NEWSLETTER
I wouldn’t blame anybody for identifying Nico Hoerner’s breakout as the single best thing to happen to the Chicago Cubs this season. But as we sit here today? He’s become a close second. For me, Justin Steele’s emergence as a left-handed, true mid-rotation+ starting pitcher is as good as it gets for the Cubs this year.
And yesterday’s performance against the Brewers (6.0 IP, 2H, 1BB, 9Ks) was just the cherry on top of what has been an absolutely dominant run for Steele.
Over his last nine starts, Steele has earned a 1.47 ERA, second only to Dylan Cease on the South Side of Chicago, with a 28.9% strikeout rate, which ranks 10th in MLB during that stretch.
But the most impressive part is that despite being one of the league’s premier strikeout starting pitchers going back to late June (heck, he’s among the top-25 for the entire season), he’s actually ALSO one of the best contact managers in MLB.
In terms of ground ball rate, Justin Steele is just one of 12 starting pitchers over the 50% mark while his 7.4 average launch angle ranks 10th best in MLB. Meanwhile, his 87.0 MPH average exit velocity ranks 9th, his 32.4 hard% ranks 10th, and his 3.4 barrel rate LEADS ALL OF MLB. And all of that accounts for the entire season.
To put that all another way, Justin Steele is excelling in the upper echelons of both strike out stuff *and* contact management.
It’s fitting that Jon Lester was in attendance for Steele’s gem yesterday, because it was Lester who gave him the tip that may have changed his season a few months ago: “I told him I appreciated him reaching out to Ross earlier in season,” Steele said of Lester after the game yesterday. “He didn’t have to do that, so it was greatly appreciated.”
Funny enough, yesterday was the first time Steele even met Lester. And by coincidence or design, Lester was also uniquely good at both managing contact and racking up strikeouts.
So is Steele doing anything different this season compared to last? Well, we can certainly point to the initial advice from Lester about establishing his four-seamer down and in against righties.
Check out not just the location of that pitch against righties, but also the increased usage overall (45.4% last season compared to 57.1% this year).
But the pitch also just looks different this season.
Inches of Drop (vertical movement)
2021: 16.0
2022: 19.2
Inches of Break (horizontal movement)
2021: 2.1
2022: 1.5
Velocity
2021: 93.2 MPH
2022: 92.2 MPH
He’s throwing it a little slower, but it’s dropping more and moving horizontally less.
Of course, you can’t talk about Steele’s 2022 dominance without bringing up his sweeping slider which has 13.8 inches of horizontal movement, the sixth most among all pitchers who’ve thrown at least 500 sliders this season.
To put the value of that pitch in perspective, FanGraphs has Steele’s slider as the 4th best in MLB, behind Dylan Cease, Shohei Ohtani, and Shane Bieber. PitchInfo has it 5th in MLB with the same top-3 plus Yu Darvish just ahead of the Cubs lefty. That is some ELITE company, and it shows in the results: Opposing batters are hitting just .143/.191/.223 off the slider, which is just absurdly impressive.
The Cubs have Steele, 27, locked up through his prime (he’s not a free agent until 2028), and I think he’s going to be an enormous part of the next great Cubs team.
