Start, Relieve, Whatever: Cubs Just Need Depth Jordan Wicks Brings to Pitching Staff

When last Jordan Wicks appeared on a big-league mound for the Cubs, the rotation was so incomplete that it was unfathomable that they would not need him as a starter any time soon. Kyle Hendricks's struggles were becoming more obvious by the day. Justin Steele was not yet back from his hamstring strain, and Jameson Taillon was still ramping up. The Cubs were scrambling. In the final 10 days of April, alone, they used seven different starters.

Paradoxically, though, it was that version of the Cubs that played exceptionally well and sprang out to a 17-9 start. Since then, they're 14-23, even as the rotation has finally found some better health and stability. The reasons for that have been on display over the last week, as Shota Imanaga and Javier Assad have each been bitten by the regression bug; Taillon has continued to fail at the crucial task of stemming the tide when opponents start a rally within a given inning; and Steele searches for the next step in his evolution after a peculiar ace-caliber 2023.

For weeks, the Cubs struggled to score, and the thin leads handed off by the rotation to an often-shaky bullpen always seemed to disappear, irretrievably. Now, the offense has revved up its engine, but the starters are unable to deliver larger leads (or often any lead at all), and the bullpen is struggling as much as ever. Thursday night in Cincinnati, Assad got hit a bit, and when Craig Counsell was forced to turn to Luke Little and Porter Hodge in high-leverage situations, they both failed to keep the lid on the game. Kyle Hendricks, still admirably trying it, couldn't even keep the game close when he was brought in to try and clean up Hodge's mess.

Though they're now making a habit of calling up impressive-looking, hard-throwing homegrown relievers, the Cubs still haven't had much success developing them into actually useful pitchers. Jeremiah Estrada is having a marvelous season, but only after having been waived by Chicago and picked up by the Padres. Meanwhile, Keegan Thompson remains in the wilderness. Daniel Palencia and Adbert Alzolay both got sidetracked by injuries early on this year, but Palencia's inconsistency and unreliability pre-date the flareup that now has him shelved. Hodge and Little look like the latest in a parade of talented throwers who aren't going to translate that into skilled, productive pitching--at least in the short term, and perhaps not until they're wearing another uniform in a few years.

That's what makes Wicks so important. He's on the cusp of a return, be it this weekend or after one more rehab appearance with Triple-A Iowa. Based on his performance before landing on the injured list, there are reasons for both optimism and caution. Yes, he's throwing harder and has a revised arsenal this year, but he wasn't actually piling up outs or keeping opponents off the board all that effectively before he got hurt.

Given that fact, maybe it makes the most sense to insert him right into the bullpen. He could be a direct replacement for Little, in the short term, able to give the team more length when needed and certainly more capable of getting people out, for however long he's asked to do so. Having an actual lefty for medium-leverage situations--one more trustworthy than Drew Smyly and Little--would take some pressure off Mark Leiter Jr., who's been overworked and overexposed again this year.

One could make an equally compelling case, of course, for unplugging Assad and plugging him back in, via a bullpen reset. The portly starboard slinger has run into some issues lately, and given his stuff, that's not a huge surprise. At the same time, Assad is a competitor and a command artist, and he's likely to get back on track soon. It might just make sense to let him slide into relief and pare down his arsenal for a few weeks, before bringing him back to the rotation when next a slot opens up.

The most logical, obvious move, though, is to move Brown into high-leverage relief and set Wicks up as the fifth starter for the long term. Brown is a risk as a back-end reliever; he's going to give up home runs. He's also racked up strikeouts at an awesome rate early in his big-league career, though, and given the combination of his fastball velocity and the unique traits of his curveball, that doesn't figure to abate any time soon. Sliding him into the pen--with the mandate being that he keep exploring ways of locating and mixing his two great pitches to minimize the risk of giving up power--is the natural move. He could finish this season as the team's closer, and even in the meantime, the fit of skill sets and roles that would result from Wicks being the fifth starter and Brown taking Hodge's place in the bullpen is too good to ignore.

None of this needs to be permanent. As we've previously reported here, Hendricks will reach 10 years of MLB service on June 26, at which point the Cubs can release him without interfering with his chance to claim full MLB pension and other benefits for the rest of his life. Given the way things have gone for him this year, that seems almost certain to happen, so another place in the staff will open. For the next two or three weeks, though, Wicks will be an important part of the team's plan, as they try to work around two highly-paid low-leverage long men they can't trust; a rotation full of players doing daily battle with the regression monster; and a deficient back end of the pen. They have to survive this tough stretch to advance into July as a serious contender, and Wicks might be the help they need to do so.