Chicago Cubs roster moves: Assad to Iowa, Blach from Iowa, Harvey to 60-Day IL

The Chicago Cubs made a few roster moves today, prior to their Sunday afternoon game against the crosstown rival Chicago White Sox at Rate Field—and they’re all kind of related.

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First, the team optioned right-handed pitcher Javier Assad to Iowa. They then selected the contract of Ty Blach from Iowa and have brought him up to Chicago. They also transferred righty reliever Hunter Harvey to the 60-Day IL.

The Assad move is actually sort of a back-handed compliment in a way.

Assad down, Blach up

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With the Cubs starting rotation floundering and probably one more injury away from being a complete fall-apart disaster, the 28-year-old Assad is the team’s best level of insurance when it comes to filling a spot. Assad is presumably being moved to Triple-A in order to start stretching out for when the team needs yet another fill-in starter. He’s not going to get the innings in the majors and the Cubs can’t afford to have both him and Ben Brown stretching into a starter’s role on the big league squad.

Realistically, he’s also the victim of having options remaining, so Chicago can afford to bring him up and send him down without the risk of losing him.

So far this season, Assad is posting a 5.88 ERA over eight appearances, but that number is a bit deceiving. Fifteen of his seventeen earned runs this season have come in two very poor outings. Over his other six outings, he’s managed a 0.93 ERA.

Lefty Ty Blach coming to the big league Cubs may just be a stopgap depth move to fill a roster spot. The former Rockie, Oriole, and Giant may be a pure roster-filler until a ready-to-use Caleb Thielbar, who had a rehab outing last night with the South Bend Cubs, can be reintroduced into the 26-man roster.

The Cubs signed the 7-year veteran Blach to a minor league contract in mid-April to help bolster pitching depth as they suffered through a wild run of staff injuries. He has posted a 5.23 ERA in five appearances (three starts) for the Iowa Cubs this season.

Harvey moved to make room for moves ahead

Meanwhile, the decision to move Harvey to the 60-Day IL looks to be purely roster-related, as Chicago had to make room for Blach on the 40-man roster and the hard-throwing—and injury prone—reliever wasn’t due back anytime soon after suffering a setback in his recovery from injury.

The new IL designation means that Harvey will be out of commission until at least June 8. But, honestly, the true target for when he could be back and be productive is sometime later in the summer. The 8-year veteran was signed by the Cubs to a one-year, $6 million contract over the winter.

The story that these three Cubs roster moves seem to be telling is that the team is expecting the need for another starting pitcher relatively soon and, also, that the veteran lefty Thielbar will be back with the main Cubs team imminently.

The post Chicago Cubs roster moves: Assad to Iowa, Blach from Iowa, Harvey to 60-Day IL appeared first on ChiCitySports.

Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-roster-moves-assad-blach-harvey/