Cubs sign catcher John Hicks to a minor-league contract

MLB players are still locked out, so no big signings or trades are happening, and we appear ever closer to MLB Spring Training being delayed.

None of that has changed since yesterday, but there is a bit of Cubs news today:

I confess that I was not at all familiar with John Hicks, but he has played in 264 MLB games from 2015-21 for the Mariners, Tigers and Rangers. In 2019, he hit 13 home runs in 95 games for the Tigers and last year smacked four homers in just 10 games for Texas. For the Rangers’ Triple-A team at Round Rock in 2021, Hicks hit .290/.336/.520 with 13 home runs in 64 games.

So the guy can hit for a bit of power, kind of. He’s 32 and he will very likely be the Cubs’ “break glass in case of emergency” catcher who will spend most of the year at Triple-A Iowa, because whenever the lockout ends, Willson Contreras and Yan Gomes will be the MLB Cubs’ two catchers.

In any case, thought you all would like to know, since there hasn’t been much actual Cubs news lately.