Pair of Left-Handers Head to the Northside
The Chicago Cubs bolstered their bullpen prior to the Trade Deadline with the acquisition of Arizona Diamondbacks left-handed reliever Andrew Chafin. First with the news was Joel Sherman of the New York Post on Twitter.
Hear the Chafin to the #Cubs is finalized. #Diamondbacks
— Joel Sherman (@Joelsherman1) August 31, 2020
Chafin is currently on the 10-Day Injured List with a left ring-finger sprain. As such, the return for him wasn’t significant. First with that angle of the story was Jon Heyman of MLB Network.
Dbacks are paying Chafin down to the minimum. They are hoping he can return in a couple weeks. If he can, Dbacks would get low level prospect
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 31, 2020
As Heyman states, if Chafin can return to action before the end of the season, then the Diamondbacks would receive a prospect in return. Given that there are 25 games remaining in the regular season, theres a good chance that will happen.
More on Andrew Chafin
Prior the Trade Deadline, a primary goal of the Cubs was to add a left-handed reliever. With the addition of Chafin, the Cubs are adding an arm to their bullpen corp that comes with some risk. So far this season, Chafin has pitched to the tune of a 8.10 ERA over six and two-thirds innings with 10 strikeouts.
In that span, he has held opposing batters to a .310 batting average but did have the highest strikeouts-per-9 rate of his career (11.62). Additionally, another important consideration for teams this Trade Deadline was evaluating how effective a reliever was against lefties and righties with the new three-batter minimum rule.
To date, Chafin has held left-handed hitters to a .294 batting average. Right-handed hitters have a .333 batting average against him with five strikeouts. If you rewind to the 2019 season, the numbers are much more promising especially against lefties. Last season, Chafin had a 2.87 ERA against lefties with 39 strikeouts. Against righties, that ERA was nearly double at 5.06.
Cubs Add Josh Osich
Andrew Chafin wasn’t the only left-hander that the Cubs added to their bullpen on Monday. The team also came to an agreement with the Boston Red Sox involving lefty Josh Osich. Jon Heyman was the first to report this news as well.
Cubs get Osich for PTBNL from Red Sox
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) August 31, 2020
Osich is another risky acquisition for the Cubs. So far this season, Osich has a 5.74 ERA over 13 appearances or 15 and two-thirds innings. Over that sample, the 31-year old lefty has held batters to a .250 batting average and has 20 strikeouts. In addition, he is averaging the fewest pitchers-per-inning of his six-year big league career (15.56).
Final Thoughts
Entering play on Monday, the Cubs bullpen had combined for a 5.42 ERA. That put them with the fifth-highest ERA in all of baseball. The additions of Andrew Chafin and Josh Osich will address that to some degree, but only time will tell how effective both end up being.
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