Ivy League Cubs

By: Jacob Zanolla

Kyle Hendricks has been pretty awful this year, with a 6.75 ERA and 1.53 WHIP. Hendricks is in the last year of his contract, so there isn’t really a reason to keep him around unless he preforms well. This season, he’s striking out less people, and walking even more hitters than last year. He’s not getting the swings out of the zone, or the whiffs that he normally does.

If the Cubs really want to make a run at the postseason, it needs to be without Kyle Hendricks in the rotation. He’s done great things as a Cub, especially helping them win the 2016 World Series, but he’s run out of gas, and they can’t throw someone like him out on the mound every fifth day. Since it is his contract year, there is no worry about paying him past the end of September.

Brandon Birdsell has become one of the Cubs’ top prospects, and has continued to do impressive work in Triple-A Iowa this summer. On Wednesday, Birdsell threw six scoreless innings for Iowa, giving up four hits, and striking out six. The start before this was another six inning start in which he gave up four hits, but that time he punched out nine hitters.

On the year, Birdsell has a 3.61 ERA and 1.25 WHIP. His strikeout numbers have gotten better after the promotion to Iowa, jumping up to 10.05 K/9. Sure Jordan Wicks is coming back, but I would still love for Birdsell to get an appearance or two in the majors, or even better keep him with the club and use him out of the bullpen so he can get used to major league hitters.

The tough part is that the Cubs probably don’t want to give Hendricks an improper sendoff. This means realeasing him, or designating him for assignment, is pretty unlikely. If they don’t put him on the injured list, the only good option is to hide him in the bullpen like they had been doing, although this time they can use the September Call-Ups to get another starting pitcher.