Sunday Rundown: Cubs Make Interesting 40-Man Move, Visa Issues Delaying Two Players, Harper Still Salty

It’s Sunday and it’s already early evening, so let’s not waste any time with a preamble.

• The Cubs officially announced Shelby Miller‘s signing today, which required them to clear a 40-man spot. They did so by designating infielder Ben Cowles for assignment, a curious move considering they could have kept Cowles on the roster by placing Justin Steele on the 60-day IL. Miller will head there himself as he rehabs from UCL and flexor tendon surgery in October, so they’ll get another spot that way.
• Removing Cowles isn’t surprising in and of itself, as the Cubs had already DFA’d him once before to clear a spot for Carlos Santana. But the fact that they would risk losing a player rather than making what some felt was an obvious move to put Steele on the shelf was curious. Maybe it means the lefty’s rehab is indeed going very well.
• Steele has been throwing off the mound for a while now and his recovery from internal brace surgery early last season was expected to take significantly less time than full-blown replacement. So what if it’s going so well that the Cubs believe he’ll be ready before late May? That’s the earliest he could return if placed on the 60-day, so their decision not to do that could very well mean he’ll be game-ready much earlier.
• And I’m talking mid-May at the latest, since there would be no reason to split hairs over a week here or there. There’s still plenty of time to put Steele on the 60-day if another need arises, though it’d actually have to be a second need since Miller will soon clear a spot.
• Speaking of vacancies, the Cubs are short two “catchers” in camp because Moisés Ballesteros and Christian Bethancourt have been delayed by visa issues. As Maddie Lee of the Sun-Times reported, the team doesn’t expect either backstop to report until next weekend at the earliest. Not a big deal for Bethancourt, who will provide depth at Iowa, but Ballesteros has been penciled in as the Opening Day DH.
• Barring an emergency or three, Mo Baller doesn’t figure to get in much work behind the plate this season or beyond. They didn’t have that luxury with Kyle Schwarber, who made his first MLB appearance as a catcher when Miguel Montero got ejected. Schwarber has since embraced his DH role.
• That might be something former Philly Nick Castellanos could learn from, though it sounds like the Padres are going to use him at first base and in the outfield. It sounds as though the league’s worst defensive outfielder over the last four years was not too keen on being taken out of the field, and he became a distraction at some point in his Phillies tenure.
• The Padres have already embraced Castellanos, expressing quite clearly that their culture is not the same as their East Coast counterparts.
• Removing Castellanos didn’t exorcise the distractions from Philly’s clubhouse either. Superstar Bryce Harper is still salty about POBO Dave Dombrowski saying he didn’t have an elite season, a statement that was 100% correct. Harper put up 3.5 fWAR with a 131 wRC+ in his age-32 season, which falls well short of elite even if it’s very good.
• “He’s still a quality player,” Dombrowski said during his end-of-season presser in October. “He’s still an All-Star-caliber player. He didn’t have an elite season like he has had in the past. And I guess we only find out if he becomes elite or he continues to be good. If you look around the league, I think…Freddie Freeman: He’s a really good player, right? He still is a good player. Is he elite like he was before? Probably not to the same extent. Freddie is a tremendous player, and that, to me, is Bryce. Can he rise to the next level again? I don’t really know that answer. He’s the one that will dictate that more than anything else.”
• While Harper didn’t just come out and unburden himself proactively, his comments at camp were maybe a bit more frank than you’d expect.
• “I don’t get motivated by that kind of stuff,” Harper told reporters on Sunday. “For me, it was kind of wild the whole situation of that happening. I think the big thing for me was, when we first met with this organization, it was, ‘Hey, you know, we’re always going to keep things in-house, and we expect you to do the same.’ …My numbers weren’t where they needed to be. I know that. …For Dave to come out and say those things, it’s kind of wild to me, still.”
• As for being frank, how about Manny Machado when asked about how the Dodgers are spending: “I fucking love it,” he said in the locker room on Sunday. “Every team should be doing it. Shit is fucking great for the game. I think every team has the ability to do it.”
• Per a report from Jeff Agrest of the Sun-Times, the advent of ABS in MLB games means television broadcasts will be changing slightly. While the shaded strike zone box will still appear on the screen, it will no longer indicate whether a pitch is a ball or a strike. That’s because the box will be used for the ABS system, so the league wants to do what it can to keep teams from exploiting it.
• That’s all for now, and you may not hear from me tomorrow either. I’ll be out all day for a college visit/prospect ID camp with my son. Fingers crossed.