Cubs Trade Mark Leiter Jr., Acquire Two Prospects from Yankees

[Matthew Trueblood]

The first trade of deadline day for the Cubs is as much about ensuring that they aren't shut out as anything, but they picked up two players with plausible big-league futures for one who's already nearing the end of his career.

Image courtesy of Nathan Ray Seebeck - USA Today Sports

Mark Leiter Jr. is a Cub no more. For the most consistently available and dominant reliever on the team over the last season and a half, the Cubs acquire righty reliever Jack Neely and infield prospect Ben Cowles from the Yankees.

It's an underwhelming return, although for a reliever already in his mid-30s and without high-end velocity, it would be unfair to expect a huge haul. Neely is a gargantuan 24-year-old righthander, with a pretty standard-issue fastball-slider combination that plays up slightly because of his size and extension. Cowles is a performance prospect who has hit well this season in the Double-A Eastern League, but who is also 24 years old and was not one of even the top 20 or 25 prospects within the Yankees farm system.

While Cubs fans know how lights-out Leiter can be when he has good feel for his devastating splitter, the reality is that his profile--nothing special about the fastball, no reliable breaking ball, occasional bouts of utter ineptitude when that splitter abandoned him--is not one most organizations particularly like or value. Though he still has two years of team control in theory, the odds are that he'll be waived or non-tendered before he hits free agency, and he's hurtling toward 35 years of age. All of those industry-wide reservations are reflected in this underwhelming return, but the Cubs are trusting their scouting and player-development groups with a couple of players who do possess notable strengths.

For Neely, that strength is a wicked slider, which plays off his fastball for lots of swings and misses. He's thrown enough strikes to climb the minor-league ladder and is not letting his walk rate get crazy even with the smallish technology-assisted zones in Triple-A. Those are good signs. Still, with a pretty ordinary fastball for a short-burst reliever, he'll have to demonstrate excellent command to get over the hump and be a contributor on par with Leiter eventually.

Cowles is more of a well-rounded gamer than a toolshed, though he has a modicum of both power and speed. He was a college draftee in 2021, but didn't make it onto anyone's real prospect radar until a strong Arizona Fall League campaign last year. He's carried that over nicely into 2024, though again, neither his numbers nor his physical play jump off the screen at you. He'll add to the team's formidable infield depth at the upper levels of the minors, unless and until some trade in the near future depletes those very stores.

All told, this is about the deal we should have expected for Leiter, very much a non-premium trade asset but a decent little chip. It would be a surprise if either player had a substantial impact on the organization, but a disappointment if at least one didn't see at least half a season of time on the big-league roster.

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