Cubs roster move: Ryan Tepera re-signed to major league deal

Ryan Tepera pitched the 2020 season for the Cubs and then departed via free agency.

And now, he’s back:

Tepera appeared in 21 games for the 2020 Cubs and posted a 3.92 ERA and 1.403 WHIP in 20⅔ innings. That was good for 0.2 bWAR, which isn’t bad for a middle reliever of Tepera’s type.

Inexplicably, when National League MVP votes were made public, Tepera received a 10th-place vote.

It turned out that was just a missed click:

“I’m sure the Tepera family is delighted, but there’s no way I would have voted for him. It was an accident,” said Hummel, whose 10th-place vote for Tepera was easily the shock of the National League MVP voting results released Thursday night that revealed a 1-2 finish for Freddie Freeman and Mookie Betts.

“I fully intended to vote for Trea Turner [10th]. In fact, I remember wrestling with putting two guys in from a last place team,” added Hummel, who had Turner’s Nationals teammate Juan Soto eighth on his ballot.

Hummel, who retraced his steps Thursday night, discovered that Tepera’s name is just three spots above Turner’s on the drop-down menu of eligible players voters were able to use to fill out their ballots. He said the only explanation he can surmise is that he mistakenly clicked the wrong name in the window and then didn’t look closely enough at the confirmation email showing his votes.

Tepera wound up finishing 18th in NL MVP voting. He’ll always have that on his baseball-reference page.

There has been no official announcement by the Cubs of this signing, and since it’s a MLB deal, someone will have to be removed from the 40-man roster to make room. When that happens, I’ll update this post.