NEWSLETTER
I really enjoy watching Scott Effross pitch. I mean, it helps that he’s having success, but it’s fun to see a guy with some funk. My kingdom for a knuckleballer, but I’ll gladly take a sidearmer.
And I know the Cubs would also gladly take it, too, if he could keep having enough success to justify staying on the 40-man. There’s a baseline level of success you have to have for anything else to matter, but *if* you are at least at that baseline, then you can be an added asset to the bullpen mix if you offer up a completely different look to hitters. We’ll need to see a lot more from Effross this month to even offer up a strong opinion on the 40-man decision, but so far so good.
Through 5.2 big league innings, Effross continues to do what he did in the minors, throwing strikes, getting a lot of groundballs, and getting a fair volume of strikeouts. It’s not hard to see how he’s having success, at least initially, because it’s not an approach they see very often – sidearm, and far to the third base side, and also a little crossfire – and he tunnels the sinker and the slider so well (he also throws a changeup and a four-seamer). The pitches look the same for about half their flight until they turn, hard, to the left or the right. It’s incredible that he just started doing the sidearm thing at age 25 at Double-A.
To that end, there’s a fantastic read on the whole story from Sahadev Sharma, which is as valuable for the profile of Effross, specifically, as it is for how it frames player development in the current Cubs era:
Scott Effross is another interesting bullpen arm the Cubs will be evaluating over the next month. I talked to the side-arming righty about how he made the change that altered the trajectory of his career. https://t.co/JYbwEFRIFY
— Sahadev Sharma (@sahadevsharma) September 4, 2021
First and foremost, I love reading that it was a cooperative effort that lead to Effross trying out being a sidearmer and then developing more fully as one. It was maybe going to be a situation where a 15th rounder was going to wash out at Double-A, the kind of thing that happens all the time, but instead it’s the story of how a player’s talent, effort, and willingness to adjust and grind have combined with a new development philosophy to “craft” a big league pitcher. Not every story will read like Effross’s, obviously, but there is a lot there that you could start thinking about in relation to other Cubs prospects. To have helped Effross become a big leaguer is a really, really encouraging data point.
Secondly, I want to share a section that’ll definitely get you excited about the future of the Cubs’ bullpen. It did for me, anyway:
It was a remarkably efficient outing that should make Effross just one more intriguing bullpen arm to watch over the season’s final month. While Effross’ arm angle is funky and stands out, there’s more to it than meets the eye. Last fall, the Tampa Bay Rays bullpen became a focus in their run to the World Series, partially because of how they had pitchers coming from so many different arm slots and opposing batters just couldn’t get comfortable in the box.
Effross has a long way to go before establishing himself as a part of the Cubs bullpen in 2022 and beyond, but if he can, the Cubs have the opportunity to do something similar to the Rays, at least from the right side. Rowan Wick has a more over-the-top look, while Manny RodrÃguez comes from a slightly lower slot. Codi Heuer works from a low three-quarters angle, and Effross is a true side-armer.
I am not at all saying I want to see the Cubs stop bringing in reclamation types for the bullpen, or lower-cost relievers who are undervalued on the market. I’m not even saying I want the Cubs to never again consider paying a premium for a fully-established, dominant reliever. But I am saying that the idea that the 2022 Cubs could fashion a really compelling bullpen almost entirely built out of internal options – guys who are already in the organization, and who have been developed over the last couple years (and/or traded for in Heuer’s case) – is really exciting. The potential for going 10 deep in quality arms that can contribute in a number of ways, but who can also be optioned as necessary for health/productivity/development/roster management is really exciting.
And getting real big league productivity out of guys like Effross – guys with that kind of development story – is pretty much the only way to actually pull it off. Here’s hoping he continues to look great the rest of the way, together with the rest of the bullpen.
