Cubs on the verge of losing significant trade acquisition

Over the offseason, the Chicago Cubs made a rather risky decision, sending one of their former top prospects to the Miami Marlins for Vidal Brujan. First baseman Matt Mervis, who had considerable success in the minors, was coming off his first down year in 2024 before departing the Windy City. But the risk implied wasn’t in dealing Mervis.

In two stints with the Cubs, Mervis failed to impress, hitting a mere .155 with three home runs in 116 major-league at-bats. And with Michael Busch thriving at first base, Mervis' presence with the club became superfluous. Trading for a player like Brujan, who was once MLB Pipeline’s No. 50 prospect and can play all over the diamond, made sense.

However, like Mervis, Brujan had also failed to produce at the major-league level, hitting .189 with five home runs in 497 at-bats while playing for the Rays and Marlins. And even more concerning is the fact that Brujan is out of minor-league options. If he is to be demoted, he will need to be DFA’d. Now, it seems this glaring risk is close to becoming a reality.

After the series in Tokyo, Brujan quickly fell on the injured list, keeping him on the team while not on the roster. Before his return, the Cubs optioned their top prospect and third baseman, Matt Shaw, due to his struggles, essentially saving themselves from designating either Brujan or fellow infielder, Gage Workman, for assignment upon the former’s return.

However, Chicago eventually did part with Workman to bring back veteran utilityman Nicky Lopez. Workman’s absence leaves Brujan as the last vulnerable position player on the Cubs’ roster. That brings us back to Matt Shaw.

When Shaw was demoted, manager Craig Counsell, along with president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer, voiced a desire to have Shaw improve in Triple-A and return this season. Thus far, Shaw has made some encouraging progress. After some brief initial struggles, Shaw is now hitting .324/.457/.486 with one home run in 37 at-bats entering Saturday. At this rate, we can expect Shaw to return sometime soon.

Upon Shaw’s eventual promotion, the Cubs will have a painful decision to make on Brujan. Should they lose Brujan on the waiver wire, the Mervis trade will have been for nothing. This begs the question of whether the Cubs sorely mismanaged Mervis, who has shown some significant power potential with the Marlins, having hit seven home runs on the year and ideally could have been used in a trade for pitching help rather than a swap for Brujan. 

This season, Brujan is 2-for-7 with a double entering Saturday. He also recently came under fire from Counsell for misplaying a grounder.