Fittingly, given that the Ricketts family has too much money tied up in productive things like Scott Walker’s campaign to run for dog catcher in Mukwonago, Todd’s ongoing property tax frauds, and Pete trying to figure out how to get some water 1 to the state he presumably runs, to add to the Cubs payroll, Theo Epstein went full Mission: Impossible in “fixing” his bullpen by adding Mr. (David) Phelps.Epstein and his boy band buddies Jed, Jason, Jaron and whoever the fifth guy in this tortured comparison should be, have had to get “creative” for more than a year now in trying to patch the increasing number of holes on their beloved roster. They have to find guys who can improve the team without spending any actual money.
This is their third recent trade and all of them follow a similar pattern. The player–be it Martin Maldonado, Derek Holland or Phelps–has to be in the final year of his contract, he has to be relatively cheap and he has to be slightly better than whoever he’s booting off the roster. That last part isn’t much of a problem, given how top heavy the Cubs are these days.
Maldonado is still owed $800K for the rest of the year, and reports are out there that the Cubs are trying to “flip” him to free up that meager amount to make room for another addition.
Good luck flipping Martin. He’s a large boy.
The one thing you can say about Phelps is that he’s well rested. He caught Tommy John Disease in 2017 and has thrown only 26 innings over the past three seasons. He’ll be…fine. And given that he arrives on the day Pedro Strop was put on the Wood Prior List™, fine will have to do.
The cost was the Cubs’ third round pick in 2016, Thomas Hatch. He’s posted an ERA of 4.10 in three minor league seasons, with decent peripherals, but he fits in with pretty much every pitcher the Cubs have drafted in recent years, which is not a ringing endorsement of him or them.
While underwhelming, this is not a bad move, but it needs to be followed with one more bullpen arm and an outfielder. It’s amazing that the Cubs are still tinkering around the edges in a National League with only one good team in it. You would think, given how 2021 looks like the very real end of this run, at least with this core, that you’d be in damn the torpedoes mode, trying to add a significant piece or two to this team. After all, if you get in the playoffs a slightly beefed up roster would just be four wins in nine days over the Dodgers from going back to the World Series. But hey, the Cubs have been once in the last 74 years. That’s probably enough.