Cubs: How Jharel Cotton can help team in 2020

The Chicago Cubs made a move on Saturday to acquire Jharel Cotton on Saturday from the Athletics and the 27-year-old could end up being a solid pitcher.

In an offseason that is surely going look unconventional, the Chicago Cubs made a trade for 27-year-old righty Jharel Cotton in exchange for Cash Considerations. Now while Cash Considerations was one of the team’s most promising prospects, it had to be done. All joking aside, Cotton missed all of the 2018 season recovering from Tommy John surgery but did make 18 rehab starts last year – 4 with Single-A Stockton and 14 for Triple-A Las Vegas.

The numbers sure aren’t pretty but Cotton was just getting back into pitching again. Still, his 7.16 ERA, including 3 starts, aren’t convincing by any means, so perhaps we should focus on his numbers prior to the surgery. In 2017, he made 24 starts for the Athletics and struck out 105 batters in 129.0 innings of work – albeit a 5.58 ERA.

Cotton was a 25-year-old in his first full big-league season and was just starting to scratch the surface prior to surgery. A closer look at his pitch usage in 2017 reveals that he has a devastating changeup that produced a 30.2 percent whiff rate. His fastball tops out around 95 mph and his slider needs a bit of work as the average spin rate on this pitch was roughly 2200 rpm and opponents were able to hit 0.295 off it (via StatCast).

I like to see sliders closer to a 2400-2500 rpm spin rate in order for them to be effective out pitches, so perhaps we’ll see an uptick in that category next year. Speaking of, the move creates more uncertainty about the 5th starter slot, which was previously occupied by Cole Hamels, who is now a free agent.

At first glance, it looks like the Cubs have internal candidates of Adbert Alzolay, Alec Mills, Tyler Chatwood, and now Cotton to battle it out in Spring Training. If the Cubs scouting and development folks feel that Cotton simply isn’t ready to handle a full seasons’ workload, he could certainly be a useful bullpen arm. The bullpen will pretty much require a complete overhaul after several pitchers have hit the free-agent market, with Pedro Strop being the only one (right now) looking like a candidate to return next year.

The move for Cotton isn’t going to wow anyone but it’s an extremely low-risk, high-reward move that could end up being quite good. And if it doesn’t work out, the Cubs really don’t have a lot invested in him. I would expect a couple more moves like this to happen this offseason.