Chicago Cubs acquire groundball specialist to help ailing pitching staff

The Chicago Cubs have gone through a legion of pitchers—of all sorts, styles, and levels of experience—in a desperate, and seemingly non-stop, effort to replace roster arms that have fallen to injury.

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The team had stockpiled arms during the offseason, mostly through minor league contract signings, but have needed to add more and more live bodies as the season has progressed.

The Cubs have lost a good chunk of the pitching that was expected to carry the team to a deep playoff run—thirteen casualties in total. They are currently minus starting pitchers Cade Horton, Edward Cabrera, Ben Brown, and Jameson Taillon. In the bullpen, closer Daniel Palencia is on the shelf, along with Hoby Milner, Phil Maton, Hunter Harvey, and a few others. Meanwhile, returning ace Justin Steele suffered a setback in his recovery and may have shifted the comeback target for 2027 instead of the May-June originally hoped for.

So, the team has been manning the waiver wires and searching for the right castoffs to bring aboard. They also pulled the trigger on a deal to bring over David Peterson from the Mets. The hope is that this patchwork pitching staff that they’ve assembled will hold long enough for some of their injured pitchers to return and/or until Cubs president Jed Hoyer can acquire some backup by the August 3 MLB trade deadline.

Josh Fleming is brought aboard

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In their latest move to patch up the holes in their hull, Chicago has signed 30-year-old lefty Josh Fleming to a minor league contract.

Fleming was let go by the Toronto Blue Jays on Sunday after he chose to exercise a “use me or lose me” opt-out in his contract to force his way onto the team’s 40-man roster.

The six-year major league veteran has had sparse success at the big league level with the Rays, Pirates, and Blue Jays, posting a 4.86 ERA over 257.2 total innings. At the minor league level, though, he’s been rock solid. This season at Triple-A Buffalo in the Blue Jays organization, he delivered a 3.08 ERA in 64 innings, striking out 51 and only allowing 11 walks while serving as a starter in 12 of his 13 appearances.

A groundball specialist

Brett Taylor of Bleacher Nation took a deeper dive when it comes to Fleming’s underlying stats shortly after the news of the Cubs signing broke:

“But look under the hood at that Buffalo performance, because it’s an interesting profile: 19.0% K, 4.1% BB, 50.5% groundball rate, 3.54 FIP.

That walk rate is bonkers, and it’s not a one-year fluke. He’s always been a control guy. Same with the grounders: Fleming’s groundball rate has never been below 54% in any of his big league seasons, and it has at times pushed toward the mid-60s(!). He does it with a high-80s/low-90s sinker and a changeup-sweeper-cutter mix, which is to say nothing about this profile is loud. It’s all strikes and contact management.”

The promise of what Fleming could be has kept him in pro ball and it’s what encourages teams to give him opportunities to stick around and prove himself.

In the case of the Cubs, who are desperate for pitching anywhere they can find it, Fleming would appear to be one of the better on-the-fly signings this season. His extreme groundball rate could play well with the Cubs infield defense behind him and his ability to eat innings—as either a starter or reliever—could help fill gaps until reinforcements can be brought in.

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Source: https://www.chicitysports.com/chicago-cubs-acquire-josh-fleming-pitching/