Cubs Sign OF Travis Jankowski to Minors Deal with Camp Invite

The Cubs didn’t wait long to fill the open outfield spot created when they designated Alexander Canario for assignment. As reported Friday evening, they have signed 33-year-old outfielder Travis Jankowski to a minor league deal that includes an invite to big league camp. Jed Hoyer was probably impressed by Jankowski’s homer last year against the Cubs on Opening Day, which happened to be his only big fly of the year.

That total put him three shy of his career high set back in 2018 with the Padres. Jankowski has just 11 home runs in 1,709 career plate appearances over parts of 10 MLB seasons, and his .070 ISO (a measure of raw power) ranks fourth-lowest overall in that span. The third-lowest mark (.067) over the last decade belongs to Nicky Lopez, who also happens to be in camp on a deal similar to Jankowski’s. Vidal Bruján‘s .080 makes him look like a power hitter by comparison.

Of course, it’s not like any of those guys are with the organization for their offense. Jankowski has over 800 innings at each spot in the outfield and has played at least decent defense at all of them, which probably makes him a better option than Brujan should the Cubs decide they’d rather have more outfield depth. That should be the case for them, as Jon Berti and Justin Turner will break camp as infielders.

If we squint hard enough at the logic, it would be easier to understand why the Cubs are doing what they’re doing. When looking at the roster, however, I can’t make much sense of it. A lot of folks have noted that Canario was out of options and that there are two younger prospects ahead of him in terms of outlook. But Brujan is also out of options and has shown nothing at the big league level to indicate he can be even a replacement-level performer.

As for Owen Caissie and Kevin Alcantara, it would be a tremendous waste to have either on the 26-man roster as the fifth outfielder. Jankowski could produce positive WAR, but his abject lack of power means his only contribution is as a defensive replacement…for one of three Gold Glove-caliber outfielders. For a team that has needed more pop for a long time, I can’t for the life of me understand why they’d willingly sacrifice some of it for minimal incremental improvement on defense.

Alas.