Cubs Sign Righty AJ Puckett, Yet Another Tread Pro Day Participant

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanJanuary 31, 2025

As first reported by CI’s Jacob Zanolla on Thursday, the Cubs have signed 29-year-old righty A.J. Puckett to a minor league deal following an impressive display a Tread Athletics’ pro day. The team has a very direct conduit to Tread through Tyler Zombro, who likely influenced the acquisitions of Ben Heller and Matt Festa. Zombro hinted during Cubs Convention that there would be multiple signings coming out of that pro day after righty  Jordan Goldmann and lefty Cole Reynolds, and we’re seeing that come to pass.

Puckett was a second-round pick by the Royals in 2016 and was traded to the White Sox at the 2017 deadline as part of the Melky Cabrera deal. He missed all of 2018 due to elbow issues and eventually underwent Tommy John surgery in early 2019, then missed all of 2020 due to the pandemic. The Braves selected Puckett in the minor-league phase of the Rule 5 Draft in December of 2020 and he toiled in their system for two seasons before electing free agency.

The Mariners signed him to a minors deal and he pitched in Double- and Triple-A for them in 2023, struggling mightily with his control. That led to a stint with the Charros de Jalisco of the Mexican League, for whom Puckett put up a 3-0 record with a 1.02 ERA over 17.2 innings in 18 appearances. A big sinker guy during his time in Seattle, the only portion of his experience for which data is publicly available, Puckett has presumably reworked his repertoire a bit.

In a tweet announcing the signing, Tread noted that he featured two distinct fastballs in the mid-90s with a sweeper from 85-87. Those figures track with what we can see, though I’m guessing he’s done something different with the four-seam he threw very little in ’23. The most interesting tidbit here is that Puckett displayed a low-90s cutter, as that pitch sat 86 mph when he was with the Mariners. My assumption is that he tweaked his grip and intent on that pitch to increase velo while probably also getting sharper movement.

This may be met with complaints about Jed Hoyer dumpster-diving again, but it’s just a minor league deal that could have serious upside. Puckett has been around for a long time was very highly regarded at one point and flashed serious talent at points in his professional career. Putting up 11.35 K/9 with the Braves’ Double-A affiliate in 2022 is no joke, and he’s always done a very good job of limiting home runs.

Keeping that velo up and showing off what appears to be an improved cutter should make Puckett a solid organizational depth arm at the very least.

I wanted to dive a little deeper into some more granular stuff related to motor preference, so I’m separating it out to allow those who aren’t uber-nerds for this stuff to go about their days. Puckett is a terrestrial (drop-and-drive) mover, which you can see from the flexion and thrust in his delivery. Most terrestrials are pronators, which seems somewhat contrary to the idea that Puckett is throwing a sweeper that requires supination. That’s where Tread comes in.

Here’s founder Ben Brewster explaining how a pronator can tweak their grip to produce an effective sweeper with less supination.

Brewster also has advice for pronators looking to improve their cutters, which is applicable given the information above. It’s very possible Puckett altered his intent to more velo and less depth as a means of generating more weak contact. Though I noted his big strikeout season in ’22, he also gave up a .434 BABIP and the highest home run rate of his career. Given that his strength has been keeping the ball on the ground, leaning further into that with a revamped cutter makes a ton of sense.

Update: Okay, as fun as it was to work backwards into some possible tweaks, my understanding after talking with someone in the know is that Puckett actually supinates a bit. That’s what I get for fixating a little much on the basic profile and not acknowledging that MP is a spectrum with many exceptions to the rules. So we’re looking at a traditional sweeper grip, still trying to figure out whether something changed with the cutter.

Photo of Evan Altman Evan AltmanJanuary 31, 2025
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