The Cubs will select the contract of righty Vince Velasquez from Triple-A Iowa today, per Taylor McGregor of Marquee Sports. Chicago also plans to bring reliever Tyler Ferguson up from Des Moines to serve as the 27th man for today’s twin bill against the Mets.
Velasquez will take the active roster spot of righty Edward Cabrera, who’s going on the 15-day injured list due to a hamstring strain (as announced by skipper Craig Counsell last night). The Cubs still need to make a 40-man roster move.
It’s the second big league stint of the season for Velasquez. The 34-year-old tossed 2 1/3 scoreless innings in a mop-up appearance against the Dodgers on April 25. That marked Velasquez’s first big league appearance in three seasons. After a few years holding a rotation spot in Philadelphia, Velasquez has bounced around as a journeyman. He spent a couple days on Cleveland’s MLB roster last year without getting into a game and finished the season in Korea with the Lotte Giants.
Velasquez has started six of 10 appearances with Iowa. He has a 6.15 earned run average, negating a strong 26% strikeout rate by walking more than 16% of batters faced. The results haven’t been great, but he’s working 3-4 inning stints and hasn’t pitched in five days. If either game of the doubleheader gets out of hand, he could eat a few innings.
It’s possible this will be a one-day stint on the roster. Matthew Boyd will come back from the injured list tomorrow to start the finale of the four-game set. Velasquez has sufficient service time to decline a minor league assignment and would need to be designated for assignment to be pushed off the MLB roster.
Bringing up a fresh arm seems likely to cost someone else their 40-man spot. Transferring either Jameson Taillon or Daniel Palencia to the 60-day injured list would rule them out into August. The Cubs have a handful of relievers on optional assignment (Gavin Hollowell, Antoine Kelly, Eduarniel Nuñez, Christian Roa, Yosver Zulueta) who occupy 40-man spots.
