The best part of Justin Steele’s outing last night? Only one ball was hit harder than 100 miles per hour, and it was on the ground. The best part of Adbert Alzolay’s outing last night? The five strikeouts paired with zero walks.
It was a great night for the young pair, and it demonstrated something about each of them: Alzolay has that strikeout stuff. Steele, through just 31 innings we should note, has been effective at limiting quality contact.
Normally, when you see an opponent BABIP like that of Justin Steele, which is .233, you assume he’s getting lucky. And to be fair, he might be getting lucky. But his ERA/xERA/FIP split reads 3.48/3.54/5.25, which implies an absurd load of low-quality contact. If your xERA’s right there with your ERA and you’re eliciting a .233 BABIP? You’re getting guys to hit the ball weakly and on the ground. Hopefully he keeps that up.
Alzolay moving to the bullpen for the rest of the year makes sense—keep his innings manageable, try other guys in a starting routine now that you’ve seen Alzolay do it for much of a season. If pitching out of the ‘pen can help him raise the strikeouts and keep the homers down, even better, because there’s no rule that you have to make a starter pitch two or three times through the order. Which brings me to the larger point regarding what we saw last night:
The Cubs don’t need a traditional rotation next year.
And they might not want one.
I don’t believe it’s easy to pull off. I don’t think the Rays’ wizardry has entered the public domain. But if you’re in a boat entering this offseason where you have two guys you know can start regularly (Kyle Hendricks, Alec Mills) and three or four guys who you love going once through the order but don’t trust to be full starters (Alzolay, Steele, Keegan Thompson, perhaps Cory Abbott), why not plan on piggybacking? Mixing and matching? Using openers for their starts?
With the DH likely coming to the National League, managing a pitching staff this way shouldn’t cost so many pinch hitters, and with so many rotation holes to fill, and with holes to fill elsewhere on the roster, and with some questionable results with those middle and back-of-rotation free agent starters in recent years (see: Davies, Zach; Chatwood, Tyler) it isn’t outlandish to believe the Cubs should aim to have three or four starting pitchers next year and then a pack of tweener guys. Try to sign Max Scherzer to a two-year deal. Try to lock up Marcus Stroman or Kevin Gausman. But don’t go looking for a guy you might overpay and overcommit to just for the sake of having a full rotation. Might it blow up? Yes. But the most likely path for next year seems to be trying to build an 85-win, on-the-rise roster anyway, and hoping to be close enough in July to cautiously go for it. If the Cubs are doing that and they want a starter in July, they can try to go get one. But between the Cubs trying to identify diamonds in the rough in the starting pitching free agent market and the Cubs committing to using a pack of multi-inning relievers in variable roles, I’d opt for the latter. For 2022, at least.
The only other notes from last night are that Frank Schwindel continues to sizzle, Patrick Wisdom smoked that baseball in the sixth even though he went 0-for-4 on the day, and that I hope Matt Duffy’s back in business shortly.
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The Diaspora:
Nick Castellanos went deep twice off of the Cardinals in the second game of that doubleheader, driving in six runs. Yu Darvish had a rough outing against the Diamondbacks, leaving in the third inning having allowed six runs, five earned. Kris Bryant doubled twice for the Giants, who fell out of first place.
Around the Division:
The Brewers are nearly 100.0% favorites by FanGraphs’s playoff odds, a mark that could be achieved as soon as tomorrow morning depending how they finish this series in San Francisco. With the Padres losing, the Reds and Cardinals each gained half a ground on them, leaving the Reds half a game up on the Pads and two and a half up still on both the Phillies and the Cards. The Brewers activated Daniel Vogelbach from the IL but put Manny Piña onto it.
Up Next:
Four with Pittsburgh at Wrigley
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Whom:
Cubs vs. Pittsburgh
When:
7:05 PM Chicago Time
Where:
Wrigley Field
Weather:
Temperatures in the low 70’s, wind blowing in from right at five to ten miles per hour.
Starting Pitchers:
Keegan Thompson vs. Mitch Keller
The Opponent:
Keller was a big prospect when he debuted, but he’s struggled so far in 33 career big league starts. To be fair, his 4.59 FIP’s a lot better than his 6.29 ERA, but his xERA this year’s all the way up at 5.95, implying he’s been allowing some hard contact, even if he has been a little unlucky. He walks a lot of batters.
Overall, the Pirates are rather healthy at the moment. They’ve got guys hurt, but nobody too significant. Just plugging along. Being the Pirates.
The Numbers:
The Cubs are -130 favorites, with their guests at +120 for an implied Cubs win probability of about 54%. The over/under’s at eight and leans towards the over.
Cubs News:
In addition to Alzolay’s activation, Dillon Maples was brought back from the IL, filling out the now 28-man roster.
Cubs Thoughts:
It’s the setup you’d want if you were Thompson—easy weather, wind blowing in a bit, facing the Pirates. A really phenomenal start for him would be five innings, five strikeouts, two walks, one home run. If he did that I’d feel great about it. But again, if he goes three innings and is lights out, that might serve the Cubs just as well.
On the offensive side, the Cubs do have just the 23rd-best wRC+ in the league since the trade deadline, but big series from potential members of next year’s active roster—Schwindel, Wisdom, Ian Happ, Rafael Ortega, Michael Hermosillo, Alfonso Rivas, even Jason Heyward and Robinson Chirinos, perhaps—would provide some encouragement. Even if the 40-man roster crunch claims some of the borderline guys, getting those guys to produce could create trade opportunities in which they still give value to the Cubs.
