree to eat all of Hosmer’s remaining salary except for the league minimum in order to get that done.

The Sox promoted young prospect Triston Casas down the stretch and were encouraged enough by his debut to release Hosmer after just a couple of months in Fenway. That left Hosmer free to sign with any team for the league minimum, with the Padres still on the hook for the three remaining years of the deal. The Cubs have seemingly stepped up to be that team. The fit is a fairly logical one for the Cubs, since there’s no real risk for them. If he can make any sort of turnaround towards his previous form, it would be a nice bonus. If not, they’ve made no commitment to him and can simply release him again whenever they want.

The Cubs had no real everyday first baseman in 2022, with the playing time scattered between Alfonso Rivas, Frank Schwindel, P.J. Higgins, Patrick Wisdom and some other role players. Aside from Wisdom, who can also play third base, they all had disappointing years and are no longer on the team’s roster. Higgins and Rivas were both designated for assignment last month while Schwindel is heading to Japan this year.

Arguably, the best in-house option the club has is prospect Matt Mervis. An undrafted free agent who had drawn little attention this time a year ago, he shot up prospect rankings with a monster showing in 2022. He began the season in High-A and completely mashed, producing a batting line of .350/.389/.650, wRC+ of 189. He got bumped to Double-A and hit .300/.370/.596 for a wRC+ of 148. After moving to Triple-A, his line was .297/.383/.593, 152 wRC+. Incredibly, his walk rate improved from 4.6% to 8.7% to 10.4% as he moved up the ladder, while his strikeout rate fell from 24.1% to 20% to 14.6%. The Cubs decided to keep the good times rolling by sending him to the Arizona Fall League, where he hit .262/.324/.590 in 17 games.

Though Hosmer’s addition blocks Mervis from the everyday job in a sense, it also shouldn’t prevent Mervis from seizing it at some point. As mentioned, Hosmer can be jettisoned at any time with no real repercussions for the Cubs. If Mervis seems like the better option, either in Spring Training or later, it should be a fairly easy swap to make. If Mervis struggles to carry forward the momentum from his excellent 2022, Hosmer gives the club a passable veteran to hold down the fort.

The Orioles were also connected to Hosmer since his release from Boston, but they will have to look elsewhere, assuming the deal with the Cubs gets finalized. The O’s have been looking for lefty bats to work into their first base/corner outfield/designated hitter mix and seem to be focused on low-cost options. They’ve signed Nomar Mazara and Franchy Cordero to minor league deals and also claimed Lewin Díaz off waivers, though they later designated Díaz for assignment and traded him to the Braves. A similar situation played out with Jake Cave, who was claimed off waivers from the Twins but then lost to the Phillies on a subsequent waiver claim. Earlier today, the O’s acquired Ryan O’Hearn from the Royals, adding another option into the mix.

Cubs To Sign Ryan Borucki To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs and left-hander Ryan Borucki are in agreement on a minor league deal, reports Robert Murray of FanSided. The southpaw will presumably receive an invitation to major league Spring Training, though no formal announcement has been made.

Borucki, 29 in March, was drafted by the Blue Jays and had an encouraging rookie season with them in 2018. Working as a starter at that time, Borucki posted a 3.87 ERA over 17 starts. Unfortunately, elbow injuries limited him to just a pair of starts in 2019 and the Jays converted him to a reliever after that.

Since moving to the bullpen, the results have been mixed. He posted an ERA of 2.70 in 2020 but that jumped up to 4.94 and 5.68 in the following two seasons. As those ERAs have climbed, he’s struck out fewer hitters, though his command has improved. His strikeout rate went from 28.8 percent in 2020, down to 21.4 and 18.9 percent after that, while his walk rate went from 16.4 to 11.2 to 9.9 percent. Home runs have also suddenly become an issue, as he had allowed 10 long balls in 121 career innings by the end of 2020 but has allowed 11 homers in just 49 innings over the past two years.

Borucki is out of options and can no longer be sent to the minors. In 2022, the Jays designated him for assignment and flipped him to the Mariners, who outrighted him at season’s end. Despite the rough season, there are things to like about Borucki. He’s held lefties to a meager .204/.286/.289 batting line in his career and a .184/.286/.245 line last year. The Cubs don’t have a ton of lefties lined up to be in their bullpen, with Brandon Hughes and Anthony Kay the only options on the 40-man who don’t project to be in the rotation. If Borucki can make it onto the club’s roster, he won’t be able to reach six years of MLB service time this year and could be retained for 2024 via arbitration, if the Cubs so choose.

Cubs, Brad Wieck Agree To Minor League Deal

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The Cubs are in agreement on a two-year minor league contract with lefty Brad Wieck, reports Robert Murray of FanSided.  The two-year term of the deal is due to the fact that the southpaw is expected to miss most — if not all — of the 2023 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in July. Wieck is represented by CAA.

The 31-year-old Wieck has spent the past four seasons with the Cubs, pitching well when healthy but spending the bulk of his time on the injured list. The Cubs removed him from the 40-man roster by passing him through outright waivers after the season, and as a player with three-plus years of big league service time, that afforded Wieck the right to become a free agent.

In addition to the elbow strain that led to this past summer’s Tommy John surgery, Wieck also missed nearly all of the shortened 2020 season due to a hamstring tear. He’s also undergone a paid of cardiac ablation procedures to address an irregular heartbeat — once in early 2020 and a second time in July 2021. He hasn’t pitched in the Majors since that ’21 procedure, though that’s due largely to the elbow troubles that popped up in 2022.

Though he’s struggled to stay on the field, Wieck remains a promising potential bullpen option, and the Cubs clearly aren’t keen on letting him get away. He’s tossed just 28 innings with the team but has pitched to a pristine 1.93 ERA while fanning a mammoth 42.1% of his opponents. Wieck’s 13.2% walk rate in that time speaks to some command issues, but the immense strikeout prowess is clearly tantalizing.

Wieck is something of a long shot to factor into Chicago’s bullpen mix in 2023, given that his surgery was performed in late July. He’ll remain with the team in 2024 if he’s not an option this year, though, at which point he’d presumably be invited to Major League Spring Training. Wieck won’t accrue service time in 2023 since he won’t be on the Major League injured list, but if he makes the roster in 2024, he’d be controllable for another three seasons via arbitration.

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