The Cubs Should Start The Season With A Six-Man Rotation, It's All The Rage

2 hours ago, Andrew Wright said:

The focus for the remainder of the offseason is on bullpen and bench pieces, so it seems that the Cubs' rotation is set. Given the surplus of starting pitching arms, Chicago would benefit from starting the season with a six-man rotation.

Image courtesy of © David Banks-Imagn Images

There are several reasons why a six-man rotation would benefit Chicago, with the main one being that it will be extremely important to keep arms fresh for the back half of the season. Here is what a six-man rotation could look like for the Cubs.

1. Justin Steele
2. Shota Imanaga
3. Jameson Taillon
4. Javier Assad 
5. Matthew Boyd
6. Colin Rea

After the top two of Steele and Imanaga, you could arrange the rest of the names in whatever order you want, but those are the six arms that should be considered for starting games in the first one to two months of the season.

The six names here would leave Jordan Wicks as the swingman/long reliever in the Chicago bullpen, a role that seems to work well for his pitching style. He could come out of the bullpen and give Chicago length on days when they need it, or he could be inserted right into the rotation in case of an injury.

With the excess pitching and the ability to roll out this rotation, the Cubs can significantly reduce Steele, Imanaga, and Taillon's early-season workloads. Having those three arms ready to make a run down the stretch will be crucial for the team's success in 2025.

Focusing on Imanaga specifically, the worst two months of his outstanding 2024 season were June (5.67 ERA) and August (3.68 ERA). It is well documented that the standard pitching rotation overseas, and in Japan specifically, is pitchers making a start every six days. Imanaga was able to adapt to every fifth day in the States, but Chicago did find ways to work around that and allowed him to pitch every sixth day when they could.

Now, with the signings of Rea and Boyd, the Cubs have the flexibility not to alter a rotation for a series to allow an extra day of rest for anyone. This strategy may and may not work, but it would not be a bad idea for Chicago to use it to begin the season and save arms and innings for what will hopefully be a deep postseason run in 2025.

 

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I think rotations are very fluid these days. They will have the 5 full time starters in Steele, Imanaga, Taillon, Boyd and probably Rhea?  Then there will be like 3 guys stretched out enough to make up to 5 inning starts when needed and MR/LR when not needed. If that means going to a 6 man for a couple of weeks during a particularly grueling stretch then they have the flexibility to do that. 
 

And of course it always sounds great on paper but injuries are inevitable so there will probably be 7 guys that get a decent amount of starts this year.