{"id":16151,"date":"2018-12-18T14:26:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-18T19:26:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/\/?p=16151"},"modified":"2024-12-28T10:56:18","modified_gmt":"2024-12-28T15:56:18","slug":"chicago-cubs-adding-daniel-descalso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2018\/12\/18\/chicago-cubs-adding-daniel-descalso\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Chicago Cubs Adding Veteran Infielder Daniel Descalso"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It is being reported that the Chicago Cubs are adding to their versatility by signing veteran\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/descada01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Daniel Descalso<\/a><\/strong>. The deal as reported by Ken Rosenthal is for two years with an option for 2021. This is not the type of high-profile signing Cubs fans may be looking for, but Descalso brings positional versatility, something\u00a0manager\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/maddojo99.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Maddon<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>is fond of.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Sources: Descalso deal with <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Cubs?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Cubs<\/a> is two years, $5M with a club option fo 2021.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Ken_Rosenthal\/status\/1075078193642696705?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">December 18, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h3>Report: Chicago Cubs Adding Veteran Infielder Daniel Descalso<\/h3>\n<p>Descalso spent his last two seasons with the Arizona Diamondbacks, slashing .235\/.343\/.416. He is coming off a season where he set a career high with 13 home runs and 57 RBI. He added 22 doubles, 54 runs scored, and 64 walks while also posting a career-best .353 OBP.<\/p>\n<p>The big draw for the 32-year-old veteran is the ability to play any number of positions on the field. He appeared at five different positions for Arizona, not counting his appearances as a pitcher. Descalso has appeared at every position except for catcher and center field during his career and will likely appear all over the diamond for Maddon&#8217;s squad.<\/p>\n<p>Descalso returns to the NL Central after debuting with the St. Louis Cardinals in 2010. He went on to play five seasons with the Cardinals, including serving as a vital role player during the team&#8217;s 2011 World Series run.<\/p>\n<h3>Perfect fit?<\/h3>\n<p>This is certainly not the splashy\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/h\/harpebr03.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Bryce Harper<\/a><\/strong>-esque\u00a0signing fans may be looking for, but it is a low-key move that could pay off for Chicago. The Cubs already have four players making over $20 million for 2019, including\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/d\/darviyu01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yu Darvish<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>who spent much of 2018 injured. Chicago is also dealing with a number of young, key players entering or about to enter arbitration, including stars\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bryankr01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kris Bryant<\/a><\/strong>,\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/baezja01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Javier Baez<\/a><\/strong>, and\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/contrwi01.shtml?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Willson Contreras<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>The problem for the Cubs in 2018 was a mixture of injuries and mixed production from key players. Hopefully, the team will be healthier and more consistent in 2019, and the Descalso signing is a cost-effective way to improve depth across the board.<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo:<br \/>\n<a id=\"HygOUexnR9hKkmV7q3ynLQ\" class=\"gie-single\" style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1043215542\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><script>window.gie=window.gie||function(c){(gie.q=gie.q||[]).push(c)};gie(function(){gie.widgets.load({id:'HygOUexnR9hKkmV7q3ynLQ',sig:'9Lvd1E9EHvpuK8x-lkn7ZMgDQrVXNihyXdB-rWdFRYo=',w:'594px',h:'478px',items:'1043215542',caption: true ,tld:'com',is360: false })});<\/script><script src='\/\/embed-cdn.gettyimages.com\/widgets.js' charset='utf-8' async><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>According to reports, the Chicago Cubs are adding veteran infielder Daniel Descalso via free agency. Descalso brings a lot of versatility to the Cubs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1230,"featured_media":16155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1071,35],"tags":[68,695,461,105,69,2262],"class_list":["post-16151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-mlb","category-news","tag-baseball","tag-daniel-descalso","tag-joe-maddon","tag-kris-bryant","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-free-agency"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1230"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16151\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}