Cubs Remake Risky Bullpen by Adding More Risk

If there were a rule that prevented World Series champions from making moves during the offseason following a championship, the Chicago Cubs would likely be one of the teams best able to withstand such a handicap. In their rotation, they return their four best starters and plan to move bullpen acquisition Mike Montgomery to the rotation. On the position-player side the team loses center fielder Dexter Fowler but remains pretty well insulated to withstand his loss by fielding good players at every other spot.

The bullpen, however, would be another matter under the terms of this hypothetical scenario. The Cubs entered the offseason with a number of questions in the bullpen, and they have answered those questions with high-risk, high-reward relievers who could give the Cubs one of the best bullpens in baseball.

Entering the 2016 season, the Cubs’ two best relievers were expected to be Hector Rondon and Pedro Strop. Along with depth in the form of Trevor Cahill, Justin Grimm, Adam Warren, and Travis Wood, the Cubs began the season with a bullpen that ranked eighth in our 2016 Positional Power Rankings. It was a solid, but not spectacular, group.

Sensing an opportunity to win their first World Series title in a considerable time, the club decided to shore up that bullpen at midseason by bringing in Aroldis Chapman and Montgomery. While Chapman didn’t perform as well in the playoffs as he did in the regular season, the innings total of Cubs relievers in the playoffs reveals the importance of the team’s midseason additions.

The Cubs’ two midseason acquisitions pitched roughly 50% of the team’s postseason bullpen innings, while the stalwarts from the beginning of the season recorded less than 20% of those crucial outs. Both Rondon and Strop suffered injuries in the second half and Cubs manager Joe Maddon was reluctant to rely on them in pressure situations. While Montgomery is still on the team, his role has likely changed. Meanwhile, is Chapman headed back to New York with the Yankees, and lefty Travis Wood is also a free agent.

So heading into the offseason, the Cubs’ depth chart in the bullpen, using a mix of Steamer and ZiPS projections, looked something like this:

If you squint, it bears some resemblance to last year’s preseason bullpen, but there are quite a few problems. The projections for Rondon and Strop have come down just a bit, the projection for Grimm is way down, and the team lacks the MLB-level talent provided by Cahill, Warren, and Wood — even if they weren’t expected to provide a great deal of help. The emergence of Carl Edwards helps some, but given the way Rondon and Strop ended the season, the bullpen wasn’t too far away from resembling the mess of the San Francisco Giants last year. Given those projections, the Cubs bullpen likely would have been in the bottom 10 of the Power Rankings next season, a ranking that would have made no sense given the Cubs’ resources. The team has since used those resources to make the bullpen significantly better.

They started off by making a small move, signing Brian Duensing to a one-year, $2 million contract. A couple years back, in 2012 and 2013, Duensing was a solid reliever, transitioning from starting, but he’s mostly dealt with ineffectiveness since then. He has performed better against lefties than righties and he might carve out a role with the Cubs as a lefty specialist who gets occasional extra work, not too different from the Travis Wood role last season.

The next move the Cubs made was a big one, trading Jorge Soler for Wade Davis. Most, including Dave Cameron, saw the move as a win-win. Davis has just one year remaining on his contract before he hits free agency next season, and he was injured for part of last season. However, when he has pitched, he’s been one of the very best relievers in baseball, and he pitched well at the end of last season. Our depth charts current have Davis at 1.7 WAR for next season. Only Andrew Miller, Aroldis Chapman, Kenley Jansen, Dellin Betances, Zach Britton, and Edwin Diaz have higher figures.

Even if Davis falters, Chicago might still have a decent bullpen due to their most recent signing: Koji Uehara. The 41-year-old, splitter-throwing righty signed a one-year deal for $6 million. Given the modesty of the deal, it was never going to draw the attention that other reliever signings garnered this winter, but it could prove to be very beneficial. Uehara is an extreme fly-ball pitcher who has gradually, and understandably, lost some velocity over the years. Given his fly-ball tendencies, his value over the years has often been predicated with keeping the ball in the yard.

In the five seasons when Uehara’s HR/FB% has been less than 10%, he’s averaged a 2.48 FIP. In the three seasons where his HR/FB% has been greater than 10%, he’s averaged a 3.21 FIP. The latter number is still good, but in two of those seasons, 2011 and 2014, Uehara’s walk rate was below 4%. That walk rate sat at 6% last season. That’s also still quite good, but when paired with a 13.3% HR/FB rate, his 3.51 FIP and 0.6 WAR represented the worst season of his career.

Considering his age, it would be quite fair to assume an even greater decline next season. However, Uehara’s still posting very good strikeout and walk numbers. Assuming an average home-run rate, Uehara projects for a 3.32 FIP and 1.2 WAR next season. He might be better and he could very well be worse. His ceiling is limited by his relative lack of durability — he hasn’t pitched more than 50 innings in either of the last two years — but when the ball stays in the park, he’s going to be very effective.

Bullpen performance is no sure thing, and predicting it is incredibly difficult. What the Cubs appear to have done, though, is collect a set of high-risk players in a position that is already high-risk — and to hope that some of those risks pan out. The rewards could be great. Our depth-chart projections page for the Cubs currently looks like this:

By projections, the Cubs have gone from one of the worst 10 bullpens in baseball to the third best. While the Cubs are taking on a lot of risk, Davis, Rondon, and Uehara could all profile as very good to elite next season. Edwards, Jr. and Strop also have some upside. If everything works out, this bullpen is fantastic. Everything isn’t likely to work out, and some combination of those top guys will likely be hurt or prove to be ineffective. That is still an okay outcome for a Cubs team that doesn’t need a great bullpen to be a great team.

By taking on a bunch of risks, the Cubs have increased their chances of having an elite reliever without paying the price of the big free agents who were on the market. It’s possible the Cubs could still be searching for a better bullpen at some point next season, but they have done a good job at deepening their pen and insuring against disaster.