Vinny Nittoli

The Cubs and right-handed reliever Vinny Nittoli are in agreement on a major league contract, reports ESPN’s Jeff Passan. The Gaeta Sports Management client was recently designated for assignment by the A’s and elected free agency over an outright assignment to Triple-A. Chicago will need to open a spot on its 40-man roster once the addition of Nittoli is official.

Nittoli, 33, spent time with the Cubs’ Triple-A club in Iowa last year but never received a call to the big leagues despite pitching well in Des Moines. He’s out of minor league options, so he’ll jump right onto the big league roster this time around, however, as the Cubs hope to catch lightning in a bottle on another DFA reclamation in their bullpen after hitting paydirt on righty Tyson Miller.

A 25th-round pick by the Mariners back in 2014, Nittoli is the embodiment of a journeyman reliever who has persevered through the prototypical minor league grind. He made his MLB debut at age 29 in 2020, more than six years after being drafted as a senior sign out of Xavier, and has spent time in the minors or big leagues with one-third of the teams in Major League Baseball. Even after exhausting all three of his minor league options and logging big league time in each of the past four seasons, Nittoli has just 14 2/3 MLB innings and 52 days of MLB service to his name.

It’s a small sample, but Nittoli has pitched well in that time. He’s held opponents to five runs on 13 hits, five walks and a pair of hit batsmen with 10 strikeouts along the way — good for a 3.07 earned run average. That run-prevention mark in a small sample greatly outpaces the career 4.73 ERA Nittoli has put together in five Triple-A seasons (177 innings). That said, Nittoli’s Triple-A strikeout rate of 30.5% is far better than what he’s managed in the big leagues, while his 8.5% walk rate in Triple-A is right in line with his 8.2% mark in the majors.

The Cubs have now signed Nittoli twice — this time putting him directly on the MLB roster — so they’re clearly intrigued by the well-traveled righty. Nittoli changed up his pitch mix last year, scrapping a 92-93 mph four-seamer for a cutter that sits around 90 mph as his primary offering. With Oakland, he paired that pitch with a slider that averaged 83.2 mph and threw a handful of sinkers and changeups as well.

After an 18-12 start to the season, the Cubs have been reeling for the better part of two months. They’ve followed a 10-18 showing in May with a 9-14 showing in June and now sit seven games below .500 — last in the National League Central. They’re what should be a manageable five games back in the NL Wild Card chase, but given the leaguewide mediocrity in the Senior Circuit, that actually puts them third from last in the chase. They’d need to vault a whopping seven teams to claim the third Wild Card spot, as of this writing.

Chicago’s bullpen has been a major culprit in their struggles. Cubs relievers have a collective 4.52 ERA that sits 24th in the majors. Their 24.4% strikeout rate is a strong mark, landing eighth in MLB, but only the Rangers bullpen (11.9%) has issued walks at a higher rate than the Cubs’ 11.3% — and only four teams (Blue Jays, Rays, Angels, White Sox) have surrendered homers more frequently.

Certainly, making a low-risk bet on a 33-year-old with a strong track record of missing bats in the upper minors isn’t going to magically cure all those deficiencies, but it’s sensible to see the Cubs taking some action at a time when the trade market is still in its infancy. The aforementioned parity in the NL — and things are bunched only a bit less tightly in the AL — has left very few clear-cut sellers with just over a month until the July 30 deadline. Currently, there are nine teams within five games of a Wild Card spot between the two leagues. With few clubs wanting to part with major league help given their proximity to a potential postseason spot, there aren’t many options for teams like the Cubs as they look for ways to upgrade the roster.