When the lock­out end­ed and Chica­go Cubs Pres­i­dent Jed Hoy­er began fill­ing out the ros­ter with vet­er­ans on one-year deals, the work­ing the­o­ry was he would try to flip most of them for a prospect or two at the trade deadline.

That sign-and-flip strat­e­gy worked well for Theo Epstein dur­ing the orig­i­nal rebuild with play­ers such as Paul Maholm, Scott Feld­man, Jason Ham­mel and oth­ers bring­ing back younger tal­ent in trades includ­ing Jake Arri­eta, Pedro Strop and Addi­son Russell.

Hoy­er signed Andrel­ton Sim­mons, Mychal Givens, Daniel Nor­ris, David Robert­son, Robert Gsell­man, Jonathan Vil­lar, Clint Fra­zier, Drew Smy­ly and oth­ers in the spring, keep­ing the pay­roll low and hop­ing for the best.

But in the rebuild that’s not a rebuild, the sign-and-flip has so far become the sign-and-flop.

Only Robert­son has put up good enough num­bers to bring back some qual­i­ty in return, and three of the vet­er­ans already have been des­ig­nat­ed for assignment.

Gsell­man and Fra­zier were DFA’d ear­li­er this month, even­tu­al­ly cleared waivers and were out­right­ed to Triple‑A Iowa. On Fri­day it was Vil­lar who was DFA’d short­ly after see­ing his name in the Cubs start­ing line­up for the open­er of a three-game series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Vil­lar, 31, signed a one-year, $6 mil­lion deal with a mutu­al option for $4.5 mil­lion for 2023. He’ll be paid an esti­mat­ed $3.4 mil­lion of his remain­ing ‘22 salary if the Cubs don’t find a tak­er. Vil­lar hit .222 in 46 games with two home runs and 15 RBIs and only .175 in June after being on the injured list with a mouth injury from a freak train­ing acci­dent.

Villar’s ros­ter spot was made vul­ner­a­ble because of the return of infield­er David Bote, who had left shoul­der surgery after the 2021 sea­son and recent­ly was side­lined dur­ing a rehab stint at Iowa with what was described a dizziness.

Man­ag­er David Ross said Bote would get a chance to play reg­u­lar­ly — he start­ed at sec­ond base Fri­day, bat­ting sev­enth. Sec­ond base­man Nick Madri­gal is on the IL with a groin injury.

“He’ll play sec­ond base a lot, and I think he’ll give Patrick (Wis­dom) a breather at third every once in a while,” Ross said of Bote. “We haven’t real­ly had a lot of bod­ies to fill that role, and ‘Wis’ has been deal­ing with … well, every­body is deal­ing with a lit­tle stuff when you play every day.”

Christo­pher Morel appears to be solid­i­fy­ing a spot in cen­ter field after being moved around when he came up from Double‑A Ten­nessee, though Ross said the rook­ie is still an option at third. Morel recent­ly said he feels most com­fort­able at third base but is will­ing to play anywhere.

Bote declined to elab­o­rate on his dizzy spells at Iowa but said he lost 20 pounds or so from last sea­son and couldn’t keep his weight up.

“We’re still try­ing to fig­ure out what the exact cause of the thing is,” he said. “It was just one of those things where I was los­ing a bunch of weight fast. I couldn’t keep any weight on. I was nau­seous and dizzy and just want­ed to make sure noth­ing was seri­ous­ly going wrong, espe­cial­ly for as long as it had been going on. … There was like 48 hours straight where I just laid in bed. I couldn’t do anything.”

Bote, 29, who signed a five-year, $15 mil­lion exten­sion in 2019 with two team-option years, said he felt “goose bumps” return­ing to the field Fri­day after so much time away. He hit .200 in 2020 and .199 last sea­son but said he made some tweaks to his approach and feels more com­fort­able at the plate.

What kind of tweaks?

“It’s all base­ball,” Bote said, declin­ing to offer specifics.

While Bote was search­ing for answers to the cause of his dizzy spells, so too was Cubs bullpen coach Chris Young, who was hos­pi­tal­ized Thurs­day in Pitts­burgh after feel­ing light­head­ed in the pen. Young said Fri­day that he was fine until the moment of his health issue ear­ly in the game.

“I was dap­ping up all the reliev­ers and felt great and sat down and (said) ‘I don’t feel great,’ ” he said. “Then 60 sec­onds lat­er, (I knew) I need­ed a lit­tle bit of help.”

Young said he was well-hydrat­ed and wasn’t suf­fer­ing from heat exhaus­tion. On Fri­day he still had no idea what had happened.

“I just got real­ly hot and had some hives and some things that were tough,” he said. “I’ve talked to our doc­tor and he’s incred­i­ble. We don’t real­ly have a work­ing the­o­ry. … Thank good­ness it hap­pened (at the park) and (train­ers PJ Mainville and Nick Frangel­la) were there to take care of it.”

Ross said Young came up to him in the dugout late in Thursday’s game after return­ing from the hospital.

“You can’t get rid of me that eas­i­ly,” Young told Ross.

But Ross added it was a “scary feel­ing” Thurs­day not know­ing “what’s going on in that moment.”

For­tu­nate­ly Young was OK and back dap­ping again Fri­day in the Cubs bullpen.

()