A more productive offseason and better depth give the Chicago Cubs pitching staff a leg up as spring training begins

MESA, Ariz. — One year ago, Chicago Cubs pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and rest of the staff had limited knowledge of how their pitchers’ offseasons were progressing.

Major League Baseball’s lockout cut off communication between teams and players for 99 days last offseason. The communication and remote work between Hottovy, the coaching staff and Cubs pitchers has been significantly different in the buildup to Wednesday’s first official workout for pitchers and catchers.

Ample videos and Zoom calls have allowed the sides to work on things well in advance of camp. Notably, right-hander Jameson Taillon and the Cubs were able to change his slider grip through a FaceTime call to show and discuss the new grip, after which he threw it in bullpens and sent the team videos of his progress.

The grip adjustment gives Taillon a sweeping slider instead of the harder gyro movement he had been harnessing, with the hope the adjusted pitch becomes more of a weapon against right-handed hitters.

“You feel like you’re months ahead for things like that, so that part is significantly (different),” Hottovy said Monday.

Because the Cubs aren’t playing catch-up in assessing where their pitchers are with their offseason throwing programs and development, the pitch data and videos they’ve received over the last couple of months create building blocks coming into camp.

This is the first normal preseason for the longest-tenured members of the coaching staff since manager David Ross was hired after the 2019 season.

“When you have a group of of players that are willing to communicate, coaches that are willing to communicate, we can do a lot of really good things,” Hottovy said. “So from a training perspective, we can get into live (batting practices) a little earlier and spread out that volume. … Now we know where guys are, so you can plan that a little bit better.”

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Hottovy isn’t expecting any pitchers to come to spring training behind schedule, aside from Kyle Hendricks, who continues to build up to mound work as he returns from last season’s capsular tear in his right shoulder. Hendricks is still on the long-toss segment of his throwing progression, though Hottovy noted the veteran is nearing his first bullpen.

“There’ll be some guys on a deliberate ramp-up for some reasons — obviously you want to make sure guys are ready for opening day,” Hottovy said. “We took a very proactive approach in the offseason programming, whether it’s the throwing program, the weight room, the conditioning stuff, all the corrective work from the training staff. So camp’s just starting, but I really feel like we’ve been having camp for like a month because of how much information we’ve been able to gather.”

The emergence of left-hander Justin Steele, the versatility of right-hander Keegan Thompson and the fact right-handers Adrian Sampson, Javier Assad, Hayden Wesneski and Caleb Kilian combined for 34 starts in 2022 give the Cubs plenty of options for the fifth rotation spot and injury insurance — without worrying about how quickly Hendricks can be game ready.

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“For a guy like Kyle, the importance of getting him back to being himself, whenever that time is, is way more important than making sure he can pitch five innings for us on opening day,” Hottovy said. “Because we realized we were chasing a little bit last year, just not quite getting him to the best version of himself and probably pushed through more than we really should have or needed to.

“When you don’t have that depth, sometimes you feel like you have to. But now with what the guys have shown last year, the depth we felt we’ve built with some of the (non-roster invitee) additions … the more people you have, that adds depth but also adds competition, which is great.”

The Cubs must evaluate over the next six weeks not only how they want to set up the pitching staff, but also whether a pitcher’s best fit is in the big leagues or as Triple-A depth.

There’s a group of pitchers the Cubs probably would want to stretch out if they’re not in the major-league rotation. Among that tier, Hottovy noted they likely want Sampson, Wesneski, Assad and Kilian to stay stretched out through spring training and into the season as potential rotation pieces. Ensuring multiple pitchers from big-league camp are built up at Iowa would give the Cubs a variety of in-season options whenever injuries or performance issues pop up.

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Thompson and Adbert Alzolay will build up on a starter’s workload during camp until the Cubs determine how they want to construct the staff. Thompson’s and Alzolay’s performances in relief last year show they could give Ross a pair of multi-inning options.

“They’re also guys that we know what they can do in the bullpen,” Hottovy said. “So there’s probably two groups there, but they’re very interchangeable as well. A lot of spring training will be getting them all stretched out, making sure their volume is up and then reevaluate where we are as we get closer to the end. Obviously we’ve got a long way to go.”