Chris Flexen's Time as a Cub Has Come to an End

[Andrew Wright]

Image courtesy of © Patrick Gorski-Imagn Images

When the Cubs front office decided to promote right-hander Chris Flexen to the majors earlier this season, not much was expected of the veteran. He'd never had an ERA under 3.60 in his entire career, and he was just another piece in the bullpen to provide some depth and eat innings. Nobody could have predicted the success and the impact he made throughout the season. That tenure officially came to an end Tuesday, however, with the Cubs announcing that Flexen has been designated for assignment.

Flexen made his Cubs debut May 2 against the Milwaukee Brewers, and it wasn't until June 22 that he allowed his first earned runs of the season. For those counting, it was 12 appearances and 21 1/3 innings pitched before he surrendered an earned run. It was a completely unexpected stretch from Flexen, and fans (and maybe even the front office) started to believe they'd found a hidden gem.

A shutout inning July 3 against the Cleveland Guardians lowered Flexen's ERA to 0.64, but since then, he's hit a bit of a rough stretch. Flexen appeared five times after that and allowed at least one run in all five of those outings. He allowed multiple runs in four of those five appearances, and the season ERA climbed to 3.09. By no means was a 3.09 ERA bad for a guy on a minor-league contract, but the spike in such a short time was definitely cause for concern.

Flexen's fastball velocity had begun to dip a bit, and in his recent multi-inning outings, it was a full mile per hour difference in some cases. It could be fatigue, it could be an injury, or it could have been that Flexen was just having really good luck when things were going well. The numbers suggest it is the latter of the three, with Flexen having an expected ERA of 5.09 and expected opponent average of .287, both ranking in the bottom 14% of the league, according to Baseball Savant. Flexen also ranks in the bottom 1% of the league in both strikeout and whiff percentages.

All of the worrisome stats above, combined with the pending returns of Jameson Taillon, Javier Assad, Porter Hodge and whomever Chicago targets at the trade deadline, ultimately ended Flexen's tenure with the Cubs. When evaluating the roster, there simply just wasn't enough room to keep Flexen on the roster and his poor performance of late made it an easy decision for Jed Hoyer and company. Gavin Hollowell will be just a placeholder; the idea is to meaningfully upgrade that roster spot in the next 48 hours.

While it was an abrupt and unfortunate end to his time in Chicago, Flexen pitched so many valuable innings during his nearly three months with the team. Quite frankly, the Cubs would not be in nearly as good of a position as they are if he had not been on the team this season.

 

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