The Cubs are re-signing reliever Yency Almonte to a minor league deal, reports Jesse Rogers of ESPN. Chicago outrighted him off their 40-man roster at the end of last season.
Almonte, 30, landed with the Cubs as a secondary piece of last winter’s Michael Busch trade. He stepped into Craig Counsell’s middle relief group and made 17 appearances. Almonte surrendered seven runs (six earned) across 15 2/3 innings. He fanned 20 opponents and issued eight walks. That all came before the second week of May. The righty sustained a shoulder strain and underwent season-ending surgery in July.
Rogers suggests that Almonte is healthy now. There’s little downside for the Cubs in giving him another look as a non-roster player. Almonte has 223 major league innings under his belt. He owns a 4.44 earned run average with a decent 22.5% strikeout percentage and a 9.9% walk rate. His fastball has sat in the 95-96 MPH range at its best. It was down a tick in the early going last year.
Almonte has over five years of major league service. If the Cubs call him up at any point, they couldn’t send him back to the minors without his consent. The Cubs have limited roster flexibility in their bullpen. They have six relievers who cannot be sent down by virtue of their out-of-options status or service time: Ryan Pressly, Ryan Brasier, Tyson Miller, Caleb Thielbar, Keegan Thompson and Julian Merryweather.
If Colin Rea doesn’t get the fifth starter job out of camp, he’d add a seventh reliever without options. Porter Hodge is locked into a late-game role, while Nate Pearson and Eli Morgan should be in the mix. Almonte joins Trevor Richards, Phil Bickford, Brandon Hughes and Ben Heller among minor league signees who have MLB experience.