NEWSLETTER
For reasons that surpass my pay grade, we are now a two-hamster household, and one of the two bit the crap out of me this morning. Typing with a bandaid on the tip of your left index finger is super annoying. I need one of them skin grafts, you know, solely for the purposes of typing my R’s and T’s and F’s and G’s and B’s and V’s and C’s. (Wow, left index is responsible for a lot of letters!)
• This is so glorious I cannot stop watching it:
An overlay of every pitch type** Yu Darvish threw in 2020.
How'd I do @faridyu?
**my best guess at least. pic.twitter.com/SiqPFvTPpP
— Alex Fast (@AlexFast8) December 23, 2020
• That’s art. Eleven overlaid pitches. ELEVEN. And they really are all distinct pitches: Four-seamer, sinker, slider, curveball, slow curve/eephus, knuckle curve/spike curve, splitter, hard cutter, soft cutter, changeup, supreme (splitter/two-seam hybrid).
• And your reminder on the unicorn that is Yu Darvish: he doesn’t just throw a lot of pitches to mess around – he does it because, obviously variety improves your performance and unpredictability, and also because some days you don’t have certain pitches available to you. Moreover, most big league starters struggle to have three or four really good and usable pitches. Darvish’s volume is just unthinkable.
• The Athletic guys are killing me with their fantastic Cubs farm system/player development content lately, and Patrick Mooney has the latest that is so worth a read:
Amid the trade rumors and high-profile exits, some of the biggest changes to the Cubs organization can't be fully seen yet. But these moves in scouting and player development were made to set the organization up for the next 10 years: https://t.co/xZMyIudXzt
— Patrick Mooney (@PJ_Mooney) December 23, 2020
• Most Cubs fans by now know that, in the first 6-7 years of the Epstein-Hoyer-McLeod era, the Cubs took a very restrictive, high-floor approach to drafting pitchers, and while it paid off in the sense that they had very few immediate flameouts or serious injuries, it wound up being a very limiting strategy in terms of landing surprise breakouts. We long knew about that part of the equation. But it turns out the Cubs were ALSO artificially limiting themselves in DEVELOPING their pitchers:
“We’ve definitely pushed and been more accepting of guys trying to increase their velocity,” [Jed] Hoyer said. “There’s an amount of risk that you want to take on in order to get the most out of guys, right? You don’t want to ever put anyone at risk, but you also don’t want to tread so lightly that you’re not maximizing a guy’s potential. That’s the fine balance we’re always trying to strike when you’re thinking about developing young pitchers.
“We had points where we were probably a little bit too conservative, candidly. We probably didn’t push some velocity gains or stuff gains that we probably should have. We’re probably a little bit more aggressive now, but you still have to be cognizant of not breaking guys. That’s always the balance you’re fighting: How much do you push? And what’s too much? But you can’t eliminate the risk in this game. Pitchers have and will always get hurt. It’s just a matter of you don’t want to be so afraid that you leave a lot of potential on the table.”
• This tracks with some things I have heard behind the scenes about the Cubs’ new player development infrastructure, at least on the pitching side, over the past year and a half. That is to say, I don’t think this is just Hoyer (and new farm director Matt Dorey) talking the talk – I think they really are taking more upside risks on the developmental side now. If successful, that could mean some eye-opening velocity gains and/or spin/stuff improvements next year when prospects finally play minor league games again. (And we’ve already talked about adding pitches, too.)
• I wasn’t even on the edge of my seat by this point. I was on the floor, eyes wider than should be possible, chewing on my knuckles. It was awesome:
Striking out the side to finish the no-hitter?
Watch: https://t.co/lJVMNojhp4 pic.twitter.com/IZWLLX0orN
— Marquee Sports Network (@WatchMarquee) December 24, 2020
Chris Heston is definitely from the Philip Humber school of "who?" no-hitters and perfect games.
(Don't you DARE say it about Alec Mills!) https://t.co/xl2TbB4cKh
— Bleacher Nation (@BleacherNation) December 24, 2020
• When the Cubs were away from the field for nearly 10 months, and I was desperately waiting for them to return, we wound up getting blessed by a Kyle Hendricks shutout in the first game back. Bulls fans … did not get that after waiting so long. Hug a Bulls fan today (digitally), because it was so ugly:
The Exact Opposite of What We Wanted: Hawks 124, Bulls 104https://t.co/Nl7Mjt61l7
— Bleacher Nation Bulls (@BN_Bulls) December 24, 2020
Site note for the days ahead: as is our usual practice, we won’t be working on Christmas Day. I pop at least something up on this here website 364 days a year – and I like it – but I duck out on Christmas Day unless there is some sports emergency. You can expect some more #Content today, and then the usual stuff over the weekend. It’s possible, though, that as all of us are doing holiday things through the weekend, our reactivity to breaking items might be a little slower than usual. Grace requested.
