Not many things that happen within the walls of Wrigley Field can catch me off guard. For context, I’m both a life-long fan of the Chicago Cubs and a former member of the team’s Event Operations department for nearly eight years.
From the lengthy roller-coaster ride of on-field performance to full-fledged fist-fights in the bleachers, I’ve pretty much seen the entire spectrum of what the Friendly Confines has to offer; the good, the bad and the ugly.
What I experienced when I went to Wrigley to see the Cubs take on the Rockies on May 2nd was just different.
The crowd was understandably light; it’s mid-day on a Wednesday and school was still in session. As the song began echoing through the (suddenly) semi-new stadium, most of the fans didn’t have the same reaction as I did.
I was understandably hyped up, because pairing this song with Darvish on the mound is something I’d been doing regularly since my college roommates and I began playing MLB The Show many years ago (they also randomly happened to have tickets to that same game and immediately texted me as soon as the song started playing).
When I looked around, though, I either saw blank expressions or people hurriedly burying their faces into their phones to avoid feeling awkward. Maybe there was some sort of generational gap going on and fans didn’t understand the reference; maybe it was because they couldn’t reconcile the fact that such pomp and circumstance was being made out of a guy who was sporting an ERA above 6.00 at the time.
But their expressions paled in comparison to what I saw from Darvish as he approached the hill. This was a guy who looked like he’d rather be stuck in line at the DMV rather than throw a pitch in an MLB game.
Look, I’m all for the mystique of being stoic on the mound and taking care of business. I also understand Darvish doesn’t have a reputation for being emotive on the mound.
But this was beyond being stoic, or any other type of adjective you commonly use to describe athletes. I was immediately as unsettled as he appeared to be.
Naturally, Darvish immediately walked Charlie Blackmon on just five pitches to start the game, and two batters later, Nolan Arenado nearly cleared the center field batter’s eye in with a two-run homer.
Two more homers and seven runs later, Darvish was pulled with just one out in the fifth inning en route to an 11-2 romp at the hands of the Rockies.
This (lengthy) anecdote might be more enjoyable if it was a one-off aberration, or if it wasn’t describing the perils of someone who was just given $126 million dollars. But in Darvish’s admittedly short stint with the Cubs, being uncomfortable and getting shelled has been the norm.
As Tribune columnist Steve Rosenbloom puts it, there seems to be a “Yu Darvish bingo card of excuses” that is filling up at a rapid pace.
He’s uncomfortable with what the coaches are asking from him. He misses his personal catcher from his days as a Ranger. He doesn’t get along with Willson Contreras. He’s not used to pitching in colder weather. He’s still tipping his pitches. He’s got leg cramps. He’s got parainfluenza (no shame in Googling that; I had no idea what it was either).
Legitimacy of each excuse aside, his performance has been downright appalling: in seven starts, Darvish is 0-3 with a 5.56 ERA. His strikeout-to-walk ratio (2.33) is the lowest of his career. His -0.5 WAR puts him 516th among the 555 human beings who have thrown a pitch at the MLB level this season.
Recently, Cubs President of Baseball Operations Theo Epstein tried to tame the panic, saying “[he’s] had a very typical first month for a free agent. Some guys hit the ground running ... but that's pretty rare. Look no farther than Jon Lester’s first month in a Cubs uniform. It was kind of eerily similar."
There’s more than a grain of truth to this notion. After all, Theo’s a pretty smart guy.
Darvish is 31 years old in the first year of his six-year, $126 million contract with the Cubs. In the past two seasons, there have been six occasions where a pitcher over the age of 30 has changed teams to receive a multi-year deal north of $100, according to Spotrac.
How did each of these aces fare in their first year with their new team? Brace yourselves:
Granted, guys like Max Scherzer and Jon Lester turned things around, but it provides support to the idea Theo presented.
GMs are obviously getting hip to the idea that pitchers over the age of 30 aren’t likely to pull the weight of their enormous new contract, at least in year one. That’s why guys like Jake Arrieta were forced to wait out the entire offseason as a free agent and “settle” for a three-year, $75 million deal with the Phillies. Market correction at its finest.
But Theo’s idea begins to fall apart once you consider his comparison to Lester, who has never been a guy who starts the season hot. Theo should know this better than anyone, seeing that he was Boston’s GM while Lester was their ace.
Over his career, Lester owns a 78-46 record with a 3.52 ERA from April to June vs a 84-47 record and a 3.47 ERA from July to October. When you consider Weighted OPS (tOPS), a stat formulated to show whether a player is producing at their usual level, you’ll find that Lester historically underperforms in the first three months of the season while overperforming in the final three.
Pair this with his track record of post season dominance: his ERA, Hits per Nine Innings (H/9) and WHIP all fall while his Strikeout to Walk ratio takes a jump. Lester is the poster child for turning it up when it matters.
Darvish’s stats aren’t so friendly. From April to June, business is booming: 44-20 with a 3.14 ERA. Down the stretch: 22-25 with a 3.93 ERA.
Once you get to the postseason, all bets are off. His career postseason ERA is hovering near 6.00 and he allows nearly three times (!) as many homeruns as in the regular season. He just doesn’t rise to the challenge. If you need any further proof, I’ll simply direct you to Games 3 and 7 of last year’s World Series.
The statistics also speak nothing of expectations. Imagine for a second the sales pitch to both of these guys.
“Hey Jon, we’re gunna give you a lot of money to play with a bunch of 20-year-olds and break the longest-standing drought in professional sports history.” Versus, “Hey Yu, we’re gunna give you a lot of money to be the second-best pitcher on a team with a bunch of established talent that already won a title.”
Which guy has more pressure?
You also have to consider how pitching on the MLB level as a whole has reached a new pinnacle. Strikeout rates are at an all-time high. ERA+, which adjusts ERA based on the park a pitcher is playing in, has never been higher.
There have already been three no-hitters thrown this season, and we’re only in May. This season, pitchers have taken no-hit bids into the seventh inning 20 separate times – one in every 27.6 games.
You can peg some of this phenomenon on batters being less disciplined. But the last time pitching was this dominating this much was 1968, and the league responded by lowering the pitching mound to try to level the playing field (literally).
Not only is Darvish going against his own trends, he’s going against the entire league trend.
What gives?
As noted by Mike Petrillo, Darvish’s strikeout rate is currently almost 10% lower than it was just two seasons ago, and his walk rate has gone up 4%. This all stems back to his chase rate, or the amount of pitches swung at that don’t end up in the strike zone, dropping nearly 10% as well.
In an era of boom-or-bust hitting, the Cubs managed to give $126 million to the one guy that the league is still willing to be patient on. At least that’s how it seems.
We can only speculate as to what is really causing Darvish to resemble the shell of himself that he currently is. It’s simply hard to stomach.
It’s still too early to be in full panic mode, and the Cubs are only a game or so behind an over-performing Pirates team for the division lead. But if you’re playing Devil’s Advocate, you can also imagine a scenario where he never turns things around, a la Jason Heyward. Now you suddenly have not one, but two dead weight mega-contracts on your roster, which could prohibit you from pursuing a free agent like Bryce Harper. Or worse, prohibit you from retaining some of their own home-grown talent like Kris Bryant or Anthony Rizzo.
At the time of the deal, it was regarded as “fantastic” and “jaw-dropping.” There appeared to be no downside. Right now, it looks anything but.