Scott Kingery reportedly signs minor league deal with NL contender

After just a year in the Angels organization, Scott Kingery is headed back to the National League: He signed a minor league deal with the Chicago Cubs on Tuesday, per Patrick Mooney of The Athletic. The contract includes an invite to spring training.

That aforementioned campaign with the Angels didn’t exactly go according to plan for Kingery, who was likely hoping a change of scenery could rejuvenate his career after he was traded to Anaheim for cash considerations. He slashed .148/.207/.185 in parts of 19 games. His 59 games with Triple-A Salt Lake went better, though not all that much, hitting for a .686 OPS.

As was his calling card with the Phillies — or his downfall, some take artists might posit — he played around the diamond. That’ll be what the Cubs look for in Kingery, and it’d be his case for a roster spot in Chicago, should the spring go well enough.

Before this year, Kingery’s last Major League appearance came in 2022 with the Phillies. (He thus got a National League championship ring.) His last plate appearance, though, came the year before, and the bulk of his MLB action still belongs to the 2018-19 seasons. In the latter, he was a 2.7-bWAR player with a .788 OPS across more than two-thirds of the regular season.

Kingery will always be known in Phillies circles for the unprecedented six-year, $24 million (with three club options that could’ve brought it to $65 million) deal he signed during the Matt Klentak regime before he ever played an MLB game. He was the second player to sign a multi-year deal before his debut; a handful have followed suit, including the Brewers’ Jackson Chourio, White Sox’s Luis Robert Jr. and Tigers’ Colt Keith. Kingery had climbed to No. 2 in the organizational prospect ranking, of course behind Sixto Sánchez.

If Kingery had panned out, it would’ve been a steal. Given that he didn’t, it was a blunder. That’s the risk teams assume when they sign pre-debut (or, just, unproven) players to multi-year extensions.

Kingery’s time in the Phillies organization didn’t end in 2022. He spent the following two years with Triple-A Lehigh Valley. He put up an .804 OPS in his last year as an IronPig. He’ll hope to resemble more that player and less the Angels one this spring in Arizona, then perhaps in Iowa, or hey, maybe Chicago.