Holy Assad

[Guest]

Perhaps smelling Adrian Sampson’s blood in the desert air, Javier Assad got the ball in the middle of México’s shocking win over Team USA on Sunday night and just cut loose. What he just did is going to have some significant ramifications for his future and the 2023 Cubs’ pitching plans. It’s just not yet totally clear what they’ll be.

 

You’ve probably already seen the headline or the highlight. Assad came out and threw a fastball past Pete Alonso at the top of the strike zone, at 97 miles per hour, for a strikeout. He ended up stomping and snorting through three innings of filth, shutting out the vaunted American lineup and allowing just one hit, while striking out two.

 

Here’s what leapt out at me, though: he pared down his repertoire for that setting, and it worked brilliantly. With adrenaline flowing and no thought of stretching out for five or six innings of work, Assad hit 97 to Alonso right away, and ended up throwing five pitches at 95.9 MPH or faster. Even an inning after he left the game, he had the five hardest pitches thrown by any hurler on either team in the contest.

 

Juiced up that way, Assad stuck mostly to his sinker and cutter, which sat at 94.8 and 89.3 MPH, respectively. That’s more intense stuff than he showed last year, which is no surprise, but it was overwhelmingly welcome confirmation that Assad is that kind of pitcher. Not everyone finds an extra tick or two when they get the chance to work at full effort, but clearly, he has that potential. Cubs beat reporter Meghan Montemurro also noted that Assad put in offseason work on a program designed to increase his velocity, so this might stick even in longer outings.

 

Still, my excitement is confined to the idea that we just saw him come into focus as a potential multi-inning relief weapon, akin to Keegan Thompson. Although he tinkers and dabbles with six or seven different pitches, I think Assad is at his best with that sinker and cutter. It’s that pair of pitches that come out of the same slot for him, show the batter similar spin, and veer substantially apart.

 

[attachment=0]Assad Spin Stuff.png[/attachment]

 

That combination worked reasonably well for him last year, even 2-3 miles per hour slower than he threw them on Sunday night. If he’s going to sit 95 with the sinker when asked to get just six or nine outs at a time, he can find even more success with that pitch, the cutter, and the occasional slider. He can let some of his lesser stuff fall away, which might help him solve the command problems that made me uneasy as his audition last summer progressed.

 

I’m not sure, at the moment, whether Adrian Sampson belongs on the Cubs’ 40-man roster come March 30. If he does survive the cutdowns, though, I think he needs to begin the year in Iowa, where he can stay stretched out as an emergency starter. If the team even feels they need an extra starter or long reliever to pair with Thompson and Adbert Alzolay in the bullpen for the early going, Assad just asserted himself.

[Bertz]

I think the big question is how much of this velo bump was the starter -> reliever conversion and how much is the offseason velo training you mentioned. A 3 inning outing is an awkward amount for having any sort of strong opinion there. But in the roster scenario where he can sit at 95 with his sinker for 5-6 innings not only does it raise his profile enough to be a sure MLBer, it probably raises it enough to be a mid-rotation starter.

 

As bad as Sampson has been this spring, I'd not drop him from the roster short of injury or someone (presumably quite desperate) offering value in trade. I feel a lot better about both Kilian and Assad than I did a month ago, but I'd like to see them prove it out in Iowa for a month before I bump Sampson down to #9 on the SP depth chart where it's pretty safe to DFA him for the roster spot.

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Do we know what Assad's velocity has been in ST? On top of what Bertz said, I'm also hesitant to think his velo in an outing representing his country(for the first time?), and representing Mexico in a game against the US on top of that, is sustainable even if he were used as a MIRP in the future.

[Guest]

Do we know what Assad's velocity has been in ST? On top of what Bertz said, I'm also hesitant to think his velo in an outing representing his country(for the first time?), and representing Mexico in a game against the US on top of that, is sustainable even if he were used as a MIRP in the future.

 

Yeah that’s the big question. Meant to include this with the original post. Seems(?) to suggest there’s much of the off-season program to this.

 

[TomtheBombadil]

Oddly didn’t have any Assad specific thoughts glimpsing his WBC outing:

 

Saw the fastball variant dominant approach out of the pen and thought “hmmmm, Ryan Jensen throws even harder too”

 

It also seems many pitchers in the org are saying their offseason programs were to increase velocity. I’m expecting lots of velo on the farm this year, and hoping Wesneski bumped up to 94

 

To have an Assad take…I suspect the Cubs will want to ramp him down a little for the longer schedule after the WBC regardless of

role. Sampson’s safe, but there’s some high velo depth if he slips

[Bertz]

So here's an attempt at a little Monday morning math.

 

From FG, I grabbed every pitcher with 50 IP in both '21 and '22, and looked at their velo, ERA, xFIP, and Stuff+ numbers. I also removed dudes who don't throw a traditional 4 Steamer, e.g. Emmanuel Clase. This left a list of 206 dudes.

 

First off, only one of the 206 added 2.5+ MPH year over year. Griffin Jax, who transitioned from starter to reliever. So unfortunately we should probably assume a good bit of Assad's bump was a one-off, maybe adrenaline coming from national pride like TT mentioned. If Assad permanently added a full 2.5 MPH, especially being able to hold it as a starter, he's a unicorn.

 

Something like 1 MPH is far more realistic though. 21 guys saw a bump between 0.7 and 1.3 MPH, and several of those are pure SPs. The performance lift for those 21 guys is substantial. They saw an their ERA drop by over a run on average, and even if we want to look more process rather than results their xFIPs dropped by 0.59 runs, and they added 5 points to their Stuff+ marks. As a point of reference that 5 points is the difference between Javier Assad and Lance Lynn.

 

So step one is seeing how real this increase is. And we probably won't have a great sense there for another 6 weeks, but potentially we have a fundamentally different guy on our hands.

[Bertz]

Assad looked great again tonight, but by my back of the napkin math averaged 94.1 on the sinker. Still way up from last year's 92.4, but down from the other day.