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Central Notes: Happ, Merrifield, Cabrera

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With the Cubs currently sitting on a record of 27-44, speculation has naturally started building about players nearing free agency that could be moved at the August 2 trade deadline. One such player who will be coveted by rival teams is Ian Happ, though Happ doesn’t seem to be bothered by being the subject of rumors. “At some point, you get numb to it,” Happ tells Patrick Mooney of The Athletic. “Everybody’s been through it at certain points. It’s something that you just kind of get numb to and understand it’s part of the job.”

Happ’s case will be an interesting one to watch this year, as there are arguments for holding onto him as well as arguments for trading him. He’s slated to reach free agency after the 2023 season, making him a fairly logical trade candidate for a rebuilding team that isn’t likely to be competitive within that time frame. He’s also having the best season of his career, meaning the club might want to put him on the block while his value is at high tide. He’s hitting .288/.385/.475 on the year for a wRC+ of 138. Combined with solid outfield defense, he’s produced 2.2 fWAR on the year, which is already a career high, even with more than half the season still to be played.

However, the Cubs could also extend Happ and keep him around for the next competitive window. Happ seems open to that idea, saying “I’ve always been very clear, too, that I like playing here. This is a great place to play. I would love to be a part of competitive groups in years to come here.”

Some other notes from Central teams…

  • The Royals are 26-43 and will have to decide which of their players will be moved as part of their deadline strategy. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reports that a Whit Merrifield trade is being given more consideration than in previous years. Merrifield has been the subject of trade rumors for a long time, as the club has been mired in a years-long rebuild for essentially his entire big league career. The Royals went 81-81 in 2016, Merrifield’s debut season, but have been below .500 ever since. Despite that, the club has eschewed all trade overtures in past seasons. It would certainly come as a shock if the team were to suddenly change course and agree to a deal now, as Merrifield is having easily the worst season of his career. Through 69 games, he’s hitting .230/.277/.314 for a wRC+ of 66. To spurn offers for years and then suddenly relent when his value is at a low ebb would be a very surprising turn of events. Perhaps the club is concerned that the 33-year-old won’t be able to turn things around, though there’s time for him to do so. His contract runs through next year, with a club option for 2024.
  • The Cardinals announced that left-hander Genesis Cabrera is going on the injured list. No designation for his injury was given, implying that Cabrera has gone on the COVID-related IL. Righty Jake Woodford was recalled to take his place on the active roster. This is the second time COVID has hit the St. Louis bullpen in recent days, as T.J. McFarland also was sidelined earlier this week. Notably, both Cabrera and McFarland are southpaws, leaving the club short-handed on that side of their bullpen. There are two lefties now remaining, although Packy Naughton is more of a long relief option. That leaves Zack Thompson and his 14 2/3 innings of MLB experience as the club’s primary left-handed reliever. Cabrera has become a key asset for the club in recent years, notching 28 holds last year and 10 so far this year. He has a 2.27 ERA here in 2022, despite generating fewer strikeouts. His .193 BABIP and 93.1% strand rate are surely giving him an unsustainable boost, but he’s also lowered his walk rate to 9.3%. That’s still above league average, but much improved over his 12.1% career mark.

Cubs Designate Jonathan Villar For Assignment

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The Cubs announced Friday that they’ve designated infielder Jonathan Villar for assignment in order to clear a spot on the active and 40-man roster for fellow infielder David Bote, who has been reinstated from the 60-day injured list.

Villar, 31, signed a one-year, $6MM contract with the Cubs this winter on the heels of a solid showing with the Mets. The versatile switch-hitter produced a .249/.322/.416 batting line in Queens last year (105 wRC+) and carried a .259/.327/.408 overall batting line from 2018-21. However, the 2022 season in Chicago hasn’t gone well at all, as Villar has limped to a career-worst .222/.271/.327 output through his first 166 plate appearances.

Villar’s struggles at the plate stem from a sudden downturn in his ability to do much of anything against fastballs. He entered the 2022 season as a career .251 hitter against fastballs, but he’s seen 231 fastballs this season and posted a disastrous .119/.174/.119 batting line in his 46 plate appearances that have ended with a heater. There’s perhaps some poor luck from a BABIP standpoint (.217), but Villar has also whiffed in 43.5% of those plate appearances and posted a career-worst 18.2% swinging-strike rate against fastballs — so the poor showing can’t be blamed entirely on small samples and batted-ball luck.

The Cubs have used Villar at second base (225 innings), third base (95 innings) and shortstop (17 innings) this season, but defensive metrics are down on him at all three spots. Villar has never rated well as a shortstop, so it’s not a surprise to see sparse usage and poor ratings there. However, he’s generally been a solid enough defender at second base — at least until the 2022 season. In this year’s 225 frames, he’s posted a staggering -7 Defensive Runs Saved mark and received a similarly damning grade from Statcast’s Outs Above Average (-5).

By designating Villar for assignment, the Cubs are effectively eating the roughly $3.4MM of his contract that has yet to be paid out. They’ll remain on the hook for that money unless another team claims Villar off waivers or acquires him in a trade — both of which seem quite unlikely, given the veteran’s struggles at the plate this year. The likeliest outcome is that Villar will be released and become a free agent. At that point, any of the league’s other 29 teams can sign him and owe him only the prorated league minimum for any time spent on their Major League roster. That sum would be subtracted from what the Cubs owe Villar.

Bote, 29, returns to the Cubs after missing the entire season to date while recovering from November shoulder surgery. The infielder separated his shoulder during a game last May, and while the injury didn’t immediately require surgery, it clearly hampered Bote at the plate. In 327 plate appearances, Bote posted a career-worst .199/.276/.330 batting line. The surgery originally came with a projected six-month recovery period, but Bote’s return comes closer to eight months out from the date of the procedure.

It’s been a rough couple of seasons for Bote, who back in 2019 signed a surprising five-year extension that came with a $16MM guarantee. It was something of a head-scratching move for the Cubs even at the time, as Bote was a part-time player who’d posted a .239/.319/.408 batting line as a rookie in 2018. The first year of the contract certainly made it look like a sound investment, as Bote slashed at a .257/.362/.422 rate and was an underrated contributor on a Cubs team that was in contention for much of the year. He’s hit just .200/.285/.353 in 472 plate appearances since that time, however, although the shoulder injury certainly offers some explanation for last year’s struggles, at least.

The Cubs owe Bote $2.5MM this season and will pay him salaries of $4MM and $5.5MM in 2023 and 2024. They also hold a pair of options, the first valued at $7MM and the second at $7.6MM.

Conner Menez To Sign With NPB’s Nippon-Ham Fighters

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Left-hander Conner Menez is in agreement with the Nippon-Ham Fighters of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, the club informed reporters (Japanese-language link from Yahoo! Japan). Menez announced the agreement on Instagram this afternoon.

While Menez had been playing with the Cubs’ top affiliate in Iowa, he’s been granted his release to pursue the overseas opportunity. Salary terms have not been disclosed, but he’ll surely make more with the Hokkaido-based club than he would’ve in Iowa.

Menez made the briefest of appearances with the Cubs this season. Signed to a minor league deal over the offseason, he was selected onto the major league roster in early May. He pitched a scoreless inning during a loss to the Diamondbacks a few days later, then found himself optioned back to Iowa. The Cubs designated him for assignment two weeks back upon selecting Caleb Kilian onto the 40-man roster. Menez cleared waivers and returned to Triple-A, making three more appearances before departing the organization.

The former 14th-round pick had an excellent showing in the upper minors this season. He tallied 21 innings across 11 outings, working to a 2.14 ERA with a quality 28.7% strikeout rate. That work caught the attention of the Fighters’ front office. In announcing the agreement, general manager Atsunori Inaba suggested he would step into a high-leverage relief role.

Menez has appeared in parts of four MLB seasons, spending the 2019-21 campaigns with the Giants before this year’s cup of coffee in Chicago. He’s worked to a decent 3.95 ERA through 43 1/3 innings at the big league level, but his stock took a hit when he struggled in Triple-A last season. Menez’s much better showing in Iowa gets him an opportunity in Japan’s top league. Having just turned 27 years old, he’s certainly young enough to reappear on the MLB radar a year or two down the line if he shows well in NPB.

Cubs Place Daniel Norris On 15-Day Injured List

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  • The Cubs have placed veteran southpaw Daniel Norris on the 15-day injured because of a finger strain. To take his roster spot, they have recalled Adrian Sampson from Triple-A, per Meghan Montemurro of The Chicago Tribune (via Twitter). Norris hasn’t had a great season, but if he’s healthy, he made draw some trade interest simply as a veteran southpaw. Currently, however, he owns a 7.24 ERA/5.73 FIP in 24 appearances covering 27 1/3 innings. Sampson has been up and down, designated for assignment, and brought back. Despite his frequent travels, he has tossed just 5 2/3 innings with the Cubs this season without giving up an earned run.

Ethan Roberts To Undergo Tommy John Surgery

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The Cubs announced to reporters, including Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times, that Ethan Roberts will undergo Tommy John surgery. Roberts was already on the 60-day injured list due to shoulder inflammation, meaning no roster moves will be necessary.

This is yet another unfortunate setback for Roberts here in 2022, on the heels of a promising 2021. A fourth round draft pick from 2018, Roberts threw 54 innings with an ERA of 3.00 between Double-A and Triple-A last year. That came alongside an impressive 32.6% strikeout rate and 7.7% walk rate. On the strength of that season, he was selected to the club’s 40-man roster in November and then cracked the Opening Day active roster out of Spring Training.

His big league career got off to a good start, as he allowed just a single earned run through his first five appearances. However, his next four appearances yielded six earned runs, perhaps due to injury. He was placed on the IL on May 2 due to shoulder inflammation. He began a rehab assignment on Sunday, though was removed after just four pitches, presumably due to his elbow issues becoming apparent.

With this news of his imminent Tommy John surgery, Roberts will be out of action for around 12-18 months, the typical recovery window for such procedures. As such, this will wipe out the remainder of his 2022 and potentially his entire 2023 as well. Needless to say, that’s an unfavorable turn of events for a pitcher who previously seemed to be on a good trajectory. The 24-year-old will spend the rest of the year on the IL and finish the season with exactly one year of MLB service time. He’ll need to return to the 40-man over the offseason but can go back on the 60-day IL for the entirety of next season, assuming he holds his roster spot through the winter.

For the Cubs, they’re not in a competitive window right now, but it’s still unfortunate that they will be losing development time for one of their promising young pitchers. They will now have to wait until 2024 to get a better idea of how Roberts can factor into their future bullpen plans.

Cubs Trade Eric Stout To Pirates

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The Cubs have traded lefty Eric Stout to the Pirates in exchange for cash, per a pair of team announcements. Stout was designated for assignment by Chicago last week. The Pirates have optioned him to Triple-A, and their 40-man roster is now full.

Stout, 29, made his first big league appearance since 2018 last week and wound up working a total of 3 2/3 innings over two games for the Cubs. He surrendered a total of two runs on three hits and a walk with six strikeouts before being jettisoned from the 40-man roster.

Signed to a minor league deal over the winter, Stout has spent the bulk of the season in Triple-A Iowa, where he’s notched a 3.94 ERA with a massive 36.6% strikeout rate but a bloated 16.8% walk rate in 29 2/3 innings. In addition to his 22 walks, Stout also hit a pair of batters and tossed three wild pitches.

During his original call to the big leagues with the 2018 Royals, Stout averaged 91.3 mph on his fastball in a tiny sample of work. That number jumped to 93.1 mph in last week’s big league return, and the improved velocity could help to explain some of the uptick in strikeouts he’s experienced this year. Command was never a huge issue for Stout in the lower levels of the minor leagues, but he’s posted walk rates of 13.2%, 19.6% and 16.8% in his past three Triple-A stints (Reds, Marlins, Cubs). It’s clear that he can miss bats at a high level, and Stout can still be optioned both this year and next, so the Bucs will hope they can help him hone his ability to locate the ball with a change of scenery in Triple-A.

Cubs Outright Sean Newcomb

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Cubs lefty Sean Newcomb went unclaimed on waivers following last week’s DFA and has been assigned outright to Triple-A Iowa, the team announced to reporters (Twitter link via Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times).

As Lee points out, Newcomb has up to 48 hours to determine whether he’ll accept or reject the assignment — as is the right of any player with more than three years of Major League service time. However, a player needs five years of big league service to reject an outright assignment while still retaining the remainder of their salary in a given season. Newcomb entered the season with 3.123 years of Major League service and has since crossed the threshold into four-plus years, but he’s still well shy of five years. In other words, rejecting the assignment would mean forgoing what’s left of this season’s $900K salary, which he agreed to in order to avoid arbitration with the Braves over the winter.

Atlanta flipped Newcomb to the Cubs in a trade that sent veteran reliever Jesse Chavez back to the Braves. It’s a move that’s panned out brilliantly for the Braves, who have enjoyed 22 2/3 innings of 2.38 ERA ball from Chavez. Newcomb, meanwhile, has seen his longstanding struggles persist even following what many believed might be a necessary change of scenery. In 4 1/3 big league innings with the Cubs, he’s been tagged for eight runs on nine hits and two walks with four strikeouts. He’s also yielded six runs (five earned) in 4 2/3 frames with Chicago’s top minor league affiliate in Iowa.

It’s easy enough to see why the swap might’ve appealed to the Cubs. Newcomb is a former top prospect who’s had plenty of success from 2017-19 before falling into a decline beginning in the shortened 2020 season. He came to them with two years of club control remaining beyond the current campaign. Chavez, meanwhile, had only signed as a minor league free agent following the lockout and will become a free agent at season’s end.

Things simply haven’t panned out with Newcomb to this point, although assuming he indeed accepts his outright assignment, he’ll have the opportunity to get back on track in Triple-A over the remainder of the season. If he’s added back to the 40-man roster before season’s end, the Cubs will still be able to control his 2023-24 rights via arbitration. If not, however, Newcomb will become a free agent at the end of the season — as is customary for players with three-plus years of service who have been outrighted (and not returned to the 40-man) during the regular season.

Cubs Place Frank Schwindel On 10-Day Injured List, Recall Alfonso Rivas

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The Cubs have placed first baseman Frank Schwindel on the 10-day injured list with a lower back strain, per MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian (via Twitter). Alfonso Rivas has been recalled from Triple-A to claim the open roster spot.

Schwindel was a surprise performer for the Cubs last year, but Frank the Tank hasn’t had the type of follow-up season that he hoped. Over 245 plate appearances, Schwindel has slashed .237/.282/.386 with eight long balls. He’s been better of late, however, with a .278/.328/.407 line in June.

Rivas jumps right into the starting lineup today, batting eighth and playing first base. The 25-year-old has been up and down with the big league club all season, slashing .194/.296/.301 across 108 plate appearances. He’s crushed in Triple-A, though he’s stepped to the plate a mere 27 times.

Cubs Outright Clint Frazier To Triple-A

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The Cubs have outrighted Clint Frazier off their 40-man roster, after the outfielder cleared waivers.  According to ESPN.com’s Jesse Rogers (Twitter link), Frazier has elected to accept the assignment to Triple-A Iowa, rather than elect free agency.

Chicago signed Frazier to a one-year, $1.5MM deal just prior to the lockout, and about a week after the Yankees released the outfielder (essentially an early non-tender, as Frazier was projected to earn $2.4MM through the arbitration process).  Frazier has hit .216/.356/.297 over 45 plate appearances this season, with his campaign broken up by a missed month of action due to an appendectomy.  Frazier was designated for assignment last week, and it is perhaps a sign of how his stock has fallen that no teams put a claim on a player who isn’t far removed from being one of baseball’s top prospects.

There was some speculation that Frazier would refuse the outright assignment and instead test the open market again, though there is logic in his decision to remain in the Cubs organization.  For one, Frazier might just be looking to get some consistent playing time after his lost month, and his market surely wasn’t helped by his lack of production this far in 2022.  It stands to reason that Frazier might get another chance in Chicago later in the season, should the Cubs move some veteran players prior to the trade deadline.

The fifth overall pick of the 2013 draft, Frazier is now in his sixth MLB season, and he showed some flashes of his potential during his five years in the Bronx.  However, a lack of consistency and some health issues kept Frazier from locking down a regular spot in the Yankees’ lineup, and vertigo-like symptoms kept Frazier off the field for most of the final three months of the 2021 season.

Cubs Select Adrian Sampson, Designate Eric Stout For Assignment

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The Cubs have selected the contract for Adrian Sampson, bringing the right-hander back to the active roster. To create roster space, the Cubs designated Eric Stout for assignment, per Gordon Wittenmyer of NBC Sports Chicago (via Twitter).

Sampson knows what it’s like to be DFA’ed, having been designated himself already by the Cubs this year after tossing just one inning and yielding two unearned runs. The Cubs lost him on waivers to the Mariners, who designated and released him before he appeared in a game. The Cubs then re-signed Sampson and put him in Triple-A. He now returns to the Cubs active roster, where a slew of injuries to their starting rotation has left them short-handed.

The Cubs are amid a nine-game losing streak and looking for anyone who might be able to record more innings pitched than runs allowed, which they have been unable to find during this unfortunate slide. Sampson made five starts and five relief appearances for the Cubs just last season, posting a 2.80 ERA/3.14 FIP over 35 1/3 innings.

Stout, 29, was only just added to the active roster two days ago when Sean Newcomb was designated for assignment. Stout made two appearances, tossing 3 2/3 innings, giving up two earned runs on three hits and one walk while striking out six.

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