Do the Chicago Cubs Have the National League's Best Bullpen?
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Despite hosting one of baseball's worst pitching staffs, the Chicago Cubs have somehow managed to cobble together a bullpen worthy of praise.
With players like Rowan Wick, Brandon Hughes and Michael Rucker settling into new roles since the departure of their veteran arms at the trade deadline, the Cubs are continuing a trend set in mid-July.
From July 15, through Thursday's contest against the St. Louis Cardinals, the Cubs boasted the National League's second lowest bullpen ERA at 2.96, second only to the Los Angeles Dodgers at 2.75.
The did eclipse the Dodgers though in stranding runners. Chicago led all NL teams in LOB% (left on base percentage) at 80.4%.
Of course, the Cubs have lost a lot of the help that made those numbers possible. David Robertson, Scott Effross, Mychal Givens and Chris Martin were all shipped out at the deadline. In return the Cubs received a wide assortment of prospects.
Ben Brown from the Philadelphia Phillies is a Double-A starting pitching prospect with a 3.66 ERA in 86 innings during 2022. Hayden Wesneski is a starting prospect much closer to the Majors from the New Yankees who, similar to Brown, has a 4.10 ERA in 101 1/3 innings this year. Saúl González from the New York Mets' system is a high intensity reliever who's struck batters out at a tremendous rate in in 2022 at Single-A, while Zack Mckinstry has already made an impact at the Major League level as a future utility man.
The Cubs parlayed their bullpen success into brightening their future. All it cost was $11 million over three separate one-year contracts, and the future of Effross.
The group remaining is now an inexperienced one. Mark Leiter Jr. is the only bullpen pitcher over the age of 30, but down the line this group could be pitching in more important games.
Bullpen coach Chris Young is acutely aware of that fact. He wants his relievers to get the experience they need now for when the games matter even more.
"As a [pitching] group, we want to hold the bar high for these guys, Young said in an article by Maddie Lee of the Chicago Sun Times. "We want to be doing this in a pennant race, where the level of expectation is to win every night.”
The Cubs bullpen that was the best in the NL for a time is now broken up, but the young core of that staff remains, ready to pick up the pieces and remember the lessons they learned from the veterans who helped mold them into an effective relief corps.
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