Heading Into Make-or-Break 2025, Hayden Wesneski Seeks Consistency as a Reliever

Acquired in the Scott Effross trade in 2022, Hayden Wesneski didn’t make the team out of spring training this year, despite being a mainstay on the big-league squad in 2023. He began that season in the rotation, but after some early struggles, he moved into a swingman role. He remained in that position this year, making seven starts and 21 appearances out of the bullpen.

This season was full of ups and downs for Wesneski. He made his first appearance of the season on Apr. 17 after being recalled earlier in the day, tossing four scoreless innings against the Diamondbacks and only allowing one baserunner. He bounced in and out of the starting rotation, but remained pretty consistent with his performances through the first two months of the season.

June was a rough month, as the home run ball began to hit him hard. After allowing just two home runs in 32 1/3 innings between April and May, Wesneski allowed six in 12 1/3 innings in June. This began to cost the Cubs games, as Craig Counsell had started to use him in high-leverage relief situations.

Wesneski would return to the rotation at the end of June out of necessity, but he landed on the IL in late July with a right forearm strain, remaining there until the last week of the season. He was activated off the IL on Sept. 20 and appeared in three games to finish up his season, holding opponents scoreless in two appearances and allowing a home run in the other.

This offseason, he has to work on cutting the home run rate down. He’s been good when the home run ball hasn’t gotten to him, as in the 18 outings that he hasn’t allowed a home run, he’s pitched to a 1.35 ERA in 46 2/3 innings. But in the other 10 outings, when he did allow a homer, Wesneski posted an ERA of 9.43 in 21 innings.

Those numbers--both the ERA in games in which he surrenders a homer and the number of games in which he does so--have to go down if he wants to keep his job next season, and the best way to do this would be making adjustments to the pitches that get hit the hardest, such as the four-seam fastball, which had an average exit velocity of 90 MPH against it this year. Trying to induce more ground balls on his sweeper would be another good area on which to focus, as while he was getting a 43.3% miss rate when throwing the pitch, when it did get hit, it was only a ground ball 21.4% of the time. It was usually the sweeper that would get hit out of the park.

Wesneski’s days of being a starter are likely over, but he isn’t necessarily cut out to be a high-leverage reliever just yet. I’d start him out in the 2024 Drew Smyly role next year, giving him a chance to get more meaningful opportunities if he performs well. But if he continues to give up crucial home runs and give away games, his time in the majors with the Cubs could come to an unceremonious end.