Kyle Ryan was a very pleasant and much-needed surprise for the Cubs last year, hitting his stride and using his funky lefty delivery to become a bullpen stalwart. The numbers don’t necessarily jump off the page, but Ryan was able to generate grounders at a 58% clip and was tough on lefty batters after making a slight tweak to his location on the rubber. Because he’d accrued service time over parts of four previous seasons, the 28-year-old Ryan was finally eligible for arbitration after his first Cubs campaign.
Cubs and LHP Kyle Ryan have avoided arb with a 1-year, $975K deal, per a source.