2015 Stats
72 G, 70 IP, 1.67 ERA, 3.18 DRA, 24.6 K%, 5.3 BB%, 1.3 WARP
Year in Review
There are moments in a season like the Cubs’ 2015 in which the closer plays the hero as a matter of course. When you’re the guy whose job it is to get the last three outs of close (or close-ish) games, one perk is that you get to be the one jumping into the catcher’s arms after clinching wins, and the one reliever whose T-shirts and jerseys hang on the racks of the souvenir shops, alongside those of the team’s biggest stars. More often than not, the closer plays a small role in the outcome of a game.
Not in this game. In this game, the second of a four-game series between the Giants and the Cubs at Wrigley Field in August, Hector Rondon is genuinely the story. Today, Addison Russell started at shortstop, marking the exhaustion of Joe Maddon’s patience with the struggling Starlin Castro. That only served to underscore the point Maddon made just yesterday, when he lifted Jason Hammel one out before Hammel would have qualified for a win. The message, from manager to players: these are playoff games. Prepare that way, think that way, act that way.
And now, Maddon calls on Rondon. It’s the eighth inning, and the Cubs do lead 6-3, but there’s a runner on second base with one out, and the Giants’ two best right-handed hitters (Matt Duffy and Buster Posey) are due next. Just 10 days ago, if Maddon wanted his closer to come into this situation and try to get the five-out save, he’d have asked for Jason Motte. Motte quietly became the primary closer in the early part of June, and in the two months since, Rondon has occasionally slipped even below Pedro Strop on the bullpen depth chart. He got off to a slow start, with pedestrian strikeout and walk rates over the first two months. He blew three of his first 12 save chances. Opponents got a lot of hard contact against him, too, and hit more fly balls than grounders. (Given the action on Rondon’s high-90s sinker and his diving slider, these are signs that something is amiss.)
On June 7th, Maddon first called on Jason Motte to save a game, having asked Rondon to navigate the eighth inning of a three-run game. That awoke something in Rondon. From that game through the end of the season—the two months from that game to this one, and the two months to come, too—Rondon will pitch to 184 batters over 48 appearances. He’ll strike out 48 and walk eight. His ERA will be 0.96, and opponents will hit .187/.235/.246 against him. He’ll induce ground balls at the best rate of his career, and easily the best rate of any Cubs reliever. In the meantime, Motte will slowly exhaust whatever residue of #CardinalsDevilMagic has lingered in his beard and in the creases of his elbows, and lose his utility as a high-leverage arm. Strop will fail Maddon’s tests of worthiness for the closer role. After Rafael Soriano’s disastrous turn, Rondon will get his gig back in late July, and here, on a Friday afternoon in August, he’ll get a shot at securing it.
He doesn’t waste the opportunity. Down goes Duffy, swinging, on four pitches. Down goes Posey, on a ground ball to Russell at short. In four easy batters, down go the Giants in the ninth inning. Rondon has not only reclaimed the closer’s role, but locked it down. Two days from now, he’ll have the crowning moment—a 2-0 game, loading the bases with no out, striking out the next three batters, pounding his chest in manful exuberance as he waits for Miguel Montero to run out and hand him the winning ball. But today is the day that gives him the faith in himself to navigate that one. Today, he saves a game by getting more than three outs for the first time in his career, and he does so by navigating the toughest part of one of the NL’s deepest offenses. The Giants, who led Chicago by half a game for the second Wild Card spot entering Thursday’s game, will never get closer than one and a half games back again.
Looking Ahead
If you think Wade Davis has turned a neat trick the last two years in Kansas City, or if you’re among those who feel the Red Sox were only doing what one must when they traded a fistful of good prospects to the Padres for Craig Kimbrel, take a moment to consider Rondon. He could be the reliever of whom we statheads build a statue at the Sabermetric Hall of Fame in Lawrence, Kansas, someday.
Rondon is a legitimate, bad-ass closer; a guy with two distinct flavors of fastball that both sit in the upper 90s, with a worm-killing, diving slider he can throw for a strike. He’s saved 59 of 67 games over the last two seasons, and absolutely nothing says he can’t save 40-plus games for the Cubs in 2016. He’s also a former Rule 5 draftee, a guy the Cubs acquired for virtually nothing. Next season will mark the first time he hasn’t pitched for something very close to the league-minimum salary. MLB Trade Rumors projects that he’ll make $3.6 million, which is a handsome take for a first-time arbitration-eligible guy, and reflects mostly the fact that the arbitration system overvalues saves. (Thank you, Joe Maddon, for keeping Rondon from racking up the 40 saves he might have had if he’d been the closer all season. That probably saved the Cubs close to $1 million.)
However it will feel to the Rondon family, though, $3.6 million is a dirt-cheap price to pay for a top-10 closer. Davis will make $8 million in 2016. Kimbrel will make $11 million. Chapman projects to make $12.9 million via arbitration, which is a good reminder that the price tags on Davis and Kimbrel reflect significant discounts they exchanged for long-term guarantees. MLB Trade Rumors projects that Cardinals closer Trevor Rosenthal will make $6.5 million in 2016, and that Pirates closer Mark Melancon will cost $10 million.
Is Rondon as good as Rosenthal, Melancon, Kimbrel, Davis or Chapman? Probably not. While he has excellent velocity, good command of his slider, and a great batted-ball profile, Rondon doesn’t miss enough bats to go into the truly elite bin. He has a fair chance of being better than at least one of those pitchers in 2016, but a very slim chance of being better than any two or three. Still, the costs those pitchers’ teams have paid and will pay for them—prospects, long-term deals, and hefty arbitration awards—dwarf what the Cubs have paid Rondon, and what they will pay him next season. There is no position on the roster at which the Cubs have done so much with so little, and if Rondon can turn in a season as good as his last two, he’ll be among the best bargains on a team still loaded with young, underpaid players. Rondon is one reason the Cubs have so much flexibility this winter.
Lead photo courtesy of Jerry Lai-USA TODAY Sports