Cubs Rotation Outlook, Darvish Has to be Great

It doesn’t look like much will happen with the Chicago Cubs between now and the end of the year. With that in mind, instead of looking at trades or free-agent signings, we’ll take some deep dives into the Cubs’ current roster and what we can expect. The first to look at – the starting rotation.

Cubs Rotation Outlook

As of now, the official Cubs website list the rotation as follows:

• Jon Lester, LHP 35 yr 13-10 4.46 ERA 1.50 WHIP
• Yu Darvish, RHP 33 yr 6-9 3.98 ERA 229 K
• Kyle Hendricks, RHP 30 yr 11-10 3.46 ERA 1.13 WHIP
• Jose Quintana, LHP 30 yr 13-9 4.68 ERA 171 IP

Ok, now it gets funky…

• Alec Mills, RHP 19 career games, 6 starts
• Tyler Chatwood, RHP 138 career starts with 4.36 ERA, 3.76 ERA in 2019
• Adbert Alzolay, RHP 4 career games, 7.30 career ERA
• Colin Rea, RHP career 4.69 ERA 1.38 WHIP in 25 starts

There are four pitchers vying for that last rotation spot. Now, we have seen some teams, successfully, manage a season without a true *fifth starter* but yet relying on “openers” and tossing a starter out for one to three innings and then just calling a bullpen day when they rely on matchups. With the new pitching rules that came in effect, where relief pitchers need to face at least three hitters, this might get a little trickier but can help save arms.

When we look at the latter four, we know that they will all likely play a role in the rotation as well as the bullpen. Alzolay is the pitcher with the most upside, and with only one option remaining, the Cubs will likely be forced to make a decision on him. He struck out 9.49 hitters per nine in 2019, but when he also walks 6.57, it’s no wonder his ERA was in the mid seven’s. If you were to believe “steamers” as a projection system, they expect him to just be a guy in 2020. High four ERA, again showing an ability to miss bats – as well as the strike zone.

Rea had a nice 2019 in Triple-A Iowa for the Cubs. Tossing 148 innings, winning 14 while dropping 4. He features a fourseam fastball and a sinker that come in at 93 MPH, as well as a cutter (89), a curve and a change. According to Brooks Baseball, most of his pitches produce more than an average amount of groundballs.

I have liked Mills for a while. Maybe it is because he is less than intimidating, similarly to Hendricks, and it doesn’t seem as if big pressure situations get to him. Also, similar to Hendricks, he doesn’t feature overpowering fastballs. His fastball generates grounders and his change causes some swing and miss. He does feature a slider as opposed to Hendricks’ curve. If the Cubs don’t find another option via trade or free agency, I would love to see what Mills can do when given 15 or more starts. However, I do have a fear that outside Darvish, the Cubs will feature four starters with modest 89-93 MPH fastballs if Mills does get that fifth spot.

The last option in the bottom four is Chatwood. After a horrific 2018 season with the Cubs, Chatwood redeemed himself in a relief role in 2019. His velocity in 2019 was the biggest change that you could actually see, while there were several other changes to his mechanics. He averaged 96 MPH with both his fastball and sinker, and was able to dial it up to 99 on occasion. Chatwood did get five spot-starts in 2019, and I would expect him to find his way into several starts in 2020, but with a ragtag bunch of relief pitchers this next season, Chatty might be too valuable out of the pen.

Top four starters

Now looking at the top four starters, Lester, Darvish, Hendricks, and Quintana. Let’s look at the bottom up.

Quintana is a perfectly good backend starter, but there are a ton of fans that can’t stand him for two reasons – the Cubs traded Eloy Jimenez for him and inconsistencies. Quintana would have a great game and then back it up with a horrible one. An example was his start on August 18th against the Pirates. He throws 7 innings and doesn’t allow a single run on 5 hits. His very next start against the Nationals, he gives up 5 runs (4 earned). What is interesting is, he had six starts in 2019 where he didn’t give up a run, and 13 of his 32 starts he gave up two runs or fewer. In a perfect world, he would be the fifth starter, but with the loss of Cole Hamels, Quintana will be relied upon even more in 2019.

It is weird to talk about Hendricks in the third spot in what will likely be a very rough rotation. Whether he is slotted in the third spot or not, we should all understand he’s going to be a part of a duel-headed punch with Darvish – but more on him in a bit. While there are a lot of national guys that don’t understand how Hendricks can continue to strive, he is consistently one of the best pitchers in the game. He doesn’t feature that swing and miss ability that a lot of pundits love, but he just pitches. He knows what he can do, goes out there and does it, and the best part is – the hitters know what he’s throwing and can’t consistently hit him hard.

Something to watch out for is, Hendricks had a higher “hard hit %” in 2019 (33.8%) than ever before. Of course, there were some issues with the baseball, but this is something to watch in 2020. Another thing to watch is, after leading the National League in ERA in 2016 (2.13), Henricks’s ERA has gradually risen in each of the last three seasons – 3.03 in 2017, 3.44 in 2018, and 3.46 in 2019.

Lester, while is an absolute horse, is on the back-nine of his career. He’s 35 now, and 2020 will be his 14th big league season. With more than 2,500 innings on his arm, and that grenade we all supposedly forgot about, how long can fans expect him to be that dominate guy the Cubs saw in 2016?

While I expect that Lester gets the opening day nod again, I fully expect Darvish to be the actual ace of the staff. Now, Lester will absolutely go out and compete. Every. Single. F*cking. Day. He will compete. I still expect Lester to be a 2 WAR player in 2020, but he will do it similarly to how he did it in 2018 and 2019. Just don’t expect to see the Lester that competes for Cy Young Awards.

The key to the Cubs rotation will be Darvish. If he can produce numbers similar to the second half of the 2019 season, then the Cubs should have just enough starting pitching to maintain a certain level of competitiveness. In the second half of 2019, Darvish posted a 2.97 ERA with 118 strikeouts in 81 and 2/3rds innings. What is curious is, over the course of Darvish’s career, he has always performed better in the second half of seasons. He does have about 150 innings less in the second half of seasons that the first, which is likely due to some injuries, but his ERA is about 20 points lower and around a half strikeout an inning more.

There is always the threat of an ill-timed injury with Darvish, which caused a lot of fans to form premature opinions of him. But, we’ve witnessed a complete transformation from outsider to ringleader. He is out to clown on anyone on Social Media, you can see he’s having a blast in the dugout, and what is most impressive is – he looks like he’s having fun pitching. The dude legit created a pitch, on the go last season, then incorporated it, in game – AND DOMINATED.

If Darvish has a subpar season, the Chicago Cubs will have a subpar season. If he has a great season, the Cubs can compete for a playoff spot. This will sound odd because I think this team is two strong starters away from being able to be championship-level contenders… but there are more questions offensively because the way this rotation is assembled. So, yes, Darvish needs to be outstanding in 2020, the offense needs to be able to support the other three to four starters. We will see if that can happen.