Every September, competitive teams have to evaluate the state of their big league roster heading into the postseason, thinking about how they can maximize their performance when the biggest moments come in the playoffs.
One of those evaluations is about the strength of the team’s short-burst pitching group. Whether starters or relievers, these are the guys you’d want to use heavily throughout the postseason for – primarily – single innings at a time. The extra days of rest built into the calendar generally afford you the ability to use these guys in almost every single game, especially if they are limited to single innings and/or match-ups.
And, within that particular evaluation, is a question the Cubs could soon be asking themselves: are there any top pitching prospects who are ready to contribute in the biggest games of the year? If so, does their potential value go so far above what you already have on the roster that it’s worth the various potential trade-offs (development risks, injury risks, early addition to the 40-man, etc.)?
Jaxon Wiggins and the Possibility of a Late-Season Call-Up
For the Cubs, the roster evaluation question is pretty clearly going to be about top pitching prospect Jaxon Wiggins, whose innings have been very carefully managed this year, and whose performance has been so dominant that he got the bump from High-A to Double-A and then to Triple-A, all in-season.
Although he’s a starting pitching prospect, the evaluation would almost certainly be about whether Wiggins could contribute in relief, with his triple-digit fastball and useable secondaries. He’s not on the 40-man, and doesn’t have to go on for Rule 5 purposes until after next season, so that’d be at least a modest consideration.
But if the 23-year-old righty can help the Cubs win in the postseason by strengthening the single-inning group (particularly if the Cubs have lost Daniel Palencia), then they have to think about it.
Seems like they are.
From The Athletic:
Wiggins, a 6-foot-6 right-hander, moved from Double-A Knoxville to Triple-A Iowa last week, a decision with enough momentum behind it that Counsell actually watched his Saturday night debut with the Iowa Cubs.
“On the radar?” Counsell said. “Yeah.” …
“There’s a ways to go before we get there,” Counsell said. “But we thought about the challenge of Triple A for the last three weeks of the season. And then who knows what could happen?”
To me, the fact that the Cubs manager was watching Jaxon Wiggins’ excellent start at Triple-A on Saturday night, while his big league team is in the home stretch, is pretty telling. Yes, Counsell is essentially part of the front office, and yes, that means contributing on the prospect side. But the timing is telling. Right now, virtually all of Counsell’s time and focus has to be about the big league club and a playoff run. So if he’s spending his evening watching Wiggins debut at Triple-A, yeah, it’s about the big league team.
As Counsell said, the Cubs still have time to evaluate and make a decision. Really, they don’t need Wiggins up to help the bullpen in the run-up to the postseason. They should be able to lock up that top Wild Card spot without him. But if it tightens up in the final week? And/or into the postseason, when the innings are all as high-leverage as innings can get? That’s when the Cubs will absolutely need to know what could or could not be possible from a guy like Jaxon Wiggins.
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