Cubs Sign Cishek, Will Require More Bullpen Help

To say this year’s Winter Meetings were a relatively quiet affair would be accurate. While there were some moments of excitement (the trade of Marcell Ozuna to St. Louis, the Angels’ acquisition of Ian Kinsler), this offseason meetup in Orlando mostly produced rumors and reliever signings.

While the best free-agent reliever, Wade Davis, remains unsigned, he’s one of the few high-leverage arms left standing. Greg Holland, Brandon Kintzler, Jake McGee, Mike Minor, Juan Nicasio, and Joe Smith were all taken off the board in short order.

The Chicago Cubs were active in this market — and with good reason. Despite employing the aforementioned Davis in 2017, the Cubs’ bullpen was fairly mediocre on the year, ranking 14th in bullpen WAR (4.1) among all teams while employing no single reliever with more than 1.1 WAR. Of the 10 playoff teams from 2017, the only one to feature a worse bullpen was the Nationals, long noted for their own relief woes. In the club’s LCS against the Dodgers, Joe Maddon was compelled to rely on pitchers like Brian Duensing and John Lackey, the latter of whom conceded a walk-off home run to Justin Turner in Game 2.

In an effort to begin addressing their problem, the Cubs signed former Dodgers reliever Brandon Morrow, who comes with potentially awesome results and injury concerns, as noted by Eno Sarris. To back that up, the Cubs signed Steve Cishek to a two-year deal worth somewhere between $12 million and $14 million. While the sidearmer has been a consistent relief workhouse over his career, some trends in his pitches present cause for concern.

Steve Cishek spent the start of his career with the Marlins after being selected by the team out of D-II Carson-Newman College in the fifth round of the 2007 draft. After joining the Cardinals just before the trade deadline in 2015, he signed a two-year deal with the Mariners prior to the 2016 season. His Seattle tenure didn’t turn out entirely well, as Cishek dealt with hip labrum issues prior to being traded to the Tampa Bay Rays to shore up their bullpen this past July.

While Cishek is hardly a household name, he has been decidedly consistent and durable in his career. In an era during which most relievers seem to be fairly volatile, Cishek has been steady, recording the 14th-most innings (417.1) and 18th-most WAR (6.7) since his debut in 2011. Other than his down 2015 season, he has never failed to put up fewer than 0.7 WAR or 0.6 RA9-WAR (calculated with runs allowed instead of FIP) on a year. For the most part, you know what to expect with Cishek: 60 innings, around a 25% strikeout rate, and decent control of home runs.

However, Cishek comes with more questions than one might anticipate for a pitcher who’s been so consistent. Despite his durability, his sidearm motion and hip labrum problems from 2016 may give one pause (even if the relationship between the two is less than one might expect. This may concern the Cubs less, as manager Joe Maddon has an avowed love of “funk” in the bullpen. But if the funk in Cishek’s delivery isn’t a concern, some of the data on his sinker and slider may be.

Over the past few years, the velocity on both Cishek’s sinker and slider (his only two pitches for the most part) has dropped steadily since he debuted, from 93.5 and 84.0 mph in 2011, respectively, to 90.8 and 77.7 mph in 2017. At the same time, Cishek picked up extra horizontal movement, especially on his slider. Now Cishek has done an effective job locating both pitches in the lower half of the zone, but he will have to continue to do so going forward, as his pitches don’t appear to have the raw stuff to get away with below-average location.

It’s decidedly possible that any worry about Cishek’s PitchF/x data is unfounded. After all, he pitched with this stuff in 2017 and recorded one of the best stretches of his career in the latter half of the season with Tampa Bay. In August and September, Cishek struck out 3.7 batters for every one he walked and put up a 1.09 ERA and 2.14 FIP in 24.2 innings. Even better for his future prospects, he put up these numbers under pitching coach Jim Hickey, who happens to be the new pitching coach for the Cubs.

However, even if Cishek does continue his steady form, there are still many questions for the Cubs bullpen in 2017. According to the Depth Charts here at FanGraphs, the Cubs bullpen is projected for 4.4 WAR, including a negligible 0.1 WAR from Cishek himself. While that compares favorably to the projections of other playoff teams from 2017, a performance at that level would again rank the Cubs in the middle of the pack, and likely well behind other World Series contenders.

To reach the level of the Dodgers, Indians, and Yankees, the Cubs need one of two things to happen. The first would be for someone (or -ones) in the current version of the bullpen to outperform his (or their) projections. The club’s best projected reliever is Justin Wilson at 1.3 WAR, a solid enough number but not necessarily what you’d want from your leading relief option. Maybe the projection-topper is Cishek, who again has put up fewer than 0.7 WAR in his career only once. Brandon Morrow would be a reasonable thought, as last season was only his second as a full-time reliever and the first with his newfound velocity. Or maybe this is the year that one of Mike Montgomery, Pedro Strop, or Justin Wilson takes a step up from being a good one-win reliever.

Of course, the time from Game 7 to Opening Day is barely even a third over. There is still plenty of time for the Cubs to make more moves, which is the other thing that could vault the Cubs into the league’s upper tier of bullpens. They are still in on Wade Davis (and his 1.1 projected WAR), which would provide them with a top back-end option as well as another arm with which Jim Hickey has some familiarty. Zach Britton (1.6 projected WAR) may also be available if the Orioles decide to sell, and he would represent another sizable upgrade assuming he is fully healthy. In any of these scenarios, while the signing of Cishek gives the Cubs another reliable option, it is clear that in order to keep up with the rest of their playoff counterparts, they cannot be done pursuing relievers, especially of the top-end variety.