Watch Steve Cishek pitch, and his delivery stands out. He throws out of a true sidearmed slot, a flattened Chris Sale Condor M that results in the same gross still images of his elbow, and some insane break on his pitches, albeit in shorter bursts.
Steve Cishek, 79mph Slider and 90mph Sinker, Overlay. pic.twitter.com/e4ftEfXOnN
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) April 12, 2019
When looking at Cishek's Baseball-Reference.com page, his appearances column stands out. Joe Maddon worked Cishek hard over the last two seasons:
- 2015: 59
- 2016: 62
- 2017: 49
- 2018: 80
- 2019: 70
And lest you think he had a Mike Myers or Randy Choate thing going on, his ability to retire both righties and lefties resulted in a real reliever's workload of 134 innings.
After word broke that the White Sox signed Cishek to a one-year, $6 million deal, Matt Spiegel mentioned the hevay usage in his immediate reaction.
So I ran it by my friend Randy, a Cubs fan. He said something similar:
"Cishek takes the ball but really shouldn't sometimes. His numbers say he's generally effective but it never really feels that way. There are times where he can't get his pitches to slide in the zone and that's awful to watch. He's worth what they signed him for. If he's your fourth-best reliever, that's not bad."
Some of that may be recency bias speaking, but also I'm guessing Cishek stands as emblematic of the team's fortunes. Neither he nor the Cubs could rediscover their best forms at the ends of the last two seasons. Over his two Septembers with the Cubs, Cishek's line shows more free bases (14 walks, four HBPs) than strikeouts (16). His ground-ball rate started far better than it finished during the course of both seasons, and he also had spells of missing the zone in both second halves.
This past September was particularly ghastly. He lost a game against the Padres in humiliating fashion on Sept. 10, giving up a one-out single, followed by three consecutive walks to lose the game. Over that game and his final six outings, he issued eight walks to just one strikeout, and he threw just half of his pitches for strikes.
Cishek did hit the injured list with hip inflammation in August, and while that particular injury might have had nothing to do with his September, it fits in with a game log that shows the Cubs pushing him past his limits. Coming out of the All-Star break, Cishek pitched in eight of the Cubs' first 12 games of the second half, and 10 of the first 16 before he started seeing diminishing returns. The IL trip soon followed.
When Cishek returned, Maddon used him seven times over the first 12 days back -- most of them full-inning deals -- and Cishek eventually hit the wall in that Padres game, never to recover.
Going through the Bill James Handbook 2020, look at where Cishek finished on the leaderboard for pitching on consecutive days:
| Rank | Pitcher | Cons Days | G | IP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alex Claudio | 26 | 83 | 62 |
| 2 | Wander Suero | 25 | 78 | 71.1 |
| 3 | Andrew Miller | 24 | 73 | 54.2 |
| Emilio Pagan | 24 | 66 | 70 | |
| 5 | Steve Cishek | 23 | 70 | 64 |
There's a chance that Cishek could be shot, but he should get a break as he moves from the North Side to the South Side. When it comes to managers, Maddon has been far more aggressive in using relievers on consecutive days in comparison to Rick Renteria. The Bill James Handbook says Renteria has averaged just 99 RCD cases a season with the White Sox, while Maddon has exceeded 100 RCD cases in 12 of his last 13 seasons, including a four-year stretch in Tampa where he averaged 127.5.
Now, perhaps Renteria will manage a bullpen differently now that he'll be graded on wins and losses for the first time in his managerial career. As long as we've known him, he hasn't been one to run a reliever into the ground, with Aaron Bummer's June about as close as he got.
The key is to make sure that Cishek is not Renteria's not the only trustworthy righty for extended stretches in front of Alex Colomé. That's not a given, because in the Venn diagram between recent success (Evan Marshall, Jimmy Cordero) and distinguished track records (Kelvin Herrera), Cishek stands alone. As long as he's not by himself come July, he should be fine.
