{"id":66402,"date":"2024-02-06T15:48:44","date_gmt":"2024-02-06T20:48:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=66402"},"modified":"2024-02-06T15:48:44","modified_gmt":"2024-02-06T20:48:44","slug":"cubs-trade-michael-rucker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/02\/06\/cubs-trade-michael-rucker\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Trade Michael Rucker After Designating Him for Assignment"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Cubs sent\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/ruckemi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-02-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Michael Rucker<\/a>\u00a0to the Philadelphia Phillies for cash considerations in a trade on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>It is not a big move, but the Cubs had no use for Michael Rucker on the roster anymore.\u00a0<a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/29\/cubs-spring-training-bullpen\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">Their bullpen was full<\/a>, and he had some struggles in recent seasons. Rucker was pushed off the 40-man after the Cubs signed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/n\/nerishe01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2024-02-06_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Hector Neris<\/a> to a\u00a0<a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/01\/27\/2022-world-series-champion-chicago\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">one-year deal<\/a>. Rucker, 29, will not join the Phillies 40-man roster, and have a possibility to remain in the big leagues in 2024. He has split time between the Cubs&#8217; Major League roster and their Triple-A affiliate the past three seasons.\u00a0 The Phillies will add to their bullpen with their new addition.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Michael Rucker and the Cubs<\/strong><\/h2>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">The Phillies have acquired Michael Rucker from the Cubs in exchange for cash considerations.<\/p>\n<p>Rucker holds a career 4.96 ERA in 96 relief appearances in the majors. He tallied a 3.95 ERA in 2022 in 54.2 innings.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/mdmpvozAEe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/mdmpvozAEe<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Luke Arcaini (@ArcainiLuke) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ArcainiLuke\/status\/1754926154086072643?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">February 6, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Rucker made his Major League debut in 2021, but he was drafted in the 11th round of the 2016 draft by the Cubs. In his debut season, Rucker recorded a 6.99 ERA in 28 1\/3 innings pitched. He improved greatly in his sophomore season as he finished with an ERA below 4.00 and his career-best 1.280 WHIP. Last season, Rucker made 35 appearances, threw 40 1\/3 innings, and had a 4.91 ERA. With that regression, it was an easy choice for the Cubs to make when needing to make room for Neris.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Despite his struggles, Rucker still can pitch in the MLB. According to\u00a0<\/span><a class=\"editor-rtfLink\" href=\"https:\/\/baseballsavant.mlb.com\/savant-player\/michael-rucker-621074?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">Baseball Savant<\/span><\/a><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">, Rucker has a 22.6 career strikeout percentage to go along with a 9.4 career walk rate. Both of those numbers are great, but they are not right by any means. With those numbers, Rucker&#8217;s expected ERA (xERA) was lower than his actual ERA in each season. This suggests luck on the part of the hitters.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span data-preserver-spaces=\"true\">It is not a big-name trade, but the Cubs get some cash, and the Phillies get a reliever who can still do some good work in a Major League bullpen.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Photo Credit: \u00a9 Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Chicago Cubs sent\u00a0Michael Rucker\u00a0to the Philadelphia Phillies for cash considerations in a trade on Tuesday. It is not a big move, but the Cubs had no use for Michael Rucker on the roster anymore.\u00a0Their bullpen was full, and he had some struggles in recent seasons. Rucker was pushed off the 40-man after the Cubs [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4985,"featured_media":66411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_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":[24,1071,35,23],"tags":[2880,28328],"class_list":["post-66402","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cubs","category-mlb","category-news","category-phillies","tag-hector-neris","tag-michael-rucker"],"modified_by":"Matt Graves","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66402","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\/4985"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}