The Cubs are in agreement with outfielder Ben DeLuzio on a minor league contract, reports Robert Murray of FanSided (Twitter link). The Ball Players Agency client receives an invite to big league Spring Training.
DeLuzio has spent six seasons in the minor leagues since going undrafted in 2016. After five-plus years in the Diamondbacks system, he moved to the St. Louis organization last winter in the minor league portion of the Rule 5 draft. The right-handed hitter had a solid season with Triple-A Memphis, putting up a .277/.353/.429 line with a personal-best nine home runs across 408 plate appearances. He stole 30 bases in 36 attempts while playing almost exclusively center field, and that speed and defense profile made him a viable September call-up.
The Cards selected him onto the 40-man roster for the season’s final month. He played in 22 games, mostly as a late-game defensive replacement. DeLuzio worked 65 innings in center field and picked up 25 plate appearances, collecting three hits and walks apiece. St. Louis carried him on their Wild Card series roster and plugged him in both games off the bench. At the end of the year, the Cards non-tendered him and sent him back to free agency.
Now 28, DeLuzio has a bit of MLB experience under his belt. He’ll get a chance to compete for a big league job in Spring Training after his solid Triple-A showing. The Cubs signed Cody Bellinger to play center field, with Ian Happ and Seiya Suzuki manning the corners. Utilityman Christopher Morel could factor into the outfield mix as well, while DeLuzio will battle Nelson Velázquez and any other non-roster invitees for a bench spot.
Take that Cardinals!!! You sign Contreras and we steal DeLuzio from you!
You stole Heyward also. LOL!!! Thank you!!
You stole Fowler, thank you.
Your right! Damn it! Oh and thanks for Brock
Hahaha. Exactly. Off-season over. Cubs screwed us again.
Was at a ball game in September Braves vs Cardinals and deLuzio fresh into the ball game flags down a ball that would have given the braves a late lead in the gap and caught it.
Dude has incredible speed and good defense, but can he hit/get on base enough to sustain a role in the majors?
Ben looking forward to those pizza places in chi town
Yeah, nothing better than a yeasty blob of dough to make a pizza better….
New York Pizza > deep dish casserole pizza
All day. Nothing is better than trying a new pizza place with just plain cheese. The sauce is the most important part of a great tasting pizza.
Yum, yeasty blobs piled high with toppings. Hold the anchovies! Washed down with an ice cold Bud.
St. Louis fans can swallow a Griesedieck
with theirs.
Nah you don’t need more than 2 toppings for a good pie. Don’t know if you like Domino’s but there’s a reason their special is 3 toppimg pizzas for whatever the price is. It’s to mask their terroble sauce.
Lol up until 2013 any budwieser or ‘ice cold bud’ as you’ve put it went right into the Busch family pockets who owned the Cardinals from 1960 something till 1995? When they sold the Club to the DeWitts for like 250 million? Idk how old you are, or how many ice cold buds you’ve enjoyed with your pizzas throughout the years, but if your as old as your profile pic portrays you to be, you’ve done alot of Cardinals supporting as a Chicago fan by buying ‘Ice Cold Bud’ with your pizza. No wonder you’ve been watching the Cardinals beat the Cubs for so many years over that pizza and ‘ice cold bud’
I know you’re not talking to me but if you ever get the chance to visit Denver (baseball season or not) highly recommended trying UpSlope. They got an. Ipa, Pala ale and Lager which ls what I get. Besides that. I keep it simple with Miller High Life
Solid player. Coming from a Cardinal fan.
You’re welcome.
Ah dude was born in st louis, he probably like stl style? Which I’ve heard from people from New York and Chicago isn’t pizza? I like all pizza, well except for a few places… not gonna mention em by name
I am un chien, Ben DeLuzio.
Oh, debasing the guy, I see.
I don’t want any eyeballs in my pizza, thank you.
Okay, this guy says he wants extra goat eye? Do we carry goat eye?
What the hell are the Cubs even doing? What a joke of a franchise. One by one, the options to make the big league team better are falling off the board. There aren’t many big fish left. Why are they wasting time on deals like this? Sure, the optimist can say that these deals on the margins are of little risk. But at what point are you going to do anything to improve the talent level of the major league ball club? At this rate, blood will be shed during the Cubs convention. Fans are sick and tired of the BS rhetoric. Intelligent spending must mean not spending? The Ricketts family should sell the team to Bob Nutting if this is how they’re going to run it. What a giant steaming pile of camel dung.
Joe Ricketts will never sell the cubs. His silver spoon spoiled kids will inherent the team and do nothing like always.
We had the same situation with the Rams and the other half sold there share to Stan Kronke who said he’d keep the team in Saint Louis? One giant stadium in LA and a 700 million dollar lawsuit settlement later and Aaron Donald finally got to cry because like Rattagen HE WON!
You’re just starting to notice what the RIcketts have done after winning it all in 2016? Seriously? They’ve done nothing but dump every player that brought them the championship. Granted most, if not all, were bums who got lucky in 2016. Outside of Rizzo, Schwarber and maybe Contreras for his bat, not one player who is still playing today (Baez, Bryant, Soler, Russell, etc,) have earned their money from their new teams. They were 1 and completely done, and now Ricketts cleaned house with the hopes that the fans wouldn’t care. But since they are Cubs fans, most do not care what the Cubs do in an effort to compete, because they will still buy tickets and merchandise.
While I think the Cubs should have been able to do more, I’m glad they didn’t sign some of the overpriced deals or give away the farm for the Murphy trade. I worry that they’re going to back themselves in the corner and just pull the trigger on an outrageous deal for Corea.
You do realize that they also have to field a team in Iowa, right?
He slots in as the #7 OF (Suzuki, Happ, Bellinger, Mastrobouni, Velazquez, Darius Hill, and this dude) for the first half of the year, while Davis hopefully recovers, PCA gets AA experience, and Canario rehabs. Take a deep breath…
This guy was a 3rd rd draft pick out of HS in 2013 but didn’t sign.
Hope you Cubs enjoy when the media finally picks up on the insane nonsense he regularly posts to social media.
What are you talking about? Share links please
Mortimer – you had my hopes up – i was expecting alien abduction, lizard people in the white house or elvis isn’t dead ( all true btw but I digress). We have different concepts of “insane nonsense”. Hope he makes the team so I can get his jersey
U.L. Washington 2.0
Seriously though, regarding the rule changes and possible uptick in stolen bases. Will somebody steal 100 bases again?? Is there a minor leaguer with the speed to keep a watch out for??
Good question…any time you make rule changes players and teams adapt quickly to augment those changes. You going to find a lot of pitchers stepping off the rubber real quick to see if they can get a read on the runner. They’re allowed two per batter and the clock resets so I suspect anytime the clock is running low they are going to do this. I’m not looking forward to the automatic ball calling when time expires because it’s just going to be a stoppage in play.
DeLuzio spelled backwards is Oizuled!
another worthless signing
I’ve been a fan for 50 plus yrs. but no more. One and done and give me your $. The Ricketts are all members of the lucky sperm club and completely inept as far as baseball IQ and wanting to win to be a powerhouse, which in that market they should. It’s corporate greed with the ridiculous Disney like fake restaurants and street vendors, boutique hotel that’s too expensive for the real fans. They take advantage of the fans love of the team handing out bowls of crap and the gullible fans asking for a bigger spoon.
Been a fan for about 38 years (since I was 5) and I’m with ya. Even the simple nuances of Marquee broadcasts are EXTREMELy irritating. I can deal with the worthless banter and polls between BOOG and Menaker but where are the crowd pans from the camera? Why can’t we even get to hear the reward of “Go Cubs Go” and see our guys celebrating instead of that horrible anti-climactic music interrupting? Why can’t we get even an abbreviated 10th inning show before cutting over to the studio. These are things that made Cubs games classic and watchable even in 2021 and 2022 types of seasons. KISSR Keep it simple stupid Ricketts!
38 years, 50 years a Cub fan, come on, we’ve had much shittier teams than this one.
True, but we knew what the Chicago Tribune was all about. They weren’t wolves in sheep’s clothing like the Rickett’s. Besides this ain’t 1987 before and they made the Hawk an offer! Lester wanted to play for free here, wtf.
DeLuzio of Grandeur
The Cubs front office goes out of their way to look like clowns.
When you are a clown it is not too hard to look like one.
Chicago is the city that made Bozo The Clown famous.
Do not mock Bozo! We’ll send Cookie after you and Suzy Snowflake while ‘it’s the season!
No way mocking Bozo. He’s my favorite clown.
What season is it….BUM Signing season…nice job Jed.
Ben DeLuzio at home like, wtf did I do?! Ha
We can’t truly judge bc we don’t know all the facts but after a quasi-interesting start, this offseason is really turning into a bust! There is still time left, so who knows, but if Jed & Co don’t do something big, Cub fans are gonna lose it.