I seriously doubt Burdi is part of the Cubs' future plans. He'll be given a chance to show his worth if he is able to come back this season, but he'll have a short leash and get waived as soon as they need his 40-man spot. IMO he'd have to have a terrific Sept to avoid being non-tendered, despite having a few option years left. Same deal with Keegan, the only differences being he's 2 years younger than Burdi and won't be ARB eligible until '25.
I'd personally rather see Greene come up and take a rotation spot, but everyone wants to see Wicks, which I'm ok with.
Don't know what the deal is with Duffey. Signed, released by Iowa, signed again, now might come to the Majors?
I have doubts that we'll ever see Kay, Young or Rucker in Chicago again, although they all have enough value that I'd like to see them kept on for an offseason trade. Uceta is an interesting experiment; I'd like to see him given a chance, but time is running short. Don't think too many people would be happy that there wasn't room on the roster for PCA in September because Uceta needed it...
Holy cow, I hope things don't get to the point that Smyly needs to be released. The Cubs are already eating Heyward, Mancini and Barnhart salaries to the tune of ~$43M. Although he's really expensive as a middle reliever/lefty specialist in the pen, he does have quite a bit of value in that role. I would hope that they would use him effectively for the rest of this season and next. I think he could be a trade deadline piece next July if there is a fringe playoff team desperately needing a starter and want to take a chance on him.
For Burdi, I’m talking only about the next month and getting through this season. There will be a lot of 40-man decisions when the season ends and Burdi may well be a guy that doesn’t get tendered, depending on what he does in September.
Duffey had signed a deal with an opt-out in May/June if he wasn’t put on the 40-man. Pretty sure the move out was from him opting out, but then he wound up signing back. I’m curious with he, Greene and Uceta who gets a shot during this season. Greene has basically always been a reliever, but threw a pretty dominant 5 innings on the Wicks scratch day, so who knows.
Also really interesting right now is the re-emergency of Alexander Canario. He’s back to health and is tearing it up in AAA. He’s a different player than PCA, but he’s already on the 40-man and if it hadn’t been for his freak injury last winter, we might not know who Mike Tauchman is. PCA brings speed and D that Canario doesn’t, so they’re not bringing the same things, but being on the 40 could make things interesting.
Anthony Kay remains interesting. I think he’s absolutely at risk for DFA, but he’s also a lefty who throws 96. He really only had 2 bad outings in Chicago and he’s not given up anything since going down. Rucker is, as you point out, also very much at risk and yet I think he’s shown he’s a guy who can pitch in the majors and get outs. This is becoming a very good problem to have. Luke Little is coming fast and only 22, lefty with pretty dramatic swing & miss stuff.
I think Young is pretty obviously the choice to be first out when they need a spot. He’s getting older and while he could probably catch a bench role somewhere in baseball, he’s just not as good as several guys the Cubs already have up or in AAA and at 28, the Cubs aren’t likely to wait around for more.
I don’t actually think the Cubs will DFA Smyly. He’s looked good out of the pen and he’s done well there in the past. Next year, I’d like to see him in the pen and he’ll be a guy who can go long and he can also step in and make a spot start at the last second if you need it. I think what you can’t do with Smyly at this point in his career is think he’s going to make 20 starts and be effective. Over the course of a season, he can probably be trusted to make 5-6 here and there as needed. Cubs are already carrying too much dead money, but at least Heyward’s is gone after this season.
