Cubs Roster Moves

The Cubs waiver claim of RHP Anthony Varvaro has been voided by the MLB Commissioner and he has been returned to the Boston Red Sox, where he will be placed on the BoSox MLB 60-day DL. Varvaro will undergo surgery to repair a torn elbow flexor tendon later this week.

The Cubs version of Fluffy will no longer exist as the Cubs have traded "catcher" Welington Castillo to the Seattle Mariners for relief pitcher Yoervis Medina.  Before I dig into the new guy, let's eulogize Beefy for a bit.

So you got one of the last spots on the Cubs 40-man roster....CONGRATULATIONS!!!

Don't start nesting though, because your odds of lasting there are just slightly better than guessing which of the 38 spots a roulette ball will land on.

The Cubs hinted at getting an outfielder that could play CF or LF just over a week ago and today they finalized a deal for about the only player that made sense to fit that role. The Cubs sent Luis Valbuena and P Dan Straily to the Astros for OF Dexter Fowler. Hard to find a way to not like this deal, but I'm sure some will.

SAT 1/10 UPDATE: Matt Eddy at BA is now reporting that the Cubs have also signed 27-year old RHRP Jorge DeLeon to a minor league contract. DeLeon was signed by the Houston Astros as a shortstop out of the Dominican Republic in 2006 and was converted to RHP post-2009. He was added to the Astros 40-man roster post-2010 and made his big league debut in August 2013. He was claimed off waivers by Oakland in October 2014 and then was released last month. DeLeon will almost certainly get an NRI to Spring Training, and then be bullpen depth at AAA Iowa.   

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Baseball America reports the Cubs have signed three more minor league free-agents over the past few days, including veteran MLB catcher Taylor Teagarden, INF Chris Valaika, and RHP Andres Santiago. The trio join RHRP Anthony Carter, RHRP Fernando Cruz, OF Adron Chambers, and INF Jonathan Herrera, who were signed to minor league contracts earlier. All seven will likely receive an NRI to Spring Training.  

The Cubs cleared some 40-man roster space and made room for a "clubhouse dude" by sending OF Justin Ruggiano to the Seattle Mariners for 25-year old relief pitcher Matt Brazis. Ruggiano was acquired from the Marlins last offseason for Brian Bogusevic and put up an 111 OPS+ with an .846 OPS versus lefties in limited, albeit effective action. He can also handle all 3 OF positions which is a nice added benefit.

The Cubs have signed reliever Jason Motte to a one-year deal for $4.5M with a games finished incentive. Motte hasn't pitched a full season since 2012, but did have a helluva nice run out of the Cardinals bullpen from 2010-2012, including being their closer in 2012 where he knocked out 42 saves with a 2.75 ERA thanks to a 10.1 K/9 rate, 2.1 BB/9 rate and 0.917 WHIP that season..

Yes, that man...Jon Lester. Joel Sherman and Ken Rosenthal have both tweeted that Lester has informed Red Sox he won't be signing with them.

More to come...

UPDATE #1: The deal is for 6/155M.

UPDATE #2: Red Sox offer was 6/135, Giants were willing to go 7/168 according to Jeff Passan.

The Cubs have put C.J. Edwards on the 40-man and that is the extent of their Rule 5 deadline roster moves. You can check out AZ Phil's full list of Rule 5 eligibles if you wish, but I don't see any obvious names that will get selected. Maybe Zach Cates or Ivan Pineyro or Starling Peralta, but there's certainly no one on there that folks should all be too worried about losing even if they do get picked.

The Cubs have acquired 2b Tommy La Stella from the Braves and their #4 international bonus slot for former Brave RHP Arodys Vizcaino and Cubs international bonus slots #2, #3 and #4. The Braves end up with about $832K more in international bonus money. So with the Braves getting more cash, the silent agreement between the two clubs is that La Stella was the better bet going forward as a player, certainly in the Cubs' collective minds.