The Chicago Cubs are hunting for another starting pitcher in the interest of having a six man rotation during 2017. How exactly would that work out?
The Chicago Cubs had one of the best rotations in baseball during the 2016 season. It was helped out by a historically great defense, but in general the group of starters was tremendous. The strong performances by Cubs starters, especially in the first half of the season, were key to the Cubs winning 103 games this past regular season. That impressive staff has already taken a few shots in the offseason.
The regression monster appears to be ready to devour Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks, although they are both likely to stay very good pitchers. Jason Hammel is gone to free agency, and a return seems incredibly unlikely based on the comments Theo Epstein made earlier this offseason. Jake Arrieta regressed from his impressive and historic 2015 season, and his future production is still somewhat in question. John Lackey is another year older and already showing signs of decline. Add on to all of this that each of the Cubs four top starters had to pitch deep into October during the Cubs run to the World Series.
For all these reasons, the Chicago Cubs are considering going to a six man rotation. The occasional team tinkers with something similar from time to time, but we’ve never seen a team commit to it over a full season. Usually this happens because the team utilizing a six man rotation is doing so because of injury prone starters. In that case it usually turns out that somewhere along the way one of the starters gets injured or simply can’t cut it in the rotation. The Cubs don’t completely fit into this typical mold. Joel Sherman was the first to talk about the possibility of the six man rotation in his article about the Cubs pursuit of Tyson Ross.
In that article, Sherman says that even if the Cubs miss out on Ross they could look to find another way to build a six man rotation. That comment is particularly interesting. The idea of having Ross in a six man rotation with Jake Arrieta, Jon Lester, Kyle Hendricks, John Lackey, and Mike Montgomery makes a lot of sense. All six starters are good enough to be considered major league starters, and the ones at the top may benefit from the increased rest after a long 2016 season. The idea of persisting with a six man rotation even without Ross is more confusing.
The options after Tyson Ross are. . .slim to say the least. The poor market for starting pitching has been magnified and discussed endlessly throughout the entire offseason. Ross is a risk because of injury, but provides the highest upside of anyone still out there that isn’t Jason Hammel. If they bail out on Ross their two best options, as mentioned by Sherman, are re-signing Travis Wood and turning him into a starter or signing Caleb Smith, a former Rule 5 pick. Neither Wood nor Smith would be a reliable starter. In this case, a six man rotation wouldn’t make sense at all.
A six man rotation makes sense down the stretch, when the Cubs will likely have a large lead in the division, to give starters rest. It doesn’t make sense to take innings away from the better starters to be replaced by increased innings from a pitcher like Wood. It makes sense to sign Wood regardless, of course, in case that depth is needed. However, it doesn’t make sense to make a pitcher like Wood a regular starter in a six man rotation. It would take innings away from three of the best starters in the National League the past two seasons while adding innings to a pitcher that can barely cut it as a starter. For the Cubs, who didn’t solely rely on strong pitching but certainly benefitted from it, a decrease in pitching performance would surely mean a reduction in wins. They have a little wiggle room to give, but the Cardinals and Pirates both seem set on improving this offseason.
Signing Tyson Ross to take a sixth starter role makes a lot of sense for the Cubs, and it’s certainly interesting. It fits the bill of a Joe Maddon team, doing things that are somewhat out of the ordinary. Doing it for a full season with anyone other than Ross would be puzzling. Then again, the Cubs as an organization haven’t made a whole lot of mistakes in the past few years. Maybe they’ll be the first team onto a really great idea.
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