Jacob Webb's New Pitch Softens Cubs' Need for Reliever at MLB Trade Deadline

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The synergy of the Cubs' pitching infrastructure is never more clear, these days, than when Jacob Webb takes the mound. The de facto relief ace of a team currently missing Daniel Palencia, Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey and more, Webb has a 2.84 ERA and a team-leading 5 saves. He's also struck out 27% of the batters he's faced, which is a career-best mark. He doesn't throw especially hard, and he knows he's gotten some good fortune here and there, but he's thriving in his new home on the North Side.

That's thanks to a skill set that surely jumped off the page for Tyler Zombro, the Cubs' vice president of pitching, but also to the diligent coaching of pitching coach Tommy Hottovy. Those two leaders play off one another brilliantly in cases like Webb's, where there's plenty of appealing clay but a bit of molding is required.

Webb's changeup is his signature weapon. That's been the case almost as long as he's been in pro ball. However, unlike most pitchers' changeups, Webb's doesn't tumble due to low spin, and it doesn't have much vertical depth. It's a pitch that runs to his arm side based on a lot of spin, in fact. It's just a change in spin axis created by the way he throws the pitch.

"I think the four-seam changeup will always have a little more spin than other ones," Webb said on July 19, standing next to his locker in the Cubs' clubhouse at Wrigley Field. "Yeah, I just use the standard four-seam, straight changeup grip. It’s kind of like I grip the fastball and then just slide it over in my hand a little bit."

Most pitchers try out grips that are a bit more elaborate, like the circle-change, the splitter, or the newfangled kick-change, in order to find a pitch that moves as much and has as great a speed differential from the fastball as Webb's. The big right-handed hurler has the luxury of sticking to something similar to his heater, because he's comfortable doing what most pitchers aren't.

"A lot of it comes from, I supinate a little bit on the fastball, cut it a little," Webb said, referring to a slight turn of the wrist to make the palm face inward as he releases the pitch, "and with the changeup, I pronate."

That sounds like a very simple statement, but for those who know pitching, its profundity and uniqueness are obvious—and that goes extra for Zombro. Tread Athletic, the pitching-forward training facility where Zombro got his start as a pitching guru and development wonk, emphasizes the importance of understanding motor preference. Most pitchers naturally either supinate or pronate as they release a pitch; Tread and Zombro help them identify that tendency and problem-solve around it. Rare are the hurlers who can truly do both, though, and Zombro loves guys who have that much facility with the ball.

"It’s definitely harder, and it all comes down to throwing it," Webb said. "You have to get that feel for it, for that little bit different way of releasing each pitch. Catchers and hitters have told me a lot that it looks pretty similar, so I just try to lock that in and make sure I’m executing that slight turn every time."

Zombro and Hottovy have helped Webb lock in those invaluable manipulations, which is why Webb has a sensational 42% whiff rate on the changeup this year. His fastball has what amounts to cut-ride properties, relative to his low-three-quarter arm slot; that sets up the changeup beautifully.

"You can get used to pronating and supinating, both. It takes a lot of throwing," Webb said. "And I’m not too extreme with the pronating. If you watch Devin Williams, he really pronates hard and kind of drops his slot on that pitch. I want to stay in the same slot and just turn it the other way from my fastball."

Webb is above-average in that ability to turn both ways, but he's not elite. Only a handful of pitchers in each generation show a real ability to move the ball up and down, left and right, all with well-dialed tweaks of the wrist. If Webb were on that level, you'd have heard much more about him by now, and he wouldn't have signed a cheap one-year deal to be a middle reliever for the Cubs over the winter. There has, for most of his career, been a glaring weakness in his game.

"The last few years, I threw the sweeper, but I felt like I could never quite find the feel for it," he said. "I had to think too hard about supinating, getting around that ball more, and I just couldn’t consistently do that with command. So they actually showed me a grip, here, for more of a bullet-spin slider, a tight slider. That feels a lot more comfortable, because I can just kind of rip down through it. It’s a lot more like my fastball; I don’t have to exaggerate as much and get around it the same way."

Indeed, you can see a progression at work. Here's what Webb's movement profile looked like against righties in 2025:

Over the first two months of this season, Webb kept trying the sweeper, while he and the Cubs also explored a curveball and that new slider:

Finally, though, over the last two months, he's locked in on that slider, pulling down through the side of the ball and not exaggerating the supination. He can comfortably throw that pitch without losing feel for it, or for his fastball or changeup. Instead of more extreme a turn in one direction, he's now leaning into smaller turns in both directions. It's precisely the kind of thing both Zombro and Hottovy love.

"It’s a great feeling for me, to have something for righties," Webb said. "Because I’ve had a lot of trouble with righties in my career before this. Just having something that, moves away from them but I can keep it on the plate, match that with my fastball, it makes a big difference in terms of comfort facing them in a big spot."

Forcing righties to respect the outer half of the plate—throwing the high fastball and then a slider out there on the edge, for instance—also sets them up to swing over or be tied up by a well-placed changeup running in on them. The slider taking the place of the sweeper makes Webb a more complete and versatile reliever.

Craig Counsell is deeply appreciative of his righty's evolution.

"Jacob’s been, amidst all the change and all the turnover, a real consistent presence down there," the skipper said. "He’s taking the ball kind of whenever, and oftentimes, kind of in the most important spot in the game, and he’s handled that part really, really well. He’s been available, and durable. He’s been a really important part of putting this puzzle together."

For his part, Webb hopes to continue in that kind of role—although not the same one, exactly—for the rest of the year.

"I don’t think I’m really a defined closer or anything, but I feel really good about working in those leverage spots," he said. "I definitely hope to stay in an important role like that once Danny returns, hopefully. That trust always feels good."

Whether it's a returning Palencia or an incoming relief acquisition, someone is likely to push Webb one rung down the bullpen ladder down the stretch. From where he is now, though, even one rung down is pretty high. Thanks to that new slider and the delightful fit of his skill set with the philosophies and competencies of Zombro and Hottovy, Webb has been good enough to keep an injury-torpedoed bullpen afloat. He won't have to do it single-handedly for much longer.