Thursday finally saw a splash on the free agent market when the Chicago Cubs signed starting pitcher Tyler Chatwood to a 3 year, $38 million deal. While Chatwood wasn’t the starting pitcher we were all looking forward to hearing that Cubs have signed (Shohei Ohtani), he is still a very adequate pitcher that immediately slots in at number four in the stacked Chicago rotation.
Tyler Chatwood began his career being drafted by the Angels in the second round of the 2008 draft. After spending five years in their system, even making it to the big leagues in 2011, he was shipped to the Rockies for Chris Iannetta.
Still only 27 years old, Chatwood is young for a pitcher hitting the free agent market. While he has not put up eye-opening stats to this point in his career, he still has potential to break out during his time in Chicago. As most Colorado pitchers do, Chatwood put up pretty ridiculous home/away splits during his time with the Rockies organization. In 70.1 innings at Coors Field in 2017, he had an ERA of 6.01, with hitters putting up a slash line of .299/.395/.489 against him. Very rough stats to say the least. But outside of Coors Field, the righty starter put up a 3.49 ERA with hitters slashing just .197/.299/.396 off of him.
In addition to his standard stats, Chatwood has several appealing things about his ability including a mid 90s fastball with a sinker that has given him the ability to generate many ground balls. He sported a 58.1% ground ball percentage with a very impressive 2.68 ground ball to fly ball ratio. He pairs that with one of the best curveball spin rates in all of baseball that has warranted comparisons to Charlie Morton and his turnaround with the Houston Astros last season.
While this seems like a great signing for the boys in blue, there are some questions in the signing of Chatwood. His control has never been something to write home about, as he put up a 12.2% walk rate in 2017, which equated to 4.69 walks per nine innings. In addition, he will need to prove that the poor stats that he put up in Coors were strictly due to the mountain air.
Tyler Chatwood will take John Lackey’s old spot in the rotation as the number four starter and will look to make a difference for the Cubs during the prime years of his career.
Out of the Vines 