According to Robert Murray of the Athletic the Chicago Cubs are signing right handed reliever to a minor-league contract. Wilson became a free agent Saturday after he was released by the Milwaukee Brewers.
Wilson struggled horrifically in his 13 outings with the Brewers. He allowed 12 runs in 11.1 innings along with 13 strikeouts to nine walks and three home runs. It's been a strange season as his strikeouts are by far the highest rate at his career, but he was also posting career highs in all the bad stats too. His peripherals aren't that bad as he had an xFIP of 5.04, his left on base rate was a career worst 60.6 percent, and his HR/FB of 30 percent was significantly above his career average of 8.6 percent.
The 32-year old veteran is coming off a four year stretch as a very reliable reliever with the Detroit Tigers. In 246 appearances over that stretch he posted a 3.20 ERA with 172 strikeouts to 62 walks in 264.2 innings. His FIP of 3.87 wasn't terrible, but maybe did suggest that he was getting slightly lucky. Despite the success, the Tigers non-tendered him, and the Brewers picked him up on a minor league contract after spending Spring Training with the Indians.
He throws his mid-80s slider over 50 percent of the time and generally had been very effective with it, but this year it was getting hammered for a .296 average against, his sinker, that he throws 28.2 percent of the time, was getting hammered for a .400 average against. The sample size for these isn't that great, but it does show what his issue was, he just plain and simply wasn't fooling batters and getting them to make outs. He doesn't strike out a lot of batters, so he needs to rely on his defense and inducing weak contact which he didn't do this year.
You can never have enough depth, and that's exactly what Wilson is, a quality depth reliever that could potentially be capable of playing a role in a bullpen whether it be when rosters expand or someone gets hurt.
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