Former Cubs OF Tyler Colvin signs with Miami Marlins

Tyler Colvin, once heralded as “the next big thing” for the Chicago Cubs, has agreed to terms on a minor league deal with the Miami Marlins after spending last season with the World Series champion San Francisco Giants.

Colvin, 29, is a career .239/.287/.446 hitter across portions of six big league seasons, three of which were spent on the North Side of Chicago. The best of those three campaigns came in 2010, when, as a 24-year-old, he hit 20 home runs and drove in 56 runs, while batting .254/.316/.500. However, he took a step backward in 2011, batting just .150/.204/.306 in half a season with the Cubs – struggles that ended his time in Chicago.

The next season, Colvin bounced back as a member of the Colorado Rockies, hitting 18 long-balls to go along with a career-high 72 runs batted in. He also added 27 doubles and 10 triples – quickly re-establishing his value after that disappointing season with the Cubs.

Over the course of the past two seasons, which he spent with the Rockies and Giants, Colvin has limped along to a .201/.242/.346 batting line across 84 games. Last season, specifically, the outfielder batted .223/.268/.381 with San Francisco, giving Miami a reason to hope he continues his resurgence back to the levels he reached with the Cubs.

Fans in Chicago once believed that Colvin would help lead the team back into relevance, but after yet another prospect fizzled out, hopes dimmed. With the team markedly improved over just the course of the past few months, the Cubs – and the memory of what Colvin once meant – have changed.