Nobody has been more active on the trade market this offseason than Jed Hoyer. The Chicago Cubs president of baseball operations has added Kyle Tucker and Eli Morgan thus far while trading away Cody Bellinger and Matt Thaiss in other deals. Unsurprisingly, Hoyer made another deal on Sunday, but this one flew under the radar a bit more.
According to ESPN’s Jeff Passan, the Cubs have acquired Vidal Brujan in a trade with the Miami Marlins, sending Matt Mervis to the NL East.
Trade news: The Chicago Cubs are acquiring utilityman Vidal Bruján from the Miami Marlins for first baseman Matt Mervis, sources tell ESPN. The deal is done. Both are former top 100 prospects looking to carve out at-bats in a new location.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 29, 2024
On paper, this isn’t a move that will mean much for Chicago. Brujan (hopefully) won’t play much for the Cubs, and Mervis didn’t have a spot either, with Michael Busch looking like their first baseman of the future and Seiya Suzuki locked in as the team’s DH.
Where this can really hurt Jed Hoyer and Co., though, is on the Mervis side of the transaction. Chances are, he’ll get a chance to play in Miami a lot more than he did in Chicago. If he plays well, Hoyer could be to blame.
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Mervis was one of, if not the most exciting prospect to follow in Chicago’s system in 2022, as he hit 36 home runs, drove in 119 runs, and had a .984 OPS while making the jump from High-A to Triple-A. He excelled at all three levels and looked like he had a legitimate shot to be Chicago’s first baseman of the future.
Unfortunately, Mervis never got much of a chance to show that he could be the team’s long-term solution at first base. He appeared in 27 games for Chicago in the 2023 season but struggled mightily, recording just 15 hits and striking out 32 times in 99 plate appearances, before being sent back down to Triple-A. He would not appear in another MLB game for Chicago until the 2024 season, when he was in the majors for nine games all year.
Mervis had strong showings in the minor leagues in both 2023 and 2024, but never got a prolonged stint at the MLB level. Now, chances are, he’s going to get a chance to contribute in Miami.
The Marlins won’t be any good whether Mervis is a star or not, but Mervis will have more of an opportunity to show what he can do with the Marlins than he ever got with the Cubs. If he performs well, that’s a bad look for Hoyer.
Had the Cubs gotten any semblance of value for Mervis, his success in Miami wouldn’t mean much of anything. With Brujan, a 26-year-old with a .531 OPS in parts of four MLB seasons, being all that the Cubs got, this trade can age very poorly.
Brujan offers some speed and the ability to play all over the diamond, but if the Cubs have to rely on him to play regularly at any point, they’re likely in trouble. Instead of getting a low-level prospect for a guy who was a top-ten prospect in Chicago’s system just a couple of years ago, they got a player who has proven in parts of four seasons for nearly 500 plate appearances that he isn’t an MLB-caliber hitter.
The Cubs just saw Pete Crow-Armstrong, a position player who struggled mightily in his first taste of MLB action, explode on the scene down the stretch of this past season. This isn’t to say Mervis is Crow-Armstrong by any means, but his minor-league numbers speak for themselves. He has at least some potential, and the Cubs traded him for relatively nothing without giving him much of a chance.
if Mervis fails to contribute in Miami, this deal is a wash. If Mervis does anything in Miami, the Cubs lose it very handily. Where Hoyer really went wrong here was not giving him more of a chance at the MLB level or trading him earlier when they could’ve gotten more of a return.
