While the Chicago Cubs fan base, media, and team try to create a formula for success, my hypothesis is the professor just isn’t solvent with June. In Laymans terms, Kyle just isn’t good in June.
Kyle has historically pitched very poorly in June, giving up more than a full run in June as opposed to his career ERA.
Kyle career numbers by month:
March/April – 4.02
May – 2.92
June – 4.67
July – 2.12
August – 2.54
September/October- 2.73
This isn’t an excuse, but sometimes trends are trends for a reason. One trend that is beginning to surface with Kyle is his release point.
Cubs pitching coach Jim Hickey has worked with Kyle on throwing over the top more, and ensuring every pitch out of his hand has similar release points. Thresults are a vertical release much higher than his normal release.
This charts Kyle’s release month-to-month over the past three years. His most successful season was that 2016 season, where he was a finalist for the NL Cy Young award. From start to finish in 2016, there wasn’t much change in his release. All pitchers will vary a bit, and Kyle was rather consistent within that typical range.
Min 2017 Kyle struggled a bit early, but after a stint on the DL he came back, with a dramatically lower release, and dominated.
In 2018 Kyle’s dip in effectiveness has come as his release got higher and higher.
Now, a higher release isn’t bad, but when you typically have a lower release it can play on your ability to command pitches. I think that’s exactly what is happening with Kyle.
Kyle has drifted up with most of his pitches in 2018 besides the change and curve. My hypothesis on this is, with the higher release it is easier for hitters to lay off the change, which is drifted lower, his curve, which is about career norm location, and they are able to sit on a sinker that’s sitting middle of the zone.
Hendricks is getting pounded on his pitch. This is a bad look, but I really believe if he were to drop his release point to his regular, and more comfortable level, the results would come back.
It will be interesting to see how Hickey and Kyle look at the data and correct this trend.
* Data and graphs from Brooks Baseball
