Right-handed reliever Hector Neris and the Cubs have reached an agreement on a one-year, $9 million deal with a 2025 option, a source told Jordan Bastian of MLB.com. After 60 games, the $9 million team option becomes a player option. The Cubs have not confirmed the deal.
Neris had a stellar year in 2023, recording a 1.05 WHIP, 77 strikeouts in 68 1/3 innings, and a career-low 1.71 ERA in 71 appearances. Significant increases in his repertoire led to a significant decline in the calibre of contact hits that hitters produced against him; in 2023, he rated in the 98th percentile (28.0 percent) among qualifying pitchers, down from the 8th percentile in 2022 (44.7 percent) in 2022. With a 51.7 percent usage rate, his four-seamer produced a.153 batting average and a.306 slugging percentage (.209/.374 in 2022).
The 34-year-old would make seven postseason appearances, despite his play not living up to his regular-season stats. In eight and a third innings of work in the Astros’ ALDS and ALCS games against the Twins and Rangers, respectively, he gave up six earned runs.
Before agreeing to a two-year, $17 million contract with the Astros in December 2021, Neris played his first eight years of professional ball with the Phillies, where he was the team’s closer from 2017 to 21. As part of the agreement, Neris agreed to make 60 appearances in 2022 and 2023, for a total of 110 appearances in his first two seasons in Houston, and to get a $8.5 million player option for the 2024 campaign. Neris, who played with the Astros for 141 games, decided not to accept the offer.
Once again, it’s that time of year to rank the top 25 Cubs prospects for 2024 according to BCB. I’ll unveil five more prospects each day this week, leading up to Friday, when we reach numbers five through one.
This year, the Cubs system is particularly robust and deep because of a few notable picks and transactions that have restocked the farm system. More than any other organisation, MLB Pipeline recently included seven Cubs in their ranking of the Top 100 prospects.
As usual, it was quite easy for me to put together the top 10, but it was much harder to get through numbers 15 through 25. If one of your particular favourites didn’t make the list, it doesn’t mean they aren’t a prospect anymore because there isn’t much between the Cubs’ 20th and 30th-best prospects. If I had chosen to put in the extra effort, I could have gone up to 50 on this list.
Taking a lead from Baseball America, I will no longer list Asian league players over 25 as prospects. Shōta Imanaga has shown himself in the second-toughest league in the world, hence he is not a prospect. Rather than signing him as an international prospect, the Cubs signed him as a free agent. For the record, if he had been eligible, I would have given him a third place ranking.
Players that haven’t yet departed the Dominican Summer League will also not be ranked by me. As usual with those players, I have never watched any of them play live or in person, so in the past, when I have ranked them, I have been forced to rely on scouting reports that are put on paper and a few carefully chosen videos that are meant to make them appear good. You might also just do your own research on that items. You don’t require my viewpoint. Furthermore, expecting a 16-year-old to perform well seems a little unsettling. in a nation in the Third World. Without a doubt, a few of these young athletes will develop into excellent major league baseball players. All-Stars will be among them. However, this year, none of them intend to do so. Once they get in America, we will have ample opportunity to rank them. That may change when I reassess this policy, but for now, that is my position.
I’ve also included “The skinny,” an excessively lengthy synopsis of each player that I didn’t read.
