Searching for Brad Keller Part 5 – Kyle Wright

This is the fifth post in a series taking a closer look at the Cubs non-roster Spring Training invitees pitchers – with the hope that one of them might break out similarly to how Brad Keller did last season. Or at least provide some organizational depth to the bullpen

Here is a great Twitter thread from Brendan Miller going through all the pitchers in camp, including the non-roster invitees:
https://x.com/brendan_cubs/status/2021429115208016238?s=20

And Sahadev Sharma had a recent article that included more details about two of the players I’ve highlighted: Trent Thornton and Collin Snyder (along with Hunter Harvey) ($).

There were three former 20-game winners who were on the open market this off-season. Two were future potential hall-of-famers: Justin Verlander (who signed with the Tigers) and Max Scherzer (who is still available). The other is definitely not a future hall-of-famer, and he signed a minor-league deal with the Cubs.

Kyle Wright

Kyle Wright was the #5 overall pick in the 2017 MLB draft by the Atlanta Braves out of Vanderbilt, and was already in the majors by 2018, with a 4-game “cup of coffee” in Atlanta. He wasn;t quite ready, and spent most of 2019 bacj in AAA, although he did get 7 games in the majors with a 8.69 ERA.

2020 was another mediocre season, as the were no minor league games, and he had a 5.21 ERA over 8 starts in the majors. And in 2021 he spent almost the whole season at AAA, with 2 starts with the major league team.

In 2022 he broke out, with a 21-5 record, a 3.34 ERA, 1.16 WHIP and 3.7 WAR, finishing 10th in the CY Young voting. I recently did a “one-hit wonders” series profiling Cubs who had one great major league season. Wright would have been perfect for this if he played for the Cubs in 2022, as his 2nd highest WAR season was 0.2 and his other 4 seasons are a combined -1.4.

2023 was a disaster, with Wright posting a 6.97 ERA over 9 games (7 starts), and injured his shoulder. He had a few games in AAA, but required surgery in October, and was traded to the Kansas City Royals.

He missed the entire 2024 season recovering from surgery, and pitched with the Royals AA and AAA teams, only making 8 starts while battling an hamstring injury in spring training and shoulder fatigue through the season. After the season, he was waived by the Royals, and picked up as a free agent by the Cubs.

Here are a few articles about the signing:

• Bleed Cubbie Blue
• Heavy.com
• MLB Trade Rumors
• Cubbies Crib
• On Tap Sports Net

So what are the Cubs hoping for from Wright? Probably not much.

Looking back at what made him a high draft pick, here is his scouting report after he was drafted by the Braves: https://www.batterypower.com/2017/6/12/15788208/introducing-atlanta-braves-first-rounder-kyle-wright-scouting-report

The fact that he was considered as a potential #1 pick, and was the number two rated prospect by Baseball America headed into that draft is very impressive. The two pitchers taken above him, Hunter Green and MacKenzie Gore, have done pretty well for themselves.

While it took him some time to establish himself in the majors, Baseball Prospectus announced that he had “arrived” after 4 starts in the 2022 season: https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/79501/best-of-bp-kyle-wright-has-arrived/

Towards the end of the 2022 season, Fangraphs has a glowing article on Wright: https://blogs.fangraphs.com/kyle-wright-reaches-a-rare-milestone-in-his-breakout-season/

But even that positive article shined some light on the myth of the 20-game winner. When I was growing up, 20 wins was seen as the pinnacle of success for a starting pitcher, regardless of their other stats. In 1990, Bob Welch won 27 games and the Cy Young Award, despite a 2.95 ERA and a 2.9 WAR. His WAR was 23nd in the AL, and Roger Clemens posted an unreal 10.4 WAR that year. Even Dave Stewart, who was sometime criticized for winning 20-games while putting up only decent numbers, had a much better season than Welch – but only won 22 games that season.

To be fair, most of the Cy Young winners over the years also had the best or nearly the best WAR. But there were other example of starting pitchers since 1980 who probably did not deserve the award because of their number of wins. Here is a list of Cy Young Winners who did not finish in the top 5 among starting pitcher WAR in their league. Relievers are not included on this list, but some of the undeserving closers might be future fodder for a blog post.

American League:
1980: Steve Stone – 25-7 record, 15th in WAR
1982: Pete Vuckovich – 14-4 record (strike shortened season), 27th in WAR
1983: LaMarr Hoyt – 24-10 record, 19th in WAR
1990: Bob Welch – 27-6 Record, 23rd in WAR
1993: Jack McDowell – 22-10 record, 13th in WAR
2005: Bartolo Colon – 21-8 record, 10th in WAR
2016: Rick Porcello – 22-4 record, 9th in WAR
National League:
1984: *Rick Sutcliffe – 16-1 record, 9th in WAR
1990: Doug Drabek – 22-6 record, 9th in WAR
2004: Roger Clemens – 18-4, 7th in WAR
2005: Chris Carpenter – 21-5 record, 6th in WAR

*It pains me to include Sutcliffe, as he only pitched a partial season with the Cubs, so his WAR would have been higher for a full season with them. But he only had a -0.1 WAR with Cleveland before being traded. So his overall season WAR was lower than several other pitchers.

But value statistics started to finally catch up, and now a guy with a 10-10 record (but a 1.97 ERA) can win the award. Of course, Paul Skenes actually finished second to Christopher Sanchez in NL Pitcher WAR last season, so that stat obviously isn’t perfect. But it might have been used as a guide post to help award more deserving players.

OK, so back to Kyle Wirght…so while he did win 20 games, as the Baseball Prospectus article points out, he did not pitch a whole lot of innings. And he got lots of run support. So rather than thinking of him as an Ace, he really was more of a mid-rotation starter, even in his successful 2022.

And then the shoulder injury kicked in. Here is a 2003 article from ESPN about the injury: https://www.mlb.com/news/kyle-wright-to-have-shoulder-surgery-expected-to-miss-2024

There was a study done in 2011 to determine the impact of shoulder and elbow surgery on professional baseball players. While there were several interesting findings, this one stuck out to me regarding Wright:
“Return to the same or higher level was more likely with elbow surgery than with shoulder surgery.”

This article from KORT Physical Therapy echoes the sentiment:
“Compared to an elbow surgery, a shoulder injury that leads to surgery is more likely to derail a baseball career.“

So, if you see a pitcher land on the IL with an injury, it’s probably much better for them to need a elbow surgery or even reconstruction as opposed to having a serious shoulder injury. This makes some sense, as you can get a whole new ligament for your elbow if it tears. But you can’t get replacement parts for your shoulder.

Things in Kansas City did not go very well for Wright: https://kingsofkauffman.com/royals-finally-put-an-end-to-failed-pitching-experiment-with-former-lights-out-hurler-01k98e9hecgt

I think the best the Cubs and Wright can hope for is that he can somehow stay healthy and provide some pitching depth an Iowa. Getting back to the major leagues would be a minor miracle, and much more likely would be that Wright suffers another setback and decides to hang things up.

But he’s definitely someone I’ll be rooting for as the Cubs get started with spring training games, and maybe, just maybe, he can recapture some of the form that made him a high draft pick and 20-game winner..