Today the Chicago Cubs made the Hector Neris signing officially official, adding him to the 40-man roster. That, in turn, required a 40-man roster spot opened up, and it’s fellow right-handed reliever Michael Rucker headed out.
Rucker, 29, was my best guess at who would be designated for assignment to open up the 40-man spot for Neris. Although Rucker has been very good at Triple-A and intermittently useful in the big leagues, he hasn’t quite established himself yet, and he has just one minor league option year remaining. That made him the most likely candidate to be removed from the 40-man if there weren’t a surprise trade, so that’s exactly what happened.
The Cubs will now have seven days to trade, release, or waive Rucker. My guess is that there will be interest in grabbing him – he still has solid middle-relief upside, and in an optionable pre-arbitration guy, that has value – but probably not enough for a trade. So he’ll hit the waiver wire, and if he’s claimed, he’s gone. If he isn’t claimed, he might still be gone – Rucker has been outrighted before in his career, and thus cannot be outrighted to Iowa again without his consent. He may decide he would rather hit free agency and find a clearer path back to the big leagues in another organization. We’ll just have to see.
Neris, 34, is a very successful, very durable late-inning reliever, who’ll slot into the group at the back end of Cubs games, likely setting up Adbert Alzolay. He is exactly the kind of established, sure-ish-thing reliever we knew the Cubs needed at the outset of the offseason. It just took a while to get there.
Jed Hoyer’s patience on the relief market ultimately paid off, as Neris’ deal wound up less than many were expecting he could get. He has just the one guaranteed year in 2024 at a very reasonable $9 million, and then the Cubs hold a $9 million team option for 2025. That one can become a player option, though, if Neris handles his usual workload and stays healthy (in which case you’re probably fine with keeping him at $9 million for another year anyway!):