Cubs Shouldn't Panic About Jacob Webb's Slump, But He Can't Lose Confidence In Himself

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You could hear a collective groan throughout Wrigley Field last Wednesday night when Chicago Cubs closer Jacob Webb took a line drive from Christian Yelich right off of his throwing arm and had to exit the game. A bullpen that has had a rough past couple of weeks or so suddenly felt like it might be losing a guy that had been their most dependable bullpen arm this season.

Thankfully, Webb is going to be okay, and will even be able to avoid a stint on the injured list. However, the closer has been part of the reason for the struggles in the bullpen at large, blowing back-to-back saves against the Mariners and Diamondbacks. Is this a case of a pitcher coming back down to earth, or just a blip on the radar of an otherwise excellent season?

To answer our question, let’s first get a sense for how Webb likes to attack hitters. To start the season, he was primarily a two-pitch pitcher, utilizing his four-seam fastball and his changeup to attack both left and right-handed hitters. This led to a pretty profound platoon split for the reliever: prior to June 21, righties hit a robust .333/.375/.549 against him, while he held lefties to just a .218/.274/.333 batting line, according to FanGraphs.

A reverse platoon split like that is rare, but not unheard of, especially for someone who features a changeup as his out-pitch. Earlier this year, Webb was clearly tinkering to find a better pitch to get righties out, experimenting with a slider, sweeper, and curveball, to middling results.

Since late June, though, he has dialed in his slider, and he now confidently features his fastball and his slider against right-handed hitters. All stats courtesy of Baseball Savant:

Timeframe	Four-Seamer	Changeup	Slider	Sweeper	Curveball
Start of season-June 20	52.3%	22.5%	9.6%	8.3%	7.3%
June 24-August 21	42.4%	13.2%	43.1%	0%	1.4%

This helped the veteran righty kick off a run of 24 straight scoreless appearances from June 24 through August 2. During that stretch, righties hit a paltry .094/.189/.094 against the Cubs’ closer. Then, he threw this pitch:

Then, just three days later, the Cubs lost a game on this pitch:

Sorry for making you rewatch that, but it doesn’t take any sort of advanced eye to see why those were significant. That was basically the same pitch, a slider, both thrown to right-handed hitters, almost to the exact same part of the strike zone, that were hit for walk-off home runs.

Of course, that is most certainly not where Webb wanted to throw those pitches. Ideally, he would break the slider outside, just off the edge of the strike zone, so the batter swings through it. Those were both mistakes.

He has only thrown seven sliders to that lower-middle portion of the strike zone this year, per Baseball Savant. The other five were harmless. Two foul balls, a swinging strike, a ground out, and a called strike. Mistakes aren’t always taken advantage of, but it sure makes it much more noticeable when they are.

Webb himself seems to have noticed. He has only taken the mound twice since allowing the walk-off in Arizona, and he has only faced three right-handed hitters: Tyler Stephenson, Sal Stewart, and Dane Myers. In those three plate appearances, Web threw just one slider, instead opting for his changeup and his four-seam fastball, utilizing those 56.3 and 31.3 percent of the time, respectively.

Personally, I think that Jacob Webb is going to be fine. He made two mistakes in two consecutive games, and both happened to cost him in the worst way. I am more worried that the juxtaposition of those two results have caused him to lose confidence in his slider, which is part of what got him here in the first place.

Taking that line drive from Yelich off of his arm was not a good thing. Now that we know he is okay, though, I am wondering if the few days off that it mandated might have been good for him—a mental reset of sorts. The Cubs badly need him to be the guy he was for the middle portion of the summer if they’re going to have success in the fall.