I’ll get to the Bullets soon, I swear. Early game and lots of news today has really backed me up!
Included in that news, a minor roster move for the Cubs, as they swap out a couple arms:
Anderson Espinoza remains, for me, on the 40-man roster bubble, despite the good results in the big leagues. There simply isn’t a metric – other than the bare-bottom results – by which he’s actually pitched successfully in the big leagues this year. Moreover, he has too many outings where he *ONLY* has his fastball available, and although it’s a good fastball, he never locates it. I love Espinoza’s story and the fact that he made the big leagues after so much missed time, but I haven’t seen anything yet that tells me he’s a guy the Cubs can lean on next year.
Steven Brault, 30, hasn’t seen much time with the Cubs this year thanks to multiple injuries, but, because of his past big league success (well, it’s more “passable” than success) and the ability to control him via arbitration next year, I think it’s the right call to keep evaluating him the rest of the way. He might be a guy after being fully moved to the bullpen for the first time in his career, or he might be a decent swing depth option for next year.
Of course, that’s all predicated on him pitching really well and staying healthy the rest of the way. So we’ll see.