Ivy League Cubs

Jameson Taillon is most likely going to start the season on the IL due to lower back tightness, which raises some questions about the Cubs rotation. Justin Steele has already been named opening day starter, so this won’t affect him. Taillon likely had a good chance to start game two, though he would have had some competition with Hendricks and Imanaga. I think the Cubs will give Hendricks the nod for game two, simply due to his impact on the franchise–though he is still a good pitcher. Wicks then likely slots into the 4 starter role to start the season, but it leaves the fifth spot completely open, and there are a few options.

Drew Smyly started 23 games last season for the Cubs, and it was all highlighted by his near perfect game bid against the Dodgers in April, but things went downhill from there before ultimately being moved to the bullpen down the stretch (and being pretty effective out of there, too). Smyly’s stuff isn’t overwhelming, but this off-season he has developed a splitter. The splitter is probably the best pitch in baseball, but it is so hard to throw and there’s a reason why most pitchers don’t have one.

I think Smyly is pretty unlikely to take over for the injured Taillon at the moment, as it feels like his role has been pretty much confined to the bullpen. He’s only pitched 7 innings in the spring thus far, and there isn’t much to glean from that sample (especially without statcast data–hopefully next year it gets implemented at Sloan park). Smyly will probably be limited to a bullpen role, and maybe make a couple starts as an opener, or could also pitch bulk innings (and when I say bulk, I mean like 2 innings at a time). I doubt we see him in a starting role this year, and if we do, something probably went bad.

One person I want to mention is Ben Brown. Brown will almost certainly not be making starts for the injured Taillon, since the Cubs optioned him to AAA last week. It seems as if that is where he will be spending the start of the season–with hopes to make an impact at the Major League level.

Barring a last-minute free agent signing (and even then, said free agent probably won’t be ready for Opening Day at this rate), there seems to be two other candidates to start the season in the rotation: Hayden Wesneski, and Javier Assad (Caleb Kilian also could have been an option if he hadn’t gotten injured–he looked really good in the spring). 

Now I myself am more of a Hayden Wesneski truther than Javier Assad, but there are merits to having either one in the rotation. Neither one has looked fantastic in their short work in Spring Training thus far, though granted a very very small sample size. Wesneski, though, has made consecutive outings pitching 3 innings, while Assad hasn’t thrown in live games in about 10 days. It seems like maybe the Cubs are leaning towards Wesneski filling in for the brief period of time Taillon is out.

Assad I think you could argue overperformed last season, while Wesneski underperformed. Assad’s issue is that he combines a bit of lackluster stuff with lackluster command–though there is potential for him to be a good contact manager. Meanwhile Wesneski has pretty solid stuff (his sweeper is nuts), but his 4-seam fastball has pretty poor shape and he doesn’t consistently reach upper 90’s like he could. If Wesneski can find a better way to neutralize lefties, he will improve a lot.

I also wrote about both of these guys earlier in the off-season, so I am going to link that article here rather than repeat myself about them (it’s a pretty long article so just skip to Wesneski or Assad if you want), but in summary I would prefer Wesneski to be the Opening Day 5 starter in Taillon’s absence.

Picture credit: Brad Penner, USA Today Sports