The Chicago Cubs today swapped former bigger-named prospects with the Miami Marlins, with each club hoping the player fills their needs a little better elsewhere. First baseman Matt Mervis goes to Miami, utility-man Vidal Brujan goes to the Cubs, per Jeff Passan (and I can confirm!).
Brujan, 26, was a former big-time prospect in the Tampa Bay Rays organization, topping out near the top-50 in all of baseball a few years ago. Upon reaching the big leagues, though, his low-power, high-contact, good-speed approach fizzled, and he hasn’t been able to produce at a level anywhere close to big-league average (.222/.303/.319/73 wRC+ this past season was his best season by far).
Defensively, Brujan can play all over, and appears to be around average everywhere, but not sparkling anywhere. He has no minor league options remaining, so he cannot fill the up-down role Miles Mastrobuoni could. So we’ll see what the Cubs’ plan are here, and I suspect he’s competition for the bench. More on Brujan soon, because I need a minute to contemplate the allure here, besides betting on a former top prospect to finally turn a corner while coming off the bench.
Mervis was a great story in the Cubs’ organization, developing from an undrafted signee in 2020 (albeit one who would’ve been drafted in a normal year), to a guy whose bat dominated at the upper levels of the minors. He couldn’t quite get over the big league hump in limited opportunities, and he had a relatively down year at Triple-A this past season, but he’s just 26.
Ultimately, Mervis’s path to any kind of regular playing time with the 2025 Chicago Cubs was going to require an avalanche of injuries, since I’m not so sure he would’ve been the guy to replace Michael Busch if he alone had suffered a long-term injury. The Cubs instead probably prefer to add a right-handed hitting option to the bench who can spell Busch sometimes for match-ups, who can hit off the bench, and who would be the longer-term guy in 2025 in case of a multi-week/month injury to Busch.
Longer-term, it’s possible Mervis could have somehow found a shot, but again, it’s hard to see it absent a lot of surprising injury issues. It’s better for him that he get a chance in a rebuilding organization that can afford to give him a longer leash at first base to see if he figures out big league pitching.
Meanwhile, at Iowa, the Cubs will now have more sure-fire playing time available for Jonathon Long, as well as other positional prospects by way of shuffling guys around.
That is to say, I don’t know that this is any kind of precursor move (other than maybe further underscoring that the Cubs could use a first base back-up type). This is probably just a situation where the Cubs, through their long-time Jesus Luzardo trade talks, knew that the Marlins would be interested in giving Matt Mervis a shot. So the Cubs give him that chance, while adding a potential bench competitor with former top prospect pedigree.
That’s a good looking swing from Cubs’ 1B Matt Mervis.Via @baseballperformancecenter_ on IG pic.twitter.com/uYMrm95IM0
— Cristian da Costa (@CubsAllThings) December 19, 2024 Read More Details
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