Bleacher Bums Forum

Michael Cerami's take:

http://www.bleachernation.com/2017/12/14/getting-to-know-new-cubs-reliever-steve-cishek-a-sidearming-contact-specialist/

Cishek with the Rays

9.49 K/9, 2.55 BB/9, 1.09 ERA, 2.14 FIP, 3.37 xFIP

I believe I saw where he was recovering from hip surgery and that might have affected some of his numbers.

I'm just really, really leery of committing a lot of money to Davis.  He seems like an almost sure bet for a significant regression - and for most of last year he wasn't dominant, just effective enough to get by.

He was dominant in the past, but I agree that he was not really dominant last year.  But perhaps that WAS his regression, and he will continue at that level for a couple of seasons.  Not a bad situation.

Dont kid yourselves.

We need Davis back horribly.

If we can eat the Heyward contract and get nothing in return we can handle Davis's.

I haven't been very in the rumor-mill loop.  But has there been any rumors about what Darvish is doing, and who's pursuing him? 

Is there any chance that for whatever confluence of scouting and budget reasons, that nobody is going very hard after Darvish?  And that he might end up being available for a contract that wouldn't be undesirable? 

Thanks. 

Sure, we've seen that with Edwards, and with Koji. 

The board was often much crabby about Edwards getting used as much as he was, given his wildness; it may be that his numbers versus lefties contributed to that?  (If you put in Strop or Rondon, and know you're going to yank them the minute a lefty comes up, maybe use Edwards instead so you don't, and can save or rest lefties?) 

As pertain to Cishek, though, his numbers versus lefties are worse than Strop or career Rondon.  So unless Maddon decides to change how he manages, we can assume that Cishek will be as or more prone to getting lifted when a lefty comes up that has been true with Strop or Rondon. 

Rondon's career numbers are better than Cishek, but they were kinda poor this last year.  Worse overall, of course, but particularly so versus lefties.  I wonder whether that factored in at all in the decision to non-tender him?  Maybe Maddon just knew he was never going to trust Hector versus lefties, and he's hoping that this year he can be more trusting of Strop and Cishek as well as Edwards versus lefties? 

Cubs lefties actually aren't that split-strong versus lefties.  Wilson's numbers were obviously terrible versus everybody, but his 2017 numbers versus lefties were really bad.  Duensing didn't have much split either, and his overall OPS versus lefties doesn't look any or much better than using Cishek versus lefties, certainly not as good as Strop or Edwards.  Montgomery isn't much of a splits guy, either.