Photo courtesy of Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports
Well, it happened. Nobody expected the Cubs to carry three catchers all season—including me, when I examined the history of teams doing just that, back in April—and about an hour ago the Cubs made it official. Welington Castillo is leaving the Chicago Cubs, en route to the Pacific Northwest:
#Cubs acquired RHP Yoervis Medina from the #Mariners for C Welington Castillo. Medina will report to Triple-A Iowa. pic.twitter.com/1mdS7ZXJTj
— Chicago Cubs (@Cubs) May 19, 2015
This is, in a sense, sad. I always liked Beef, and his presence on the roster meant that Miguel Montero got a lot of rest. (If you’ve read Matthew Trueblood recently, you’ll know that that’s a good thing.) But, just as every rose has a thorn, every trade that involves a relief pitcher entering the Cubs’ organization means a new entry in the now five-part “What’s Up With?” series. And for this simple reason, I was pretty pumped to see that the Cubs’ acquired Yoervis Medina from the Mariners today.
Medina, 26, was originally signed by the Mariners as an international free agent out of Venezuela back in 2005, at the tender age of 16. As many pitchers of an IFA vintage do, he took a while to develop his skills to the point where the Mariners brought him stateside. When they did, in 2010, he distinguished himself by posting excellent strikeout (10.3 K/9) and walk (3.4 BB/9) rates across three levels. Although his performance in 2011 and 2012 was somewhat shakier—albeit against a higher level of competition—by 2013 he had evidently progressed to the point that the Mariners felt comfortable bringing him up to the Show, where he made his debut in April.
In the three big-league seasons that have followed, Medina has employed a fairly consistent four-pitch mix, with only the changeup falling out of favor in the middle of last season:
Those pitches appeared to be working for him, as he put up a very solid 96 cFIP, 3.11 DRA season in 2013 and an equally reasonable 99/3.86 in 2014, while maintaining relatively high swing-and-miss rates. The problem, as will become evident momentarily, has been this season. The chart I showed you above included all of Medina’s pitches through last season. See if you can spot the difference this season:
It’s pretty hard to miss—something super weird is happening with Medina this month. While April looked pretty normal for him (at least, normal after he removed the changeup from his arsenal), May—though it’s just a two-game sample, as he was sent down earlier in the month—has seen the four-seamer shoot up the ranks while seeing a massive decline in sinker usage and a small, but not unreasonable, decline in curve usage.
There’s a pretty clear explanation for this: Medina has lost confidence in his command , and is trying to go to the four-seamer—the easiest pitch to locate—more often in an effort to find his command again. Problem is, that’s not all that’s going on. Check this out:
What you see there, unfortunately, is a 2 mph decline in his fastball velocity (both types), and a 1 mph decline in the curveball velocity. When you’re not commanding your pitches well, and your velocity is wrong, it’s often too much to overcome effectively, and raises a lot of injury red flags, as Matt noted on Twitter earlier today:
Lost grounders and found more flies. Not inducing chases out of the zone. Wouldn't be surprised if he's on the brink of TJS.
— Matthew Trueblood (@MATrueblood) May 19, 2015
In any event, the Cubs liked the strikeout potential they saw in his 2013 and 2014 season enough to try to unlock some of his potential, and have sent him to Triple-A Iowa for the time being while they work out what exactly they have in him. At his best, he could be a good, possibly great, member of a playoff-caliber relief corps. At his worst, he could be out for the season in short order. And maybe, sometime in the middle, he might do something like this:
That, in short, is what’s up with Yoervis Medina.