{"id":1164419,"date":"2026-02-23T18:43:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:43:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/?p=1164419"},"modified":"2026-02-23T18:43:40","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:43:40","slug":"cubs-reportedly-sign-of-michael-conforto-to-minor-league-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/cubs-reportedly-sign-of-michael-conforto-to-minor-league-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs reportedly sign OF Michael Conforto to minor-league deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Veteran outfielder Michael Conforto will try to revive his career after reportedly signing a minor-league contract with the Chicago Cubs on Monday, MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian reports<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Conforto, who will turn 33 in March, played last season with the Los Angeles Dodgers. He appeared in 138 games, batting a career-worst .199\/.305\/.333 with 12 home runs, 20 doubles and 36 RBI in 486 plate appearances. But he wasn’t a factor in the Dodgers repeating as World Series champions, as the team left him off its postseason roster.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Looking at the Cubs’ roster, it’s difficult to see where Conforto would fit in.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[<\/strong>Get more Cubs news: Chicago team feed<\/strong><\/a>]<\/strong><\/p>\n

Taking over in right field for the departed Kyle Tucker might seem like a possibility, but the Cubs have Seiya Suzuki and his 32 home runs to play there. Ian Happ will likely play left field and hits right-handed pitching (.791 OPS, 18 homers in 2025 ) as well as Conforto (career .811 OPS). At designated hitter, Mois\u00e9s Ballesteros (.309\/.387\/.491) is probably the preferred choice, though Conforto could provide more power.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Conforto hasn’t regularly played center field since 2019 so he likely wouldn’t be a defensive replacement or substitute when Pete Crow-Armstrong needs a day off.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The hope is that Conforto could find something close to his 2019 form when he hit 33 homers and 29 doubles for the New York Mets. But the 10-year MLB veteran hasn’t approached those numbers since, failing to register an OPS above .759 in four of his five seasons since then. (He missed the entire 2022 campaign with a shoulder injury.)\u00a0<\/p>\n

Otherwise, if the expectation is for a left-handed bat who can play both corner outfield positions (and maybe center field) and provide depth to the lineup, Conforto could be a nice addition. Cubs manager Craig Counsell said as much to reporters.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point, we\u2019re looking to bring in candidates to just strengthen the roster,\u201d Counsell said, via the Chicago Sun-Times<\/a>. \u201cAnd it\u2019s a sign of just continuing to do that. Michael had a down year last year, but has been a good player in this league for quite a while.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/mlb\/article\/cubs-reportedly-sign-of-michael-conforto-to-minor-league-deal-184340931.html<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Veteran outfielder Michael Conforto will try to revive his career after reportedly signing a minor-league contract with the Chicago Cubs on Monday, MLB.com’s Jordan Bastian…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1164419","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1164419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1164419\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1164419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1164419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1164419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}