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Relief pitcher Yacksel Ríos reacts during an appearance for the Red Sox, before signing with the Chicago Cubs.

The Chicago Cubs made one of the most significant moves of the offseason last week when they topped an offer from the Boston Red Sox to sign free agent third baseman Alex Bregman to a five-year, $175 million contract.

But also last week, the Cubs made another signing of a former Red Sox player that flew under the radar.

Most recently in the New York Mets organization, right-handed reliever Yacksel Ríos inked a minor league free agent deal with the Cubs, according to journalist Francys Romero of BeisbolFR, who reported the signing on Saturday.

“Ríos appeared in the big leagues between 2017 and 2023 with the Phillies, Pirates, Mariners, Red Sox and Athletics,” Romero reported, noting that Ríos is represented by the MAS+ Agency.

The move came during the annual Cubs Convention, an offseason three-day celebration of the iconic North Side franchise that this year featured a reunion of the Cubs’ 2016 World Series team — the first Cubs team to win a championship since 1908.

So it was understandable that the Ríos signing went largely unnoticed by the media and Cubs fans. But for the 32-year-old from Gurabo, Puerto Rico, the signing likely means everything, as it may represent his last shot at a big league career after pitching parts of six seasons with five different teams as part of a baseball journey that began 15 years ago, when he was picked in the 12th round of the 2011 draft by the Philadelphia Phillies.

Pitched for Playoff-Bound 2021 Red Sox

The most successful, albeit very brief, run of the right-hander’s career came in 2021 when the Boston Red Sox, who acquired the reliever from the Seattle Mariners organization in a cash deal.

Ríos had pitched just three innings at the Major League level for the Mariners that season, but the Red Sox must have seen something in him because on June 16, just two days after purchasing his contract, Boston manager Alex Cora — himself a native of Puerto Rico — put the veteran hurler into a game against the Atlanta Braves.

With the game tied at 6-6 in the sixth inning, Ríos retired the only batter he faced — 2016 No. 1 overall draft pick Dansby Swanson — and ended up credited with the win.

Ríos won two more games for the Red Sox, pitching 24 1/3 innings over 20 games with a respectable 3.70 ERA and can say that he made a meaningful contribution to the Red Sox run to the playoffs that year. But Boston optioned him to Triple-A Worcester on Aug. 14, then designated him for assignment five weeks later.

Ríos Out of MLB Since 2023

Since that stint in Boston, Ríos has pitched in just three big league games, with the then-Oakland Athletics in 2023. He also pitched for Team Puerto Rico in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

In January 2024, the Mets signed him as a free agent, and Ríos has pitched the last two seasons in the New York farm system, where most of his time was spent on the injured list.

“Ríos had a 3.30 ERA over 30 Triple-A innings in 2024 before suffering an injury toward the end of June,” recounted Anthony Franco of MLB Trade Rumors on Saturday. “He missed the remainder of the season and essentially all of 2025. Ríos pitched in the low minors on a rehab assignment but didn’t make it back to Triple-A until the middle of September.”

Now presumably healthy, Ríos may get one more chance at the big leagues with the Cubs but, according to Franco, is more likely to “work as a hard-throwing depth piece for Triple-A Iowa.”

Jonathan Vankin JONATHAN VANKIN is an award-winning journalist and writer who now covers baseball and other sports for Heavy.com. He twice won New England Press Association awards for sports feature writing. He was a sports editor and writer at The Daily Yomiuri in Tokyo, Japan, covering Japan Pro Baseball, boxing, sumo and other sports. More about Jonathan Vankin