Today a number of Chicago Cubs transactions went official on the team wire:
- Utility man Vidal Brujan to the 10-day IL
- Reliever Tyson Miller to the 15-day IL
- Reliever Ryan Brasier to the 15-day IL
- Reliever Keegan Thompson outrighted to Iowa
Going in reverse order, the Thompson outright means that the 30-year-old righty cleared waivers (no team wanted to claim his big league contract without any options remaining), and he was subsequently outrighted by the Cubs to Triple-A. I think Thompson still has the right to reject the assignment and hit free agency, but he was not claimed on waivers, which means he will not necessarily find a better deal out there than the $850,000 deal he has with the Cubs. If that’s the case, then the Cubs now get to send him to Iowa, and have him available to bring back up when there’s a need this season.
Brasier got lit up in his last Spring Training outing, and you wondered if something was up. Apparently there was, and now he will miss at least the first 12 days of the regular season (the stint can be backdated by up to three days). Brasier’s injury is not on the transaction register, but Cubs Insider reports that it’s a hip issue. Hopefully, like with Miller’s, it’s nothing too serious.
Speaking of which, we knew Miller was going on the IL, which opened up a spot for Brad Keller to make the big league bullpen. The Cubs will still need to open a 40-man spot for Keller. It hasn’t sounded like the hip injury is a serious one for Miller, but it was impacting his ability to be as effective as the Cubs want him to be (or as effective as he was last year). So now he can take a little more time to get healthy, get right, and get ready for the season.
There is no official roster move listed for reliever Eli Morgan, but I’ll discuss him here, since you may remember he was reportedly being optioned to Iowa to open up the season. It looks like that transaction may have never gone official, and now with Brasier going on the IL, perhaps the Cubs simply never sent out Morgan? In any case, it looks like Morgan will now be on the Opening Day roster instead of Brasier.
The Cubs have so much reliever depth – all this is happening and I’ve said nothing about Daniel Palencia, Jack Neely, Ethan Roberts, Cody Poteet, and Luke Little, among others, who are slated to open the year in Iowa.
Lastly, Vidal Brujan is headed to the 10-day IL with the elbow issue, which means that Gage Workman (a Rule 5 pick) will be making the big league roster as a utility man. Brujan could be back in as soon as a week, with backdating, but we’ll see how serious the elbow injury is.
In the end, the Cubs are spared having to make many tough decisions on the positional side OR the pitching side for Opening Day (part two), which is sometimes how it works out with injuries. And why it’s good to have so much depth that, even with injuries to a number of could-have-been Opening Day players, the Cubs don’t seem too much worse for the wear right now. The convalescing players can really take their time.
