What Kind of Pitcher Jordan Wicks First Was, Then Became, and is Now Becoming

[Matthew Trueblood]

The Cubs' young southpaw has had a frustrating, injury-marred season, but between stints on the shelf, we've been able to glimpse an evolution--some of it purely aimed at thriving, and some aimed at surviving.

Image courtesy of © Rafael Suanes-Imagn Images

In what was supposed to be his first full MLB season, Jordan Wicks will barely scrape away his own rookie eligibility. At most, he might throw 60 innings in the majors, and he'll finish with no more than 12 starts, not counting rehab appearances.

Yet, it's been an intriguing campaign, rather than a purely miserable one. He burst onto the scene this spring with an altered pitch mix and a few ticks of unexpected new velocity, clearly intent on being more of a typical modern starter, missing more bats and taking care of business himself. Then, reality happened. Let's take a look at the seasons within Wicks's season, to get a better sense of the likely shape of the seasons ahead for him.

Exploring and Abandoning the Sweeper
Wicks caught just about everyone's eye with a spring debut: a slider with such a horizontal shape to it that it was much more sweeper than pure slider. It was a kind of variant on his curveball, first tinkered with late in 2022, and it was a surprising addition to Wicks's arsenal, for a simple reason: he's usually a guy who favors pronation.

When the Cubs selected Wicks out of Kansas State University three summers ago, his calling card was his changeup. Of his two fastballs, the sinker is the more natural one out of the hand. As I wrote about recently, the Cubs like to play with and force flexibility in motor preference, but this project is not specific to them. Because it's more about grip manipulation than maximizing supinated spin, sweepers can be friendly to a natural pronator--depending on how they're thrown, and depending on the player in question.

We can't say with any certainty that these are linked, but the fact is that Wicks went down late in April with a forearm issue. Since then, the sweeper has been gone. He throws a gyro slider, now, rather than that sweepy one.

Cutting It Loose, and Tightening Up
The other big news about Wicks early on was how hard he was throwing. For a pitcher who sat just over 91 miles per hour and only rarely bumped it up near 95 last season, there was suddenly quite a bit more in the tank. Wicks showed the ability to sit close upon 95 and touch even higher, and he clearly intended to use that increased velocity to bully hitters.

We all understand the limitations of pitchers with below-average fastball velocity. Once you can regularly find the mid-90s, though, many things unfold. Wicks leaned away from the sinker and into his four-seamer, more than ever, trying to miss bats at the top of the zone and set hitters up for even more whiffs with breaking and offspeed stuff down low. A more imposing combination of speed and shape were, he seemed to believe, his path to frontline starter status.

Maybe that would have turned out to be true, but instead of getting to find out, we found another kind of limit. Wicks went down with an oblique strain in June, and since he's come back, his velocity is not the same. On this chart, the farther out a datum is on the set of rings, the harder the pitch was thrown.

Wicks pitched at the top of his potential velocity range until his body couldn't bear it anymore. Now, he'll have to get by in his new life as a starter with the ability to manage contact, but not necessarily the capacity to strike hitters out at an above-average rate.

Finding the Right Mix
Both the new things Wicks tried and the reformation of his profile around a more familiar set of pitch shapes have required him to rebalance his pitch mix. We've seen him change the way he attacks hitters and weighs his options during his three stints with the big-league team this year.

The changeup is the near-constant, because that, again, has always been Wicks's signature pitch. He knows in which situations he wants to use it, and how to do so. Around it, though, everything is shifting. As you can see, the four-seamer is still driving the fastball ship, but his sinker is back in a place of prominence after being deemphasized at midseason. Now that he's using the more comfortable gyro slider, he's going to that pitch more often. Note, too, the broader inclusion of the cutter, which is as much a harder variant of his gyro slider as the sweeper was a harder variant of his curve. 

This is probably the best version of Wicks. That it hasn't yet yielded especially impressive results is ok. Given his style, he's going to need to learn better command (where that term applies more to execution of each pitch, including consistently achieving the right movement shape, than hyper-specific location) and good sequencing. As he does, he can tap into more overall value.

Next season, the Cubs will hope to get more than 100 strong innings from Wicks. He's done plenty this year to suggest that he's capable of that--even if it's all been broken up, and come with some unexpected changes of tack and style. A strong finish in this final handful of outings would go a long way toward boosting everyone's confidence, as Wicks seeks that next, never truly final, form.

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[Bertz]

I wouldn't be sure the velo is gone purposely or permanently.  There's a pretty good chance it's a near term conditioning issue.  To be very clear that's not to imply any sort of lack of effort, but being on the shelf with an oblique significantly cuts down on which exercises you can engage in.  Essentially the opposite of when guys come back from TJ throwing harder than ever because they took the opportunity to get the lower 3/4s of their body absolutely jacked.