The Cubs acquired David Phelps yesterday in exchange for former third-round pick Thomas Hatch.
Hatch, a right-handed starting pitcher, didn’t rank particularly highly on lists of the Cubs’ best prospects, with FanGraphs projecting him as a middle reliever. Still, his numbers as a starter haven’t been bad, though he hasn’t replicated the 2.98 FIP he posted in high-A ball back in 2017.
In other words, the Cubs may have given something up, but that’s how the game works, and in all likelihood the player they gave up will end up being no better than Phelps. Hatch is, of course, under team control for much longer than Phelps, who comes with what’s most likely either a $1M or $3M team option for 2020. The exact amount of the option reportedly depends on whether he appears in 30 or more games, with 40 or more upping it even higher. He’s appeared in 17 so far this year.
Phelps, coming back from Tommy John surgery that took away the entirety of his 2018 season, was once a starter for the Yankees. He reached the majors in 2012 and remained with the team as a swingman until the 2014-15 offseason, when he went to the Marlins as part of a deal that included Nathan Eovaldi, Domingo Germán, Garrett Jones, and Martín Prado (big trade, in hindsight). Early in 2016, he converted to a full-time reliever, posting a 2.28 ERA backed by a 2.80 FIP. Midway through 2017, the Marlins dealt him to Seattle, where he almost immediately began suffering the elbow troubles that eventually led to Tommy John.
Phelps is an interesting pitcher. At 32, he’s not particularly old for a reliever, and that 2.80 2016 FIP (plus a 3.55 in 2017) shows how good he was capable of being prior to the surgery. But so far in 2019, he’s scraped by on an unsustainable BABIP and LOB%. His ERA’s a tidy 3.63, but his FIP’s a concerning 4.78.
Those numbers are only over 17 appearances, so they should be taken with a grain of salt, but it’s worth noting Phelps is not physically the pitcher he was prior to Tommy John surgery. His velocity is down about two miles per hour on all his pitches, and whether because of that, a change in approach, or a change amongst hitters, he’s suddenly a fly ball pitcher after being fairly non-descript between flies and grounders before his injury.
Losing velocity probably isn’t good, but more fly balls isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless they come on a day with the wind blowing out at Wrigley. On a cold October night, if the Cubs get there, it might be useful to have a bullpen guy drawing fly balls into the teeth of the wind. But on a hot August Saturday, it’s risky.
The long and short of it is this: Phelps is a bit of a lottery ticket for the Cubs. He doesn’t have a specific purpose (like Derek Holland, left-handed specialist, and Craig Kimbrel, closer), but adding him to the middle relief mix should relieve some of the pressure on Steve Cishek’s body and give the Cubs another guy who could potentially get hot down the stretch and turn into a reliable setup man. His FIP is worse than Brad Brach’s (though his ERA is about 60% of Brach’s), so don’t expect him to be thrust in as a setup man right away, unless the Cubs really believe his BABIP and LOB% are good bets to persist. With little to lose by dealing away Hatch, the Cubs seem to be hoping a reliable bullpen is something of a numbers game.
