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<\/p>\nICYMI, Jameson Taillon\u00a0was scratched from his scheduled Saturday start\u00a0against the Rockies at Sloan Park, and left his bullpen warmup with some sort of back issue. The team hopes to know more about that sometime today.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
If you look at the video I shot of his warmup Saturday at that link, it did not look good when Taillon walked very slowly off the bullpen mound.<\/p>\n
So the question arises: If Taillon is out for a while, or doesn\u2019t make the Opening Day roster, who will take his rotation spot?<\/p>\n
Unlike many past years, the Cubs do have some alternatives. Here are some possible choices.<\/p>\n
Drew Smyly<\/p>\n
Smyly is scheduled to start Sunday\u2019s game against the Rangers. His first 15 starts last year were quite good \u2014 he posted a 3.38 ERA and 1.222 WHIP. After that, though, yikes: He had a 9.35 ERA in his next four starts and got moved to the pen. He did well there, but in three subsequent starts he allowed 19 earned runs in 13\u2153 innings and was moved back to relief work.<\/p>\n
In 12 relief outings after that, Smyly posted a 1.53 ERA and 1.245 WHIP and allowed just one home run in 17\u2154 innings. He seems better suited for that long relief role.<\/p>\n
Javier Assad<\/p>\n
Over the last two seasons, Assad has made 41 appearances for the Cubs, 18 of which were starts. He\u2019s done well in both roles:<\/p>\n
Starter:<\/strong>\u00a02.99 ERA, 1.317 WHIP in 90\u2153 innings, 13 HR allowed Seems just a bit better out of the pen, especially keeping the ball in the ballpark.<\/p>\n Hayden Wesneski<\/p>\n Wesneski had a great spring in 2023 and won the fifth starter role. He proceeded to get lit up: Eight starts, 5.03 ERA, 1.322 WHIP, 10 HR in 39x innings, even though four of those eight starts were decent. (The other four, don\u2019t look. Don\u2019t say I didn\u2019t warn you.)<\/p>\n He got sent to Triple-A Iowa after that and was up and down several times to Iowa, pitching mostly in relief when he returned to the majors. He had a decent September with a 3.00 ERA and 18 strikeouts in 15 innings over 11 outings.<\/p>\n One thing that has been noted by some (including me) about Wesneski is that he appears to think too much on the mound instead of pitch, especially with runners on base. He\u2019s got talent and a good pitch mix, but sometimes I feel like he just needs to pitch more and think less.<\/p>\n Ben Brown<\/p>\n While Brown has been primarily a starter since being acquired by trade in 2022, I think the Cubs see him beginning his MLB career in the bullpen. He has allowed one run in six relief innings so far this spring. He\u2019s got no MLB experience so I think the Cubs might rather go with one of the other three.<\/p>\n What do you think? My gut feeling says the Cubs would probably go with Smyly if Taillon is out for any length of time, but perhaps you have a different idea.<\/p>\n One last note: Some of you are likely to say, \u201cSign Jordan Montgomery or Blake Snell.\u201d I can tell you with almost 100 percent certainty that\u2019s not going to happen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ICYMI, Jameson Taillon\u00a0was scratched from his scheduled Saturday start\u00a0against the Rockies at Sloan Park, and left his bullpen warmup with some sort of back issue. The team… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":102808,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-102806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mlb-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102808"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nflquynh.aweu.info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nReliever:<\/strong>\u00a03.18 ERA, 1.235 WHIP in 56\u2154 innings, 4 HR allowed<\/p>\n