The Cubs are planning to add right-hander Mark Leiter Jr. to the big league roster, manager David Ross told reporters (including Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun-Times) this evening. He’ll get the start tomorrow night against the Rockies, his first MLB action in four years.
Leiter, the son of the longtime big league hurler with the same name, is a former Phillies draftee who reached the majors in Philadelphia in 2017. The New Jersey Tech product started 11 of his 27 appearances that season, working a career-high 90 2/3 innings. He pitched to a 4.96 ERA with capable if unspectacular strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates.
It seemed as if Leiter might settle in as a long-term swing option for the Phils, but he had a difficult follow-up campaign. Working exclusively in relief, he was tagged for a 5.40 ERA in 12 appearances in 2018. Leiter allowed five home runs in 16 2/3 innings, and the Phils designated him for assignment late in the year. The Blue Jays grabbed him off waivers, but they outrighted him that offseason after he struggled in eight more appearances with Toronto.
Leiter underwent Tommy John surgery the following March, an injury that cost him the entire 2019 season. He signed a minor league deal with the Diamondbacks in 2020, but the pandemic wiped out the minors schedule. Leiter landed with the Tigers last season on another non-roster pact. He pitched to a 3.77 ERA in 114 2/3 innings between Double-A Erie and Triple-A Toledo, striking out an excellent 30.7% of opponents in the process.
Detroit never gave him a big league look, but Leiter’s strong showing caught the attention of the Cubs’ front office last winter. After just one four-inning outing with their top affiliate in Iowa, he’ll head back to the majors. Leiter is not on the 40-man roster, so the Cubs will need to free up a spot before tomorrow’s game.
The guy is definitely determined. I hope he does well.
He’s a great guy Works hard and knows how to pitch. Was a little short on the fastball. Some guys come back from TJ with s little more velocity. Hopefully that’s him
NJIT product, “New Jersey Tech” is not something I’ve ever heard of before.
About 15 years ago when I was in college, they came down to Georgia Southern to play and it was one of their first series since the program was created. Weekend series score was something around 70-10, I’m hoping they’ve improved a bit since then haha
It’s a pretty small school and very tech savvy. I hired a number of graduates when I was managing an actuarial department. They were all top notch as actuaries and good people. I think soccer star Chico Borja also went there. And I stand corrected, it used to be known as New Jersey Tech.
Alma matter of wrestling great Orange Cassidy.
Freshly Squeezed
I didn’t know he was on the cubs.
He pitched four innings with Iowa. Your excused for missing the memo.
His dad was pretty good.
Isn’t there another Mark Leiter son (Jack?) who was recently drafted high in the first round (either 2020 or 2021) or is he Al Leiter’s son? When I saw the article, I thought it was the young uber-prospect getting called up already. This Leiter (Mark) is 31 years old but it sounds like he’s finally gotten past his injuries. Maybe the Cubs can find another diamond in the rough in him. You have to respect guys like this who are still pursuing their dream after 10 years of mostly minor league ball and bouncing around multiple teams, looking for their shot at the majors. Good luck to him!
2021 Rangers 1st round pick Jack Leiter is the son of long time big leaguer Al Leiter. Al’s brother, Mark, was also a successful big league pitcher, but played to less acclaim. Mark Leiter Jr is his son. It’s a hell of a baseball family.
Thank you for the clarification! Jack Leiter is Mark, Sr.’s nephew then, making Mark, Jr. and Jack cousins. Hopefully Mark, Jr. can stay in the majors long enough to square off against his cousin some day.
What a cool family to grow up in. Both brothers/dads were successful MLB pitchers and now both of their sons are following in their footsteps. Someone in the Leiter family is proud of their accomplishments!
I think this Leiter is to similar to his daddy though. Mark wasn’t something you loved watching pitch. I think Mark Sr 11 year career ERA is something like 4.57 and more of a ground ball out guy with a decent 4/5 starter. Mark Jr seems to be so much like his daddy and there is a saying to this, “The Apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.” I maybe a critic of both Mark Sr and Jr because Al was definitely the better of them all. Al’s son may not make it to the majors like his father. When Al was on, it was lights out. I seen it happen against my Pirates several times. I hated seen Al Leiter on that lineup card. Brian Giles at the time, swung so hard when Al pitched, he nearly came out of his cleats. What made it worse, he’d come up empty 5 out of 6 tries. Al Leiter did well with those Cubbies when they faced the Pirates.
His other brother Kurt was very talented too but had arm troubles in the minors
Why don’t they put NO COMMENTs on the Trevor Bauer post ? Why make people type out a comment then submit before it says no comments. How hard is that?
Well, it does say COMMENTS CLOSED and shouldn’t even allow you to make a comment.
The commenter must be on the phone app, which doesn’t give you the Comments Closed warning but lets you waste your time typing it in before rejecting it. One of several ways (Mute button!) the phone app is an inferior experience.
It is a terrible situation that would likely get only nasty comments. It is a post to keep us informed, but not talk about. Personally, I’d prefer they not even mention his name at all.
Why? What is the terrible situation exactly?
smacking around women isn’t very commendable, even if they ask for it
MLB has had 9 months to conduct that investigation, and now they need another week? Do they really not know what the endgame is at this point? I’m not buying it.
Seems like they are dragging it out as long as they can for some reason. He is still getting paid his salary though. Seems like easy money to not play but I know he would rather be pitching.
They’ve clearly proposed some sort of final solution to Bauer’s camp and are waiting for a response. Something along the lines of giving him much of the money he’s due in exchange for being banned. Probably also working out the finances with insurance, MLB, and the Dodgers all being involved.
I don’t understand. You “rest” starters yesterday but still have them punch rest and end the game with Hermosillo an bat in an RBI spot and lose a winnable game to start a minor leaguer in Colorado today who will need to bump a roster and 40 man spot. And we still have to get down to 26 by the end of the month. What would a good start look like today? 4 runs in 4 innings?
3.2 @ 7 runs. Ugh. Maybe Ortega shouldn’t have DH’d and should have Ohtani’d.
This an example of when Theo Epstein was in charge of the Cubs where he did not focus on drafting pitchers and developing them.
My man BVT, have a question for you! How many starting pitchers do your beloved Chisox have in their starting rotation, that we’re drafted by your beloved team? I bet even you can count this high. Answer: 0
Lynn, Giolito, Keuchel, Cease, Lopez,
Why are you criticizing Theo.
How many seasons in the last 12, have your boys won 80 games? And your critical of Theo!
Dogbone, Theo Epstein did his job with getting the Cubs’ their one World Series. Seriously, it was an one and done deal where people thought the Cubs were going to be a dynasty’. Theo had the Cubs tank for a few seasons when he took over where he got few high draft picks to making trades and signing free agents. Heck, I was even saying the Cubs would win at least one World Series by 2020, where I am waiting for my “friend” pay me the $1,000.00 he owes me from our bet. The thing is there are a lot of Cubs’ fans think this is the Ricketts fault right now when the state of their farm system but Theo orchestrated that. That was why Theo jumped ship before last season since he knew the team’s farm system was bare and the guys he drafted were gone. Honestly, Theo valued Baez, Bryant and Rizzo too much where their trade stock plummeted in their final two seasons as Cubs where at least one of them should have been traded three years ago.
There has been a huge difference between Hahn and Theo when it comes to trades and signings. According to goofballs like yourself you think the White Sox don’t spend money which they have and will continue to do for the next four to six years. Theo did not focus on the Cubs’ farm system after 2015 but kept spending money on players to trading away the team’s best assets in their farm, however, Hahn has been focusing on the farm system when he took over after 2012 with making trades to drafting and international signings. Hahn traded for Giolito, Lopez, Cease and Kopech then developed them in the minors for a few seasons before brining them up. Unfortunately, under the Theo era the Cubs did not develop pitchers in their farm system but went out signing guys to trading away assets for pitchers. These are facts!
Hahn has done the same thing. The sux farm system I barren. Hahn hasn’t produced a quality MLB player from the farm since Tim Anderson. Robert doesn’t count since he played so long in Cubs. No help coming to the big league club any time soon. Meanwhile Jed has fixed the failures of Theo and rebuilt the Cubs farm system into a top 5 group. The Cubs system will be producing MLB caliber players for many years now while the overrated south side team will win nothing but most players injured awards
BVT–STOP with the Theo had to tank for a few seasons junk. The fact is after his first season of 2012 the Cubs record IMPROVED every season thereafter until they won the World Series. They got BETTER not WORSE while building the team.
(you do understand that in half those years you are referring to —the Sox “not tanking” drafted BEFORE the Cubs, don’t you)
So, are you to say that the Cubs didn’t develop Hendricks or Arrieta or Strop or Edwards or Rondon (and I know he was Rule V), etc during their best years???
Your initial point was that Theo didn’t draft and develop pitchers. Hahn fits the exact same category.
There is really almost no difference on the way these teams, separate by a handful of years, have been built.
Giolito, Lopez, Lynn and Keuchel were already major league pitchers before they came to the White Sox—quit making it like they developed them any more than the Cubs developed Hendricks or Arrieta.
@milff Roberts was signed by the Sox as an amateur free agent. He was never in the Cubs system. Jimenez was.
The White Sox have the worst farm system in baseball. What on earth are you talking about him “focusing on the farm”? I will give him credit for hitting on nearly all of the trade acquistions he made when they were tanking, which is VERY unusual and well done. They were one of the last teams to be able to acquire big name prospects for veteran major leaguers. That and the mini-feeder line between Cuba and the South Side have been his secret weapons.
Before you make stupid comments, look at the draft history.
2012- 7 of his 8 top picks were pitchers including 2 in the supplemental first round.
2013- 6 in the top 8 picks.
2014- 10 in top 12 (including Steele and Cease)
2015- 6 in top 9
2016- 12 in top 13
2017- top 5 picks were pitchers (this is the draft Epstein changed the Cubs “focus” from looking for a certain type of pitcher to drafting the best available pitcher and it’s produced a handful of extreme upside potential high leverage guys, most notable is Thompson, but also Little, Lange and Abbot
2018- The Cubs didn’t draft pitching heavy but got flame throwers like Ethan Roberts, Kohl Franklin and Riley Thompson
2019- Heavy again on pitching and is pretty solid, Ryan Jensen, Chris Clarke, DJ Hertz, Cayne Ueckett
Epstein focused a lot on pitching but in several instances failed to develop guys because he had a flawed philosophy when looking at pitchers. Wanting guys who fitted a certain mold. Once he admitted the Cubs have been doing things the wrong way and the “pitch lab” was developed, the Cubs got fairly flush with solid pitching prospects. Several guys with late inning potential and the farm is loaded with 60+ grades on fastballs.
You are starting to see that first wave, Steele, Thompson, Roberts and more are coming. On top of that, Hoyer did a really nice job grabbing guys at the trade deadline last year. Killian and Heuer look legit
Before he throws pitch 1, i am required to know if he is vaccinated.
-wtfmate, raisiness and MarlinsFanBase
Congrats, Mark, we’re gonna start you at Coors Field. Go get ‘em.
It’s going to be interesting as to what the corresponding move is. Will we find out the extent of Miley or Simmons injuries (move them to 60 day IL to open spot)? Perhaps Deichmann or Abbott DFA?
I’m guessing Roberts will be party of the 28 to 26 man reduction in May and see a little more value in him that him to be the move.
Abbott starts for the ICubs tonight. Unlikely to be him.
My guess is a DFA of Hermosillo or Chavez.
My guess would be they transfer Manny Rodriguez, who is on the AAA IL, to the 60 day IL to open a spot on the 40 man. As for adding him to the big league roster. Maybe Roberts, then Leiter lands on the IL to bring Roberts back up.
Looks like it is Deichmann.
Cinnamon Leiter.
“Leiter, the son of the longtime big league hurler with the same name”
I know I’m being uningratiating, but isn’t that the definition of Junior?
It’s not like he’s the son of an insurance salesman. I think that was the point of that phrasing.
I think move Simmons, Miley, Mills, or Rodriguez to the 60 and option Effross or Roberts. Still have to drop to 26 I’m a couple weeks. And clear 40 man spots for all the injured and Davis.
Cory Abbott DFA incoming