Article: Chicago Cubs 2024 X-Factors: Winning Without Velocity in the Rotation

[Matthew Trueblood]

In 2023, Chicago Cubs starting pitchers averaged 91.5 miles per hour on their fastballs, dead last in MLB. Yet, that unit was a strength of the team, not its weakness. Can they sustain success this way?

Image courtesy of © Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Even at the peak of their domination over the rest of the league (circa 2015 and 2016), the Cubs didn't beat people with sheer power. Jake Arrieta certainly threw hard, but it was (first) Jon Lester and (later) Kyle Hendricks who defined the team's approach and embodied their formula for victory. For at least a decade, they've been a team focused less on raw power on the pitcher's mound than on movement, command, sequencing, and making use of a strong defense.

At a certain point, that becomes hard to sustain. The team's luck with that style ran out in 2021 and 2022, as guys like Adrian Sampson found intermittent success but others (like key trade acquisiton Zach Davies and briefly promising swingman Alec Mills) got hit hard. It's great to have interesting characteristics and to limit walks, but at some point, the inability to throw hard and miss bats comes with a heavy cost--to the individual starter, and to the bullpen, and to the defense, and (often, ultimately) to the team as a whole.

Last winter, the team signed Jameson Taillon to shore up their staff in that particular regard. Taillon is a big, strong righthander, and while his velocity is far from elite, it's solidly average--which is solidly above the team's recent standard. They made another long-term commitment to a starting pitcher this winter, but it was Shota Imanaga, whose greatest weakness--perhaps his only real, glaring one--is a dearth of velocity. Still, it was a nod in the direction of solving the same problem they were trying to solve by bringing in Taillon. A rotation led by Justin Steele and Kyle Hendricks can be a good one, as those two showed in 2023, but it feels like you have to get just the right dice roll for that to happen.

Neither Steele nor Hendricks throws even an average-speed fastball, and neither gets whiffs or strikeouts at an above-average rate. Their game is inducing weak contact, and that approach has plenty of value, but it's riskier than racking up contactless outs. Imanaga, with a devastating splitter and an array of breaking stuff we could see the Cubs tweak this spring, misses more bats than you'd think, and understands how to set up hitters to induce those empty swings, rather than just filling up the strike zone and hoping for the best.

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MORE COVERAGE
Shota Imanaga's Fastball and What Makes it Great
Justin Steele: More Genius Than Gas
How Kyle Hendricks Got Away to What Works

Even so, this rotation will probably be the softest-tossing in baseball (or nearly so, with the Rockies and Pirates also in the team photo) again, at least unless and until Cade Horton matriculates and becomes one of the key arms within it. That creates a wide band of potential outcomes, and it puts pressure on the defense, the catchers, and the coaching staff. Every fielder always has to be in the right place. Every plate appearance requires a perfect plan, because getting outs and keeping pitch counts from piling up turns into a delicate balancing act.

This group might be up to that tall task. Yan Gomes has shown the ability to call games well enough to keep pitchers on just this highwire, and Tommy Hottovy and the rest of the team's coaching staff is experienced in this area. Gomes was a poor pitch framer last year, so he's unlikely to steal the softer-tossing starters strikes on the edges of the zone, but Miguel Amaya rated well in framing and figures to get more playing time. After the bullpen petered out and let the team down late in 2023, they think they're bringing a deeper and more dynamic relief corps to camp this time around.

It's an important question to start seeing an answer to this spring, though. Eight of the 12 playoff teams last year had a better strikeout rate from their rotation than did the Cubs. Seven of 12 had a better FIP. The Cubs were 16th in strikeout rate, 13th in innings, and 12th in FIP by starters last year. To make the playoffs in 2024, they probably need to climb into the top 10 in all three areas.

As Steele and Imanaga prove, it's not strictly necessary to throw 97 miles per hour to get those strikeouts. Without that power, though, the team will again be counting on winning all the miniature battles within a game.

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[Bertz]

I think this is less of a concern than it was a few years ago.  Steele and Shota don't throw hard but are plus stuff guys even by objective measures.  The immediate 5th starter options (aside from Wesneski) are all some degree of soft tossing, but Brown and Horton are right behind that group and very much premium stuff/velo options.

I think it does make you kind of wonder about giving Wicks or Smyly that 5th starter spot and leaning more towards Assad or Wesneski.  Even though each of them has a very different movement profile and secondaries, having 3 or 4 lefties in your rotation throwing 92-93 seems potentially problematic?

[CubinNY]

Big leaguers can handle velocity. That sort of the first hurdle to making it. They have a hard time with movement and location. Obviously, you can be throwing 82 MPH fastballs down the middle, but command is king. 

[Bertz]

6 minutes ago, CubinNY said:

Big leaguers can handle velocity. That sort of the first hurdle to making it. They have a hard time with movement and location. Obviously, you can be throwing 82 MPH fastballs down the middle, but command is king. 

My understanding from most recent research is that the game works the other way around.  Elite stuff provides you opportunity to make mistakes in the zone, and is much more likely to draw chase out of the zone.  All else equal 90 on the corner gets hit a hell of a lot harder than 99 down the pipe. 

[Jason Ross]

12 minutes ago, Bertz said:

My understanding from most recent research is that the game works the other way around.  Elite stuff provides you opportunity to make mistakes in the zone, and is much more likely to draw chase out of the zone.  All else equal 90 on the corner gets hit a hell of a lot harder than 99 down the pipe. 

Foolish Baseball (awesome channel if you don't subscribe, highly recommended) recently did a video on count and it's importance on outcome. While the video is awesome, there's a great section on the second half which breaks the plate down to "heart" and "shadow".  Command matters; pitchers who hit the shadow do far better than pitchers who throw in the heart. 

I ran some data, and looking at the data, while hitters still hit well on pitches in the mid-mid part of the plate regardless of velocity (hitters are still hitting to the tune of a .327 wOBA on pitches 97-100 mph in the middle), the margin for error clearly increases with velocity as well. In zone whiff numbers increase at every interval of 3+mph from 91-94 all the way to 100mph+, and wOBA decreases in a similar fashion. The wOBA, for example, on 91-94mph mid-mid was .408.

So while clearly command is quite important and avoiding middle-middle is incredibly important, velocity appears to give pitchers quite a bit of latitude,. Essentially, if you're not going to throw hard, you better damn well have excellent command.

[Guest234]

Greg Maddux did okay - just teach others to pitch like he did.

[Stratos]

4 hours ago, Bertz said:

My understanding from most recent research is that the game works the other way around.  Elite stuff provides you opportunity to make mistakes in the zone, and is much more likely to draw chase out of the zone.  All else equal 90 on the corner gets hit a hell of a lot harder than 99 down the pipe. 

Cite?

I agree that velocity improves margin for error and stuff overall, but velocity is also overrated among fans compared to other things.  People get a lot more excited if a guy throws 99 mph than if he has very good GB%.

Edited February 22, 2024 by Stratos

[Bertz]

31 minutes ago, Stratos said:

Cite?

I agree that velocity improves margin for error and stuff overall, but velocity is also overrated among fans compared to other things.  People get a lot more excited if a guy throws 99 mph than if he has very good GB%.

So this is one of the things I was thinking of.

https://theathletic.com/1646799/2020/03/04/sarris-whats-more-important-for-a-pitcher-command-or-stuff?source=user-shared-article

I can't find the other rattling around my head, but it was basically what 1908 shared but in article form.  Run values for like 90-92 on the black are higher than they are for like 97-99 down the middle.  I don't remember exactly where those lines cross but I believe it was approximately 6-7 MPHs on average.  This also doesn't take extreme spin/movement profiles like Steele or Shota into account, but again we're keeping to generalities.