Forgotten role player from the 2024 Cubs re-joins the Tigers on a minor league deal

This season, a career year from veteran Carson Kelly brought badly-needed stability to the catcher position for the Chicago Cubs. Without Miguel Amaya, who was limited to just 28 games due to injury, Chicago paired Kelly with veterans Reese McGuire, to surprising success.

Kelly turned in a career-high 3.6 bWAR with Chicago this year in 111 contests, hitting 17 home runs and driving in 50. He paired those numbers at the plate with blocking and caught stealing metrics that ranked near the top of the league, leading an injury-riddled Cubs rotation to a 92-win season and the team's first legitimate postseason run in the better part of a decade.

It was a welcome change of pace from last season, when injuries and ineffectiveness forced Craig Counsell to cycle through four different backstops, including Amaya, Christian Bethancourt, Yan Gomes and, for 17 games, veteran Tomás Nido.

Nido's time in Chicago wasn't particularly productive. Well, actually, that's overselling things a bit. He was a complete liability at the plate, slashing just .128/.143/.234. That works out to an OPS+ of... 5. Even as an in-season 'break glass in case of emergency' pickup, that's pretty awful.

His stint with the Cubs lasted just over a month and after the team dropped him in late August, he signed with the Detroit Tigers - the same team he spent the 2025 season with. After an early-season injury sidelined Jake Rogers, Nido stepped up and helped stop the bleeding, batting .343 in 10 contests.

The Tigers must have liked what he offered as an insurance policy behind the plate, because he's re-joining the organization on another minor-league deal, giving manager AJ Hinch a defensive-minded option to turn to should Rogers or breakout catcher Dillon Dingler hit the IL.

Nido first broke into the big leagues back in 2017 as a 23-year-old with the New York Mets. He spent the next eight years in Queens before being released in June 2024, setting the stage for his latching on with the Cubs in July.