Two Funky Cubs Pitchers Owned Some of the Best Pitches of the Decade
Sorry, the title doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue and I have been in a rush seemingly since the middle of December. So, I wanted to get this out there for the readers. To back things up, first, Happy New Year! I wish nothing but the best to you all.
Alex Fast, Associate Producer at MLB, put out an “all decade” list with a particular baseball spin (and the guys on the list added the spin rate). His list was the “Top 10 Pitches of the Decade” based on wOBA (if you don’t know what wOBA is, this will help you) and there were two Cubs that made that list.
Top 10 pitches of the decade by wOBA:
— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) January 2, 2020
1. Kluber CB: .140
2. Kershaw CB: .144
3. Kimbrel KC: .150
4. Giles SL: .165
5. Joe Smith SL: .165
6. Melancon KC: .171
7. David Robertson KC: .173
8. Strop SL: .177
9. Blevins CB: .182
10. Jose Fernandez CB: .182 pic.twitter.com/6wP7cgPbQR
Surprisingly (or not really to a lot of folks) Craig Kimbrel and Pedro Strop made the list.
Kimbrel caught a lot of crap from Cubs fans, unfairly, for failing to deliver after the Cubs signed him to a three-year contract in June 2019. Without really getting an offseason, Kimbrel came out and sh!t the bed. He would spend some time on the IL, and even after he continued to suffer. The final straw for a lot of Cubs fans was the final home series against the St Louis Cardinals, where he gave up back-to-back home runs to Yadier Molina and Paul DeJong – which effectively closed the door on the Cubs season.
Fact remains, his knuckle-curve has been the third most devastating pitches in baseball since 2010, allowing just a .150 wOBA. This is an incredible feat in an era in which balls have been flying out of ballparks at record paces and hitters know Kimbrel will either throw the heater or the nasty knuckle-curve.
I would assume, and one should have a similar assumption, that with a regular offseason and a regular spring training and a regular start to the season – Kimbrel will be the Hall of Fame closer he’s always been.
Strop has been a torn in the hinds of all the Boomers out there. Crying that his hat is sideways, fans almost revel in the few games he pitched bad in throughout his Cubs career (not sure where he will land in 2020). He rarely gets the credit he deserves, and most relievers that aren’t closers rarely get praise.
It is incredibly unfortunate that a lot of fans will only remember the Strop that was injured throughout most of 2019 and was a shell of himself. He was a truly great pitcher for this organization and it seems that fans only started to turn the corner on him near the end of the 2018 season.
In 2018, Strop was having arguably his best season as a pro. That is saying something for a pitcher that already led all Cubs relievers in appearances without a start. He was also already ranked as one of the best Cubs relief pitchers of all time.
Here's an obscure #Cubs career leaderboard…
Most games pitched in franchise history without any starts:
329 Pedro Strop
300 Bruce Sutter
296 Héctor Rondón
276 Terry Adams
265 Michael Wuertz— Christopher Kamka (@ckamka) June 12, 2018
Then late in the season, Strop was asked to take an at bat late in a game as manager Joe Maddon wanted him to go back out for the ninth. While running to first base, he injured his hamstring and cost him the final month of the regular season.
He seemingly never recovered from that injury, going into the 2019 season with a hampered hammy. He was asked to be the team’s closer until Brandon Morrow could return, something that never happened, and his ineffectiveness in an unfamiliar role caused fans to turn never more on him. While he will still go down as one of the best pitchers in Cubs history, factually and per all his metrics, a lot of fans will likely see him as the guy that blew a bunch of saves while his hat was crooked.
