The Cubs announced Friday that right-hander Mark Leiter Jr. has been designated for assignment. His spot on the roster will go to first baseman Eric Hosmer, whose one-year contract is now official.
Leiter, 32 in March, was drafted by the Phillies in 2013 and made his way up to the majors by 2017. He got into 47 games over the 2017 and 2018 seasons, mostly with Philly but also a brief stint with the Blue Jays after a waiver claim. He posted a 5.53 ERA over that two-year stretch with a subpar 20.5% strikeout rate but a strong 48.2% ground ball rate.
He was outrighted off the Jays’ roster and then required Tommy John surgery in the spring of 2019, which put him on the shelf for a while. He pitched well in the minor leagues of the Tigers’ system in 2021 but didn’t get called up to the big leagues. A minor league deal with the Cubs allowed him to return to the majors last season. He spent the year being shuttled to Triple-A and back, posting a solid 3.99 ERA over 67 2/3 innings with the Cubs, striking out 25.9% of batters faced, walking 8.9% of them and getting grounders on 48.9% of balls in play.
Despite those solid results last year, there are reasons the Cubs are moving on. Leiter’s earned runs were likely kept down somewhat by a .251 batting average on balls in play, almost 40 points below league average. He’s also now out of options, giving him less value from a roster maneuverability perspective. However, if some club is intrigued enough to give Leiter a roster spot, he’ll come with some cheap control since he has just over two years of MLB service time.
Not sure why a 2.87 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 62 K I’m 53 IP (Leiter’s work in relief last year) warrants a DFA. It honestly should have been Rowan Wick. The dude shows glimpses of dominance but overall he blows.
No way R Wick woulda went..He is the leader in the pen. I agree he needs to have more consistent outings but he can be so nasty. I agree it shouldn’t have been our best swingman though..should been Rucker
Our best swing man is Keegan Thompson…. Although that could easily go to Wesneski next season or perhaps Alzolay if he figures out how to get lefties out.
Wick has a ton of potential but doesn’t seem to have the mental toughness for high leverage situations… I’d put him in low leverage and utilize him a lot on situational match ups then trade him to a team dumb enough to believe he could be something more than what he is.
Ur right. I didn’t think of Keegan. I hope Wick does better this year. I bet he has a real short leash. The team is getting younger and more interesting
What’s going to be interesting is seeing what the Cubs pay Thompson in arbitration to keep him happy as a reliever. He’s too good not to be a starter and would be on most teams. Actually I’m inclined to believe when Hendricks succumbs to surgery on his bad flipper since I’ve never heard of anyone ” Rehabbing” his way through a torn shoulder capsule and that would include myself, That Thompson steps in instead of Wesneski. Leaving Stroman-Tallion-Steele-Smyly-Thompson as the rotation. If Stroman leaves after this year then he definitely would be the guy. Plus since Mervis will be 25 shortly after opening day I hope the Cubs see the folly of keeping him down for an extra year. What’s the point? Hosmer is a step backwards, I’d rather see them go forward. Unless he struggles mightily in Spring Training it would be ridiculous.
Drasco, what would you know about Wicks mental toughness? I could make a guess on your mental acuteness too.
Knock yourself out…
Wick is the longest tenured member of the bullpen, but calling him the leader of the bullpen is a bit of a stretch. He has been bad for a couple years, and downright awful in 20222.
Michael Rucker probably would have been my next choice after Wick. However, Rucker was pretty good down the stretch (2.93 ERA, 1.17 WHIP, in 30.2 IP in the 2nd half). Regardless of my opinion, the Cubs front office made their decision. As a fan, I hope it’s the right one.
Ross used Leiter and Rucker perfectly last year, to get the best out of them. I’m a bit surprised the Cubs weren’t able to work something out with another team for a trade, for a low level lottery ticket.
That said, Leiter is the type of pitcher that helps teams create depth in the SP options. And it is an indication of how much faith the Cubs FO feels they have in their young arms.
That is the thing, some “numbers” by relievers are smoke and mirrors, benefited by match ups.
Ross, I don’t love, but does handle the bullpen well as long as he has guys like Thompson who can come in and give multiple solid innings and he can pick and choose his match ups after. Ross gets into trouble when he doesn’t have that reliable long guy and then has to worry about guys being fresh and being forced to use match up guys for multiple innings.
@drasco
What manager doesn’t “get into trouble” when they don’t have enough talent.?
Ross does a whole lot better than some people give him credit for. Because the Cubs took a chance on him, seems to be difficult for some to acknowledge that, , , just maybe, , , they made a good choice.
Ross is average at best as a manager. He’s pretty good at managing the bullpen, probably his best attribute but when I watch the Cubs, I do not see a well managed team.
I understand they are not as talented as other teams but they don’t play like a motivated, well coached, fundamentally sound team.
It’s official. The cubs have now dfa’d more players the last two years than anyone in MLB history! A hale and hearty congratulations to Ross and Hoyer!
Then you are obviously watching the wrong Chicago team because what you described is the South Side team.
You must have no eyes then
Imagine trolling white sox fans for literally every opinion ever, then dying on the “David Ross is good” hill.
He isn’t. Objectively, he is a bad manager. He was given the opportunity because the Ricketts are cheap, and he stays around for the same reason. He won’t be the guy when they start to put it together.
Wick is inconsistent and that’s being charitable. Iowa right now has about 10 LH P’s the Cubs picked up off the scrap heap continuing the pattern of the last few years. Hoping to catch lightning in a bottle. Odd that the only LH’s on the Major League roster are a scrap heap pickup(Kay) but the best one is one of their own(Hughes). Keep the kids coming, Keep weeding out the lame like Leiter and Wick.
You’re right it should have been Wick. His fastball has decent velo but is straight and flat. It gets crushed if his breaking ball isn’t sharp , allowing him to pitch backwards .
I feel that’s an accurate take. When his breaking ball is on he is very good, but it seemed it was only “on” 1 out of 10 times last season.
Agreed. Wick gave up a ridiculous amount of homers and squandered too many leads. Plus he can never stay healthy.
Leiter doesn’t have top tier stuff, but he showed an ability to pitch well situationally. He’s probably best suited as a depth piece, but I’m surprised they designated him before others.
I guess overall it’s a good sign they are purging a lot of fringe major leaguers from the roster, even if some of the new additions are less than elite (or exciting in any way).
Don’t worry, as we’re purging fringe players, Jed keeps adding more (Hello Eric Hosmer).
I like the Hosmer pick up for a few reasons:
First is we got nothing positive out of Schwindel/Rivas/Higgins at first last season. Hosmer, like Bellinger, even if they repeat their disappointing seasons, upgrade those two positions. The banning of the shift is interesting to me on both fronts just to see if Hosmer and Bellinger “sell out” now for more power. Bellinger I believe will benefit most from the shift, Hosmer probably won’t but if he solely looking for pitches to pull he may increase his slugging. Cost wise you cannot beat league minimum and Hosmer has never been accused of being less than a team player. He also will not “block” Mervis.
Hosmer of course wouldn’t have been my first choice but being able to snag him on a dfa that’s awesome.
@drasco
Agree with you totally on this re Hosmer.
Leiter is nearly 32 with very average stuff. I think they will survive.
Relief pitchers just don’t have the value other players on the team do? It’s a unfortunate reality. He’ll get another shot somewhere else just like junior Fernandez did when his options ran out and the Cardinals DFA’ed him in a similar fashion
Egrossen-Sure because a 6 week period of success against mostly lame competition last year totally makes up for 10 years of mediocrity. Minor League deal with an invite to Spring is all he should of gotten from the get go. And that’s probably where his future is heading now. I’m amazed he lasted this long on the 40 man to be honest. Good thing they got Devers through the rule 5 instead of DFA’ing him sooner.
Mark will very likely be picked up, he has some good stuff
We’ll take him. Hopefully the kid GM is on the ball. We need bullpen help.
Wick is garbage, but I agree, I would’ve picked Rucker. I figure Cubs have like 3-4 Leiter types that are starters turned relievers.
One of the things that Jed didn’t get done this offseason (so far) is to build a solid bullpen. Cubs need help there and will likely have to go the trade route to get it.
Didn’t think he was bad enough to get DFA’d.
Maybe not bad enough, but the only other real option on the 40 man is Wick. Kilian, Brown, Jensen, Assad, Sampson, Roberts, Heuer, Rodriguez are either obvious can’t touch guys and/or all under 26 years old. (even Rucker is under 29–and might have been my coin flip choice). Roberts can’t be transferred to the 60 day IL yet so it really comes down Wick or Leiter. If healthy, Wick is probably better. I’m sure the Cubs have a much better read on that.
I guess the best thing is that they have created enough depth when the choice becomes a guy that some commenters want to keep instead of the usual “thank God we launched that guy.”
This is what happens when you have an embarrassment of riches.
Embarrassment, sure. Riches? Not so much.
The Rangers could use another Leiter.
So much for Hosmer failing the physical. Sigh….. Leiter being released is actually promising. Means they’re going to start using their own farm system instead of bringing in old bullpen guys. For better or worse. Time for some of these guys to sink or swim.
Definitely.
Sounds like a good pickup for rangers. They can use another BP arm or 2 and maybe him and Jack can bring out best in each other
Good low risk high reward potential pick up for the A’s, Pirates, Red or Tigers.
This is the dead period…when releasing AAAA players make the news.
Leiter Jr. was good out of the pen. I would’ve DFA’d Bote or McKinstry. Bote is at the end of the line for his career. I like him but he just can’t cut it as an everyday guy like they tried to make him out to be. He’ll be remembered for his walk off grand slam vs the Nationals. If only if the game had audio from Pat Hughes and Ron Comer.
Matt Vasgersian’s call was great but it was ruined by ARod and Jessica Mendoza.
Bote isn’t on the 40 man he’s in the minors anyway so releasing him wouldn’t of mattered one way or the other. The Cubs have 2 2B in Mckinstry and Mastrobuoni who seem to be totally expendable but the Cubs seem to want to hold onto for some reason that escapes me. They are at best 4th and 5th on the 2b depth chart but Mckinstry is more valuable because he plays more positions but Morel already does that The fact that he’s a LH bat shouldn’t matter because he can’t hit anyway. Leiter has been lame his whole career, no loss.