A tough luck injury will cost this former Cubs infielder a huge chunk of the season

After a disappointing run with the Chicago Cubs, this spring was supposed to be a turning of the page for former first-round pick Nick Madrigal. The infielder signed a one-year split deal with the New York Mets this winter and was expected to compete for a bench spot in camp.

But before he could even get in a groove with his new club, he suffered a fractured left shoulder in a split-squad matchup with the Nationals. There's no timeline for the injury just yet - but Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said he'd be sidelined for 'a long time' in comments to the media.

Madrigal was hoping to get his career back on track after three lackluster years with the Cubs. A former highly-touted prospect, he looked solid early on with the Chicago White Sox, but after being traded to the North Side, things just sort of unraveled. He slashed just .251/.304/.312 in more than 600 plate appearances, good for a 73 OPS+.

To call his production disappointing is putting things mildly. As the centerpiece coming back in the 2021 Craig Kimbrel trade, the hope was his elite bat-to-ball skills would make him a solid contributor up the middle for years to come. That's not what happened, though, and the shine had definitely worn off by the time the Cubs cut him loose last fall.

He turns 28 in March, so there's no reason to think he won't bounce back from the injury and hopefully get another chance to re-establish himself, either in New York or somewhere else around the league down the line. As for his former team, the Cubs, they're looking at an all-new bench mix this spring, with Gage Workman, Vidal Brujan, Justin Turner and Jon Berti all in the mix as infield depth.

The bench was an area the Cubs couldn't afford to ignore again this offseason. The production Chicago has gotten there in recent years was abysmal and cost them too many games to count. They moved on from not only Madrigal, but Miles Mastrobuoni, Patrick Wisdom and David Bote from the backup infield depth - not to mention trading Christopher Morel last summer and then flipping the man they got back in that deal, Isaac Paredes, in the Kyle Tucker trade this winter.