Chicago Cubs: What made Rowan Wick so good in 2019?

Rowan Wick emerged as one of the best bullpen arms for the Chicago Cubs last season. Let’s dive into what made him so good.

In perhaps one of the most underrated trades by the Chicago Cubs front office, Rowan Wick was acquired in November 2018 and sent Jason Vosler to the San Diego Padres. Wick, 26, was originally drafted by the St. Louis Cardinals in the 9th round of the 2012 MLB Draft as a catcher. After a poor start to his career and getting passed up by other catching prospects, Wick switched to the outfield and wound up transitioning to the mound during the 2015 season.

The big righty appeared in just 10 games for the Padres last season and had a very misleading 6.48 ERA in just 8.1 innings of work. Since coming over to the Cubs, Wick has been one of the most reliable bullpen arms which were hard to find for a group that finished fifth-worst in baseball with 28 blown saves.

A closer look at Wick’s pitch usage shows that he’s a heavy fastball user at 66.3 percent and utilizes his curveball at 27.8 percent, slider at 3.7 percent, and cutter at 2.2 percent. His fastball tops out on average near 96 mph and has 1.4 inches more drop – or 10 percent more – than league average (StatCast). Opponents were able to hit just 0.227 off Wick’s primary pitch and produced a 27.4 percent whiff rate.

Perhaps his best pitch was his curveball, which saw a boost in usage from the 9.8 percent in 2018. Wick was able to increase the spin rate of his curveball from 2298 RPM to 2582 RPM and the results were noticeable as he allowed batters to hit just 0.108 off it in 2019 while producing a 25 percent whiff rate and 34.1 percent strikeout rate. His curveball had 7.4 inches more vertical drop from the release point – or 13 percent more- than league average. And with nearly a 20 mph difference from his fastball, it was so key to keeping hitters off balance.

Wick’s slider usage was roughly the same from a year ago and produced an opponents’ batting average of just 0.167 in 2019. With a 2361 RPM spin rate, his slider was a nice complement to his curveball while still achieving a 16.7 percent whiff rate and a 28.6 percent strikeout rate.

He really started to emerge in the second half of the season, tossing 26.1 innings with a 2.05 ERA and an opponents’ combined batting average of just 0.151 and 0.048 in high leverage situations. Next season, Wick could find himself as the 8th inning setup man for Craig Kimbrel in what figures to be an entirely new bullpen. But with a 17.36 K/9 in 2-2 count situations, Cubs’ fans should be very excited for the back end of the bullpen in 2020.

Wick is under team control through the 2024 season but Theo Epstein will need to be proactive in free agency and or trades to find more gems to put the back end of the bullpen in a good position because 28 blown saves was the difference in the team not playing October baseball.