According to Ken Rosenthal of Fox Sports the Cubs have acquired catcher Martin Maldonado from the Kansas City Royal. Mark Feinsand of MLB.com reports Mike Montgomery is going back to the Royals.
Maldonado is light with the stick as he is hitting just .224/.288/.359 on the year with six home runs and 55 strikeouts to 17 walks, but he creates almost all of his value on defense as he is an elite framer and has a strong arm throwing out 33 percent of would be base stealers.
Devan Fink of Fangraphs tweets that Maldonaldo has saved an estimated 69.4 runs since 2012 from his framing alone which is a skill the Cubs have lacked in the past few seasons.
Obviously the first concern is towards the health of Willson Contreras, he has not played since Saturday after suffering a foot injury. Sahadev Sharma of the Athletic tweets that Contreras will be going on the injured list with a strain of the arch muscle on his right foot. He is not expected to be out long, but obviously any injury is concerning.
It's likely that Maldonaldo will take over everyday duties will Contreras is out, his defense should give an immediate boost to a pitching staff that has struggled to get calls on the corners all season.
The tricky part is when Contreras comes back. Victor Caratini has been excellent all season and it seems unlikely the Cubs would send him down. One possible option is to cut Daniel Descalso who has provided absolutely no value to the team this year..
The other side of the deal is losing Mike Montgomery. He had been a crucial part of the bullpen the past few years, including getting the final out of the 2016 World Series, but he has not been effective at all this year and it was probably time to move on and get some value.
He's made 20 appearances this season and has posted a 5.67 ERA (6.21 FIP) in 27 innings. His already low strikeout numbers combined with a career high walk rate is not a good combination and an increased home run rate is just a death sentence for a pitcher. He goes to the Royals where he will get a chance to rebound.
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