Today, the Chicago Cubs snagged reliever Trey Wingenter off of waivers from the Boston Red Sox, and subsequently optioned him to Iowa. One of the benefits of having an open 40-man spot following the Trade Deadline is tha𓆏t you might be able to pick up a quality player that got squeezed off a roster as trade acquisitions came in.
Wingenter certainly fits the bill, a 6’7″ 30-year-old righty who throws in the upper-90s with a nasty slider. He’s exactly the kind of guy you take a no-risk chance on, as he’s already shown an ability to miss big league bats (31.9% K rate in the bigs), and has some compelling pitch characteristics.
Of course, in any pick up like this, there will be some kind of obvious wart that made the player available on waivers in the first place. In Wingenter’s case, it’s that, despite having some good pitch characteristics and a huge strikeout rate … he’s never actually had success preventing runs in the big leagues (5.84 ERA over 89.1 career innings). Dude gets the strikeouts, but when he doesn’t, he’s been hit. Simple as that.
What’s interesting is that he hasn’t gotten blown up in the ways you might expect – the 12.3% walk rate is not good, but is waaay more than offset by the big strikeout rate; the 1.11 HR/9 isn’t great but it’s not bad enough to explain his results; ditto the 8.2% barrel rate; ditto the 40.4% hard contact rate. I’m not sure this is really a “5.84 ERA” guy, and I expect that was a major factor in the Cubs wanting to get a look at him. We see this type of pitcher break out from time to time when he finally lands in the right organization. Guys who already have the ability to strike out big league bats at an over-30% clip are rarely available for free.
I’m certainly intrigued, and even though he’s a 30-year-old with big league experience, the fact that Wingenter can be optioned up and down almost makes him more like the other Triple-A/MLB borderline prospects the Cubs are going to be working with in relief (i.e., the Jack Neely, Daniel Palencia, Ethan Roberts, Caleb Kilian, etc. tier of arms – you can also include Porter Hodge and Nate Pearson in your mind, though they are unlikely to be moved around much right now). The Cubs might work with him a bit at Iowa, and then at some point bring him up to give a look at whatever tweaks they’ve worked with him on. Then, you can make a decision on whether to tender him a contract in arbitration in November.
(As an aside: it’s no surprise that the Cubs would be interested in an upside arm that had previously interested the Red Sox, seeing as the Cubs’ recently-departed VP of Pitching Craig Breslow now runs the Red Sox.)
