Can the Cubs Rely on Carl Edwards Jr
On the periphery, Carl Edwards Jr has been a great pitcher for the Chicago Cubs. He was even once penned as the heir apparent to the closer’s role. But something happened after the 2016 season with Edwards, which has shifted his career trajectory.
Edwards owns a career 3.23 ERA and 1.094 WHIP. In 2016 his WHIP was 0.806, which is incredible. His 2.60 ERA in 2018 was the fifth lowest in the club. But anyone watching him knows there is something wrong with him.
Take his 2019 debut on Saturday. As our family was driving the town in Wisconsin Dells, I had the game on MLB.TV. When Edwards gave up the hit to the first batter, I turned to my wife and said that’s likely going to cost him the inning. Then he walked Nomar Mazara, and Joey Gallo walked up to the plate and I said he’s going to change the game.
Joey Gallo for 3 and the lead.
(Via @MLB)pic.twitter.com/DzLl2dRc9P
— Yahoo Sports MLB (@MLByahoosports) March 31, 2019
That’s Edwards’ thing. The dude is crazy talented. He has incredible stuff. But if an inning gets messy, he’s gotta get out.
For some reason, and we’ve seen pitchers like this in the past, once a baserunner gets on and there’s any level of additional pressure, they lose something. I don’t know if it’s location, I don’t know if it’s mechanical, I don’t know if he tries to put more on a ball or tries too hard to finish a ball, which creates more flat pitches?
Whatever the case, this is a real thing for Edwards and it all started with this homer.
Edwards can be a very valuable pitcher. But someone has got to get into his head and fix whatever is going on in there. Right now, I wouldn’t get him in a game with any bit of pressure on the line.
How do you fix it? Perhaps it’s time to get in in front of a legitimate sports psychiatrist.
How can some hippie commie tree hugging voodoo magic help Edwards? Take Roy Halladay for an example.
In 2000, with a year and a half of success in the big leagues, Halladay turned epically bad. He would set an MLB record for the highest ERA with at least 50 innings pitched, 10.53. His performance was so bad that the Blue Jays didn’t just send him to the minors, they tossed him all the way to Single-A because he just wasn’t right.
It was at that time he began to read a book by sports psychiatrist, Harvey Dorfman.
His performance almost immediately improved, and when he was called up at the end of the 2001 season, and he finished with a 5-3 record and a 3.16 ERA. In 2002, he began to see Dorfman personally, and he won 19 games, posted a 2.93 ERA. The following year he won the AL CY Young.
I’m not suggesting that Edwards needs to seek out Dorfman (it’d be hard since he passed in 2011), but he needs something other than the Cubs own psychiatrist. Someone away from the team, someone perhaps unfamiliar with his successes and failures. Someone that he can really talk to, get to the root of his ineffectiveness in tough situations, and hopefully turn it around. Otherwisehe might just go down as another example of wasted MLB talent.
