Brandon Birdsell: The Cubs Starting Pitcher Prospect Nobody is Talking About

At his repeat of Double-A this year, Brandon Birdsell had a 21.1 K%, 4.2 BB%, and a very solid 3.63 ERA. His season at Tennessee was capped off with seven nearly no-hit innings and a 35-inning walkless streak. This earned him a well-deserved promotion to Triple-A Iowa, where he has just completed his fifth start. The raw numbers are underwhelming–his 4.97 ERA is pretty high, and the BB% is up nearly 3% from his stint in Double-A Tennessee.

On the flip side, he is allowing a .449 BABIP against thus far, which is incredibly and unsustainably high. The K% is up to nearly 24%, as well, and his most recent start, on August 8th, matched a season-high in strikeouts with nine, as he drew 15 swings and misses.

The nice thing about Birdsell being promoted to Triple-A Iowa is that we now have access to pitch data for him, which allows us to draw better conclusions about Birdsell as a pitcher, as opposed to purely scouting grades and stat line scouting - and, even more importantly in Birdsell’s case, we can detect changes in pitch arsenals that may change our opinions of a prospect.

In his first four starts, Birdsell pitched 19.1 innings and gave up an astounding 13 earned runs. (To be fair, he allowed a .455 BABIP in that span, but the strikeouts hadn’t been there, and the walks were up, too). However, on the 8th against the Omaha Storm Chasers, Birdsell made some significant changes, and it (at least partially) led to his huge outing.

Before his August 8th start, Birdsell was relying on three pitches: a 4-seam fastball with cut-ride action that sits mid-90s (and has even touched 97.8 MPH!), a curveball with deathball type shape (that is, little horizontal movement with downward movement), and a pretty standard, scarcely used changeup. It led to just a 22.2% whiff% and the aforementioned poor results (though they were certainly not helped by an incredibly unlucky BABIP stretch).

Then, in his fifth start, something crazy happened: the right-hander, out of nowhere, began throwing a hard slider with a completely different shape and speed from his curveball. And when I say it came out of nowhere, I mean that it literally came out of nowhere. Birdsell hadn’t thrown a breaking ball over 86 MPH in Triple-A and did not throw this pitch in Double-A. However, it racked up eight whiffs on Thursday (the first time he’s ever thrown the pitch), with four more coming via the old curveball and three via the fastball.

The pitch specs from his start on Thursday (Data from Statcast):

The new slider seems to be a much harder pitch with more lift (and a third of the pitches were thrown with five inches of vertical movement or more). There was some heavy variance in the pitch shape of his slider–vertical movement ranged from roughly -3 IVB to roughly 8 IVB. This makes me wonder if part of the issue was simply inconsistency due to having never thrown the pitch before, especially given the stark difference between his hardest curveball (82.5 MPH) and his slowest slider (85.3). This theory makes a lot of sense because it takes time to develop a feel for pitches. Perhaps we will see more of a consistent slider shape next time out.

The top end of those slider shapes, though, is magnificent. It almost has a cutter/slider-type feel instead of just a straight-up slider. There is a chance he could average around five inches of vertical movement, sitting in the upper 80s with the ability to touch 90-91, with seven inches of horizontal movement. That is a fantastic slider shape and might play very well off that cut-ride fastball.

I think introducing this new slider can help Birdsell elevate his production to a new level. It certainly worked once, and maybe it is confirmation bias, but if last Thursday’s results are any indication of things to come (he generated a 30 whiff% with an incredible 38 chase%), we could see big things in store for him this year.

What’s crazy to think right now is that Birdsell could realistically be the next man up for the Cubs right now. Today, the Cubs released devastating news that top starting pitching prospect Cade Horton would miss the rest of the season. In contrast, former top prospects Jordan Wicks, Ben Brown, and Hayden Wesneski have all been sidelined for a while now, with seemingly no timetables for return. If a rotation arm goes down, or Javier Assad continues to struggle like he has, there is a legitimate chance that Birdsell could debut this year.

The introduction of this new slider, which seems like it could be the whiff-generating pitch Birdsell has been searching for, seems like it could be both a ceiling raiser, floor raiser, and, most importantly for me, the fan, a confidence raiser in how Birdsell can produce. I was a fan of the deathball shape, but even then, it gave him just two pitches given the rarity of his changeup being used, and while cut-ride fastballs have their strengths, it isn’t an elite pitch. Adding a slider that seems to be his best pitch already and can play well off his pre-existing curveball and fastball, coupled with very good command, seems like a recipe for success.

Cubs fans should definitely be keeping tabs on Birdsell for the rest of the year, especially regarding how this slider performs and helps him perform. He was already an intriguing arm, but this only makes him more interesting and an even bigger riser in the Cubs system.

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