Cubs New Infrastructure Allowed them to Draft HUGE Lefty Arms

Let’s face the facts, drafting pitchers is a dangerous game to play. This is why, while I like moves the Chicago White Sox have made over the past three or four years, the reliance on young pitching has always been a question for me. On the flip side, the Chicago Cubs used a plethora of young hitters to build a roster that made the NLCS three consecutive seasons and won a World Series for the first time in 108 years.

The Cubs were successful because they had an incredible talent scouting department, had best-in-class data on players entering drafts, and used this to build the game’s highest-rated Minor League system in the game. But they did this primarily through drafting young and talented hitters. Then, they used internal resources to acquire the pitching their organization lacked.

The Cubs focused on hitting through the draft as a bat is much easier to predict than an arm is. It is much more complicated than this, but just from an injury standpoint there isn’t a lot of injuries a hitter can have that puts them out of the game completely, but pitchers… well, every time they pick up the pill they can suffer a career-ending injury.

On top of this, pitchers are pushing their bodies further than they have at any time in the game’s history. As is, doctors and sports trainers currently believe the fastest a human can throw is 106 MPH. Aroldis Chapman and Jordan Hicks have both reached 105.1. There is lore of Bob Feller hitting 107 and Nolan Ryan throwing a ball 108 MPH. There is some questioning in those cases, mostly because they weren’t measured by the same technique that is used today, meaning there is some math involved to adjust.

Either way, the fastball is the trend in pitching, just as launch angle is the trend in hitting.

Here is why. Using statcast, hitters simply don’t hit as well against higher velocity. I mean, this should be understandable, right? Regardless of the level you played, when there was someone throwing harder, they were harder to hit. Here are the hitter’s wOBA against velocity.

• Less than 90 mph: .379
• 90-92 mph: .365
• 92-94 mph: .355
• 94-96 mph: .335
• 96-98 mph: .281
• More than 98 mph: .270

This shouldn’t surprise anyone, the faster a pitch is, it is more difficult to reach base. Understanding this, pitch labs across the country popped up in attempts to unleash pitcher velo. Some had good techniques and some had questionable techniques. But, all of them found ways to add velocity. With increased velocity came more injuries, and that has always been the danger.

This is a big reason the Cubs have shied away from pitchers, especially high-velo guys in the draft. We all remember what it was like when Kerry Wood and Mark Prior went down with arm injuries. Their rotation should have been set for half a decade, but those two guys each had shoulder and arm issues that eventually cost them big chunks of their careers.

It isn’t only them, look at Brandon Morrow. He was a very highly thought of pitcher when he came up with Toronto. But injuries derailed his career as a starter. Then, he caught fire in relief and became the first pitcher in Major League Baseball history to appear in all seven games of a World Series. All while topping out over 100-MPH. He then came to the Cubs and after working three games in a row in 2018, he was done and hasn’t pitched since.

The Cubs need a pivot. Their roster is extremely talented right now, but they probably aren’t in the top five when you think of potential World Series competitors. Their minor league rosters are rebounding. There is talent, but most of it isn’t ready to really compete and while they have guys that are showing up on the Top 100 lists, there is a long way to go still.

A highlight of their organization is Brailyn Marquez. A lefty with a HUGE fastball that is wowing everyone in baseball. Here is what MLB Pipeline’s review of Marquez.

“Marquez’s fastball has gotten better and better since he signed in 2015. He was in the low-90s in 2017 but was sitting 96-98 mph in 2019, and he was only 20. It’s one of the best fastballs from a lefty we’ve seen in quite some time.”

When needed, he can tune that 98-MPH heater up to 100. He’s gone on absolutely unhittable stretches (literally) and has become a Top 100 prospect, sitting at 68. He still has a bit to go before he is toeing a rubber in Wrigley, but he is possibly the most impressive Cubs pitching prospect since the Wood/Prior era.

In the 2020 First Year Player Draft, the Cubs drafted a pair of impressive lefty hurlers. Hurlers with giant fastballs that project well in the bigs.

In the second round, the Cubs grabbed lefty Burl Carraway. Carraway has a fastball that sits in the mid-90’s but can be dialed up to 98 when needed. It has a riding motion, and when thrown up and in will cause a ton of swing and misses. This dude also has a devastating downward, or 12-6 curve. It clocks around 76. Everything he throws is max effort, has good mechanics, and will play extraordinarily well in late-game situations.

With the Cubs’ fourth-round pick, the Cubs grabbed Luke Little. Here’s a kid that just a year or so ago was topping out at 77-MPH. He got together with some pitching guys and they untapped a ton of potential – oh, and velocity.

So in case you missed it earlier.

Juco LHP Luke Little (@Luke_L23) hit 105 today 😳

Look at the reaction of the guys next to him 😅

Find Little ranked among the best draft prospects in the 2020 class: https://t.co/svYjJwEDKl pic.twitter.com/RwIEL4z71Y

— Baseball America (@BaseballAmerica) May 8, 2020

Yeah, he went from 77 up to 105!!!

He is also an imposing figure on the mound. Sitting at 6-foot-9, 249 lbs, and being a lefty – he will be an incredibly imposing figure on the mound. That is, if he signs. He is committed to the University of South Carolina, and that is something he has dreamt about since he was 10.

I’ve been dreaming of this day since I was 10 watching them play in the college World Series. Blessed to say i have commited to the University of South Carolina to Continue my Academic and Baseball Career. Thank you to God above all and my parents for getting me here. pic.twitter.com/xt4QKy7JGt

— Luke Little (@Luke_L23) November 7, 2018

Change in pitching philosophy

Trevor Bauer has said, he made himself into a MLB pitcher. He didn’t have the tools or athleticism that others do, but he created a good MLB pitcher through training differently and adapting to technology.

There are a couple of factors that have changed the Cubs philosophy in drafting pitching. The first is, there was an expectation that pitching would be acquirable in trade. The Cubs were able to trade for guys like Kyle Hendricks, Jake Arrieta, and Pedro Strop, but thee are pitchers the Cubs got a little lucky on (not to degrade their scouting and player development departments). There was the expectation that some pitching talent would be signed in free agency, but after hitting on Jon Lester they missed on Tyler Chatwood and the next two seasons will determine how well they did in grabbing Yu Darvish.

So, the front office and scouting and player development knew that if they wanted young and cost-controllable pitching, they would have to acquire it through the draft. But, there was also an organizational shift in how they thought about pitching.

In an interview with Evan Altman of Cubs Insider in January of 2019, Jason McLeod (then VP of player development and now SVP of Player Personnel) said the following.

“We probably were a little more conservative back in the day,” McLeod explained. “As we thought about pitching, we tried to fit everyone neatly into a box. And so we put so many checks on guys, I feel, that we probably walked by some guys that didn’t meet certain criteria at the time. We were being probably a little too conservative.

“We wanted them to check so many boxes: Strike-throwers who we thought were going to be healthy who had this type of performance, whether it be strikeout rate, whether it be walk rate. That probably hamstrung us a little bit. We probably could have pushed guys in our early days and I think that as we sat here five years later, we discovered that we could have been a little more aggressive.”

Where I would interject is, the club, while flirting with the Pitch Lab, hadn’t really set up the organizational infrastructure, as of yet, to breed high-velo pitching. They had begun to identify that this was a need. They found guys that fit the high-velocity and high-spin rate trends, but internally they had just begun to scratch the surface on how to really develop strong arms – that were also healthy.

The pitch lab essentially is a data mining laboratory on pitchers within the Cubs organization. The high-tech lab consists of high-speed Edgertronic cameras and Rapsodo machines. When used in tandem, these devices are capable of capturing up to 2,000 frames per second, pitch velocity, pitch spin rate/efficiency, pitch break, pitch trajectory, and pitch axis. Using these, the Cubs can more accurately mold a pitcher’s mechanics to get more from their pitches, mask release points, and simply reach the limits of human efficiency through technology.

The final piece of the puzzle was hiring Craig Breslow as the team’s Director of Strategic Initiatives for Baseball Operations. Breslow used the Rapsodo machine to help him revive a baseball career. In his role with the Cubs, he is responsible for using all new data and injecting it into a planned development of the Cubs players.

On top of this, the Cubs added Tommy Hottovy as their pitching coach before the 2019 season. He was previously the clubs run prevention coordinator, which was a very analytical job. They added Kyle Evans as their senior director of major-league data and development. They are focusing on bringing data to the players in a way that helps get more out of their abilities, which will project to better performance on the field.

With a high-tech lab, guys that know how to use the data, the Cubs have adapted their philosophy on drafting pitching. That philosophical change has allowed them to go out and get these big arms with the expectation that they can continue to build on their ability and create better pitchers by the time they hit the big league club.

The Cubs could soon have three hard-throwing and imposing lefty pitchers in their organization. Guys that top out in the triple-digits. Guys that the club wouldn’t have taken just three years ago. The next couple years the organization might see a shift from hitter heavy talent to pitching heavy, and a part of that is the way they have changed their outlook on pitching as an organization.