The Cubs Have a Yu Darvish Problem
Yu Darvish is an Elite Headcase, but do the Cubs have enough to save him from himself?
Baseball is the most unusual of the major sports. It is comprised of both a team sport on defense and an individual sport on offense. It is the only game where the defense has the ball. It is the only game where adrenaline and being overly emotional leads to worse play in a majority of players. Baseball is not just a game of cool collected concentration, but akin to chess, actually is the game where composure is essential for quality performance.
American culture has gradually moved on from the national pastime, garnering a more football approach to competition where adrenaline and getting pumped up for game time is standard operating procedure. But baseball prefers to do things the old fashioned way, relying on mental prowess and calm strategy to win championships. To learn baseball is a simple affair, the basic methodology of hitting rocks with sticks goes back millennia, but to master the strategy of the oldest of American sports is a lifetime endeavor.
Managers always talk about intangibles in players; it’s something scouts spend their career in search of. Intangibles are the things that those who have played the game look for when they evaluate players, things that cannot be summarized on a stat sheet or box score; intangibles are what prime the great players in big moments while being elusive to the young guns that never get past potential unrealized.
The intangibles in baseball are crafted in not necessarily what a player’s stats look like, but more how the player affects the game around them.
Leadership is an intangible. It is an attribute that is sought after in every facet of the game, but rarely acquired or effectively implemented practically. The Clubhouse is a difficult environment, and getting 25 guys to not only wrap themselves around the team ideal, but to do so under the direction of a single player, is not only difficult, but damn near impossible. Player culture tends to fracture clubhouse cohesiveness, and it takes a strong personality with a soft touch to work through inter-squad issues while motivating players to push themselves. Just because management pins a C on the chest of a player doesn’t make that player a leader, and leadership can flower in even the youngest rookie — guys who will never have the luxury of being called captain.
Bringing new players into an unfamiliar environment, especially when new players have been tapped with the “leadership” moniker, is always volatile initially. The Dodgers between 2012 and 2016 are a good example of this. So many players were brought in who were high dollar, all bringing their own baggage and attributes into the clubhouse culture; yet it took 4 years for all players to coalesce around a vision of what the Dodgers team was going to be and begin to find success. Much like the Iditarod, unless all of the sled dogs start pulling in the same direction, it doesn’t matter how illustrious the pedigree of the individual teammates may be. The sum of the whole of a baseball team must be greater than the sum of its parts.
Pitchers hold a unique role in the clubhouse set apart from the positional players; as much as humility and compromise play a role in positional players coalescing into a team mindset, the pitcher has to be different. Confidence is more of a driving force behind pitchers than any other role on the baseball field. The guy who is responsible for every pitch to every batter, the guy who starts and ends play, controls the flow of the game, and holds the heaviest responsibility for the wins and losses is the guy on the mound. In every situation, the player holding the ball sixty feet and six inches from home plate needs to have confidence. Confidence in the face of adversity, even when things are going wrong, even when he gives up the lead, even when he walks in a run; the pitcher must never waiver from the idea that he is the greatest to have ever played the game.
The pressure of being the guy on the hill destroys men who are unable to hold the weight of the game on their shoulders. In 2000, Rick Ankiel was a pitcher with the St. Louis Cardinals who started game 1 of the National League Divisional Series vs the Atlanta Braves in his sophomore season. After 2 innings of expected precision, the weight of the situation came crashing down around Ankiel who would throw 5 wild pitches, never making it out of the 3rd inning. He would go on to pitch in game 2 of the National League Championship Series, this time unable to get out of the first inning after throwing 20 pitches, including 5 that went to the backstop.
Rick Ankiel is a cautionary tale for putting too much pressure on pitchers before they have had enough time to mature into the role of big league pitcher in a pressure packed playoff situation. But it doesn’t only happen to young players, veterans such as Yu Darvish seem to collapse under the stresses of the playoffs as well.
Yu Darvish, as a pitcher for the Texas Rangers, was notoriously atrocious in the playoffs. It was a trend that would follow him to Los Angeles after he was traded to the Dodgers in 2017.
As a regular season pitcher, Yu Darvish has anchored the Texas Rangers rotation since he came over from Japan in 2012 as a 25 year old ace. After pitching 29 regular season games, finishing 16–9 with 3.90 ERA and 1.28 WHIP, He entered into the 2012 wild card game against the Baltimore Orioles as the starter, upon whom, all of Texas pinned their hopes and dreams. The Rangers lost the wildcard game 5–1 behind 6.2 innings of Darvish on the mound. Yu gave up 3 runs, 2 of them earned, on 5 hits while striking out 7 and walking no one.
Darvish had his second attempt at the post season in the 2016 while pitching the second game of the American League Divisional Series vs the Toronto Blue Jays. The Rangers wouldn’t win a game in the series. This was after offseason changes were made, and Darvish found himself pitching as second fiddle in the rotation. His numbers in his only appearance in the playoff series were not impressive. Darvish finished game 2 with a loss; he gave up 5 runs on 4 home runs while issuing a walk and 4 strikeouts. The 9.00 ERA for Darvish in the 2016 playoffs summed up the post season career for the ace that couldn’t hold up to the pressure of baseball in autumn.
The trade from the Texas Rangers to the Los Angeles Dodgers in the midst of the 2017 season put Darvish in a unique situation befitting the elite pitcher that he was: the position as the #2 ace on a rotation behind all-time-great Clayton Kershaw. Removing the perceived pressure of being the ace of the rotation lowered his ERA from 4.01 to 3.44 in the regular season, also seeing an increase in his Strikeout per 9 innings from 9.7 to 11.5, and improving his Strike out to walk ratio from 3.29 to 4.69.
October baseball became indistinguishable from Yu’s regular season dominance as he made quick work of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago Cubs, giving up only 1 run in each game (both home runs) and striking out 14 across the 2 contests. It seemed the Dodgers had cured the postseason struggles that had Plagued Darvish for his entire career. The increased run support, better bullpen, and pressure diffusion that came with pitching behind Clayton Kershaw, all played a role in bringing Darvish into his full post-season potential as a Dodger.
Or so it would seem.
Yet the thing that strikes fear into the hearts of all starters, the very words that can shake a pitchers confidence to its core — the Major League Baseball World Series — would spell the beginning of the end for the championship hopes for the Dodgers and for Yu Darvish.
Playing the once cross-state rival Houston Astros from his Ranger days, Yu Darvish started game 3 of the 2017 World Series, and only made it 3 outs into the game before making his first mistake. On a 2–1 pitch, Astros first baseman Yuri Gurriel hammers a perfectly placed 2-seam fastball on the outside corner over the left field wall. The capacity crowd at Minute Maid Park erupted, and Yu Darvish stood on the loneliest spot on the diamond, watching the opposing team celebrate.
He would never recover.
Over the next 24 pitches thrown by Yu Darvish, the Astros plated 3 more runs and put runners on the corners before Dodgers manager Dave Roberts decided he had seen enough, pulling Darvish for Kenta Maeda to get the final out of the inning.
It was clear in the complete collapse of Yu Darvish during the second inning that the effect of losing the single pitch to give up the initial home run of the ballgame completely foiled the ability of Darvish to focus and spot his pitches. Pitchers need to remain calm after giving up runs, especially in an atmosphere where emotions run high and the crowd waits with baited breath for you to make a mistake. Yu watched the home run trot, he watched the gleeful look on the faces of the Houston Astros as they leapt up and down in their home orange and white uniforms. He watched, and he did something that pitchers are never supposed to do, he lost his confidence.
Confidence as a pitcher is key to performance. A pitcher must function separate from the emotional rollercoaster that is a World Series game as seen from the pitcher’s mound. This is the baggage that follows around Yu Darvish from team to team, the inevitable breakdown that transforms a regular season Cy Young candidate into a playoffs nightmare who gives up runs like he’s been paid off by Pete Rose.
After coming back from being down 3 games to 2, the Dodgers managed to force a Game 7, only after Rich Hill pitched a 1 run gem to put the Dodgers in the driver’s seat. The deciding game was to be played in Dodgers Stadium and momentum, at least for the moment, was on their side. Yet once again, it was Yu Darvish who would step to the mound in an effort to bring a World Series Championship back to Los Angeles for the first time in 30 years.
Yu Darvish made 38 pitches in game 7 of the World Series. He left the mound with 2 outs, down by 5 runs to walk to the dugout where he would watch Brandon Morrow strike out the remaining hitter to close out the second inning. The final pitch thrown by Yu Darvish in the World Series was a 4-seam fastball on a full count to George Springer who summarily relocated it over the center field wall. It did not end well for the Dodgers that night, and the legend of Yu Darvish’s playoff curse followed him into free agency, where he would wait until the close of the off-season before following Brandon Morrow to the north side of Chicago, and a Cubs team with great expectations.
Looking at the statistics for Darvish as a regular season starter, you would have to think the Cubs would be crazy not to sign him. However, looking at the statistics for Darvish after October 1st, and you might think that the Cubs are insane to bring all that baggage into the clubhouse. For anyone who has watched a Cubs game this season, it is painfully evident that the offense has been struggling — and sometimes downright nonexistent. On a team, full of young players who are adjusting to a league of pitchers playing catch up, Theo Epstein built a starting rotation with an elite and devastating combination of 4 Cy Young contenders and Tyler Chatwood.
The performance of the starting pitching would set the tone and tenure of whether the Cubs could duplicate that 2016 magic or find themselves outside of the NLCS for the first time since the “Ice Bucket Challenge” was a thing. Joe Maddon goes out of his way to baby the pitch counts of the starters in an effort not to over tax them and keep them fresh for a late season playoff run. However, this has unintended consequences; whereas a suddenly overworked Cubs bullpen begins giving up too many runs to the opposition. The Cubs are on pace to have as many as 4 ninety inning relievers this year. In fact, unless the Cubs call up every pitcher in the minor leagues for the bullpen when the rosters expand, this turnover will be unsustainable late into the season.
Of the starting pitchers this season, the only one with an elite WHIP is Kyle Hendricks at 1.06. Second place goes to the old veteran of the rotation John Lester who stands at 1.21 WHIP. The remaining 3 starters all have a WHIP over 1.4, including Tyler Chatwood at the bottom of the list with a dreadful 1.73 WHIP. While the Cubs as a team rank 3rd in ERA at 3.29, they’re downright mediocre when it comes to quality starts and sit at 14th in the MLB with 28 for the season. Quality Starts are essential to winning ballgames when an offense isn’t performing. And depending on which Cubs team shows up to the ballpark that day, this could be a very real problem.
The pitching isn’t bad, but the elite numbers that were expected just aren’t there from the starting rotation. And then the DL stints started for Darvish.
First it was the flu that took Yu off the mound, then it was the most recent scare from tricep soreness. He’s dead last on the team with a negative WAR at -0.3, and he has given up more earned runs than John Lester while pitching nearly 20 fewer innings. The top tier regular season pitcher cannot seem to find the handle on the elite control and precision that made Yu Darvish the most sought after free agent of the entire offseason.
The inability for the Cubs rotation to remain elite puts pressure on the bullpen, which in turn puts pressure on an offense that cannot consistently perform, which in turn demands more from defense, and ends where this house of cards started, with the starting rotations ability to offer elite performance.
Patience is Joe Maddon’s forte. He is patient. He was hired to be patient with the young players. And as long as he is coaching in blue pinstripes he can thump his ring against the podium to remind the doubters of what exactly he has accomplished as skipper while in Chicago. Patience might just be what the doctor ordered for Yu Darvish. Slowly integrating him into the Maddon way, relieving a career of high pressure situations and diffusing the mental stress that has kept Darvish from reaching his postseason potential is seemingly what Joe Maddon was born to do. But it can be a double-edged sword, and patience with players who do not have the skill or inclination can damage momentum and stifle team success.
Tyler Chatwood is a perfect example of how patience is hurting the Cubs. Because of the patience of Joe Maddon with Yu Darvish, the seeming inability for Chatwood to hit the broad side of a barn is not only excused as part of a process of maturing, but allowed to continue through walks and unearned runs alike. Tyler Chatwood has 45 walks for the season. That is 16 walks higher than #2 on that list. He also has the fewest strikeouts of any starter, 2 less than Darvish but with 3 more games played on the season. He looks like a disaster when he’s feeding the opposition free baserunners on a regular basis, and I’m counting down the days until Mike Montgomery can be announced as our 5th starter and we package Chatwood into a trade at the deadline.
Pitchers who don’t have confidence fail to perform up to their potential, and they usually begin to fall apart under the stress of putting on baserunners. As a pitcher, one cannot be a perfectionist in performance, only in control of the emotions that derail that performance.
Nolan Ryan was arguably the greatest pitcher of his generation. According to the movie “Fastball” on Netflix, he threw 108mph in his prime, which was the fastest anyone has ever been recorded throwing a baseball. He always said that the best pitch in baseball was a low fastball at the knees. This simple rule to live by makes or breaks the careers of aspiring pitchers the world over. Can you locate your pitch, can you hit your spots, can you quiet your thoughts and put the ball into the catcher’s mitt?
The yips that plague pitchers do not originate in the muscles. They do not affect the tendons, nor do they exist within the leather of the ball or glove. The most important aspect of a pitcher’s success or failure comes from the six inches between his ears. The calm cool and collected patience of a manager, pitching coach, or GM can only do so much to benefit a pitcher’s potential. But at the end of the day, it is up to the pitcher to muster up the confidence, the focus, and the temperament to deliver the ball into play.
The calendar just rolled over to June, and just like that were already a third into the 2018 season. Yu Darvish is only 1 of a 5-man rotation that will decide the fate of the Cubs 2018 postseason hopes. But how he adjusts, how he carries himself as he steps onto the mound, has a far-reaching impact for not only other starters, but the bullpen, the defense, and the morale in the locker room. When a team is built on a starting rotation with the potential for elite performance, they set the fortunes of 20 men upon the shoulders of the 5 who are paid to grind away for over 200 innings a season in the hot sun of Chicago, or the bright lights in one of dozens of cities across a continent.
Yu Darvish embodies everything the Cubs were before 2016, the unrealized potential, the flashes of greatness, the absolute inability to get out of his own way mentally. He is everything that can go wrong in a game, and everything that can go so right at the same time. He is either the missing piece, or a catastrophic waste of a contract. Chicago Cubs fans are one of the few fanbases who have not known the pressure of a World Series window, or the crushing blow it is to miss out on another ring due to a starting pitcher who can’t get his head screwed on straight.
The Cubs have never had a more elite starting rotation with the ability and potential than that of the 2018 version (Tyler Chatwood notwithstanding). If the Chicago sports media calls him out for not having grit, Darvish sees it, and worse, he internalizes it. If the offense lays an egg and It’s up to Darvish to go the distance and he gives up the losing run, he internalizes it. If he makes a bad pitch in a high-pressure situation in the playoffs and is raked over the coals by the crowd, he internalizes it.
Yu Darvish is a head case with enough potential to win a Cy Young, MVP, and World Series all in the same season. The question is will Maddon’s approach of patience and stress reduction reach Darvish in time while the championship window remains fully open?
There is only one person who can answer that question, and he’s wearing a Chicago Cubs uniform with the number 11 on it.
I hope the answer is a good one.
Big Ben Martin has been a Cubs fan since he was 3 years old, watching Cubs games on WGN in Kansas City after cartoons were over. Since moving to Texas, his Cubs love has grown to heights that make Texans blush. Self appointed Cubs historian and amateur baseball coach. When not playing the role of loving husband or father of three, he might be found screaming at the TV screen as though the umps can hear him, or as his alter ego Big Cynical Ben @bigbenkc on Twitter.
