I have been wondering for a couple months now whether the Chicago Cubs would stretch out reliever Nate Pearson in Spring Training, even if only as a back-up plan for the rotation, and it looks like we’ve got our answer.
Per Meghan Montemurro, the Cubs will indeed stretch Pearson out as a starter in Spring Training “to an extent,” though Jed Hoyer said the expectation is still that Pearson will ultimately wind up in the bullpen. So, we’re not necessarily looking at a definite full-on conversion here. Just a way to create additional options for the organization coming out of Spring Training.
To me, this was a no-brainer. Pearson, 28, is a former tip-top starting pitching prospect, whose transition to the big leagues just never clicked with the Blue Jays for a variety of reasons. He has the arsenal to be a successful starting pitcher in theory, but he also has started to find real success in relief. So what you do is you stretch him out a little bit in the first half of Spring Training, maybe getting him up to three-ish innings. At that point, you know a lot more about who is healthy, who is not, how you plan to coordinate your rotation and your bullpen, etc. You also can see how well his stuff is holding up at the 40/50-pitch mark, and decide if the potential upside is worth a rejiggering of your pitching staff.
The good news? If it doesn’t make sense at that point to open the season with him in the rotation, you have plenty of time to throttle down a bit on the pitches-per-appearance, and get him ready as a reliever. Moreover, you’ve got him semi-stretched out to possibly be a multi-inning reliever, something he may be uniquely geared to do, something that can be wildly valuable for a staff, and something Craig Counsell has liked to do in the past.
Because the Cubs have decided – for budgetary reasons, it seems – not to add an additional starting pitcher this offseason beyond a high-risk upside swing like Matthew Boyd or a swing man like Colin Rea, there’s no reason to close to door just yet on Pearson’s potential. It seems pretty unlikely that everything breaks just the right way to have him in the rotation and succeeding, but it’s certainly not impossible, especially after his first offseason working with a new organization. And, as a hard-throwing righty, he’d offer a look the Cubs don’t otherwise have in the mix outside of Ben Brown.
So, then, you keep your options open until you have to pull the lever in one direction or the other.