It’s too early to say that Hayden Wesneski has cemented himself a big league roster spot for the start of 2023, much less a sure-fire rotation spot. We’re hoping the Cubs have so much impact and depth in the rotation to open the season that they’ll necessarily have to move a guy with options like Wesneski up and down, or in and out of the bullpen. It’d be a great problem to have!
That said, it’s pretty hard to have a better start to a big league career than Wesneski has, including his first big league start today.
Wesneski was dominant, shutting the Rockies down for seven innings, and extending his hot run in the early going here in the big leagues.
This run comes on the heels, you might remember, of his final three outings at Triple-A: 15.0 IP, 1 ER, 4 H, 5 BB, 16 K. The dude has been on fire for a month.
When the Cubs acquired the 24-year-old righty before the trade deadline for reliever Scott Effross, Wesneski was seen as a solid future big league starter – maybe a decent back-of-the-rotation type – who was pitching well at Triple-A. Being eligible for the Rule 5 Draft after the season, he was going to have to be added to the 40-man roster by November anyway, which mean a big league debut down the stretch was always a possibility. If and when that happened, you mostly just wanted to see him get exposure to big league at bats so he would be in a better spot to work in the offseason, and then be a contributor next year in a mixed role (and then perhaps emerging as a full-time rotation member in 2024+).
With how he’s been looking, I’d say the chance that he emerges as a rotation regular next year have ticked up. Far from a lock, but certainly possible.
I want to guard myself against unrealistic expectations based on a small sample against mostly bad hitters. Mostly, then, I’m just happy he’s getting this big league exposure. The results are just gravy.
Just as we would say with young hitters, there are undoubtedly adjustments coming for Hayden Wesneski, with the league perhaps getting more attuned to his ridiculous sweeping slider (either spitting on it, or knowing how to take advantage of when it is mislocated). In fact, you almost would like to see some of that happening before this season ends so that it can help with that offseason work.
But then again, if he just wants to dominate for a few more starts, I guess it’s not like I’d complain.