There wasn’t really a big question about whether the Chicago Cubs would stretch Ben Brown out at the start of Spring Training, and even if there were, both Craig Counsell and Tommy Hottovy had indicated that it was happening. Maybe in the years ahead, the Cubs and Brown decide relief is the route to contributing in the big leagues, but while he’s still optionable, and while there’s still a chance he could break out as a starter, the Cubs want to leave that on the table.
Yesterday, Brown started that process of stretching out, throwing 30 pitches over 2.0 scoreless innings. He gave up a couple hits, walked none, and struck out three. Exactly the kind of chill, efficient outing you like to see in the spring.
What was most interesting about the appearance, however, was Brown’s reliance on a third pitch.
You know the story there, especially as it relates to his future as a starter: Brown has a plus curveball and a plus four-seam fastball, but without a third pitch, his command has to be nearly pristine for him to have success multiple times through the order without getting hit hard (guys can start picking a location and picking one of his two pitches to look for, and swing out of their shoes – that’s why when he got hit, he got hit HARD).
The talk last year, of course, was about the changeup, a traditional weapon against lefties, and a very different look from his hard, vertical curveball, and his riding fastball.
But that’s not the third pitch he was showing off yesterday. Instead, it was that 98 mph beauty you saw as the final pitch in that clip: a sinker with some pretty hard movement in on the righty’s hands. Ben Brown was throwing that sinker at 97-98 mph, about a mph harder than his four-seamer, and he threw it 10 times to only 8 for the four-seamer. It was dropping about four inches more than the four-seamer and moving arm-side about eight more inches. That’s VERY interesting stuff right there, especially if he can actually command it in a way he couldn’t quite figure out the changeup. Sure, it’s maybe not the ideal three-pitch mix for a power righty starting pitcher, but it’d be a huge improvement.
All the more encouraging? That sinker is apparently entirely new for Brown this offseason. It’s not something he’s tried before, and he told Sahadev Sharma that he’d never thrown it in a big-league game before. Not that you want him to give up trying to make a changeup work (he’s been trying a kick-change, like Jameson Taillon picked up last year), but if it just happens that, boom, the sinker is something that really clicks for him, why not roll with it? I’ll definitely be watching that storyline closely this spring.
More from Ben Brown after the appearance:
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