The Chicago Cubs have signed 33-year-old Japanese pitcher Tsuyoshi Wada to a one-year, $4 million deal with $2 million in potential incentives. Rumors have the Cubs actively pursuing a top grade pitching costless agent this off-season to bolster the rotation, likely Jon Lester who has a good relation with Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstien, so Wada’s spot in the rotation is not secured. Wada will have to battle for a rotation spot with Jake Arrieta, Kyle Hendricks, Travis Woods heavily entrenched in the rotation and the threat of a signing that only leaves 1 spot open for Wada, Edwin Jackson, Felix Doubront, and Jacob Turner.
Tsuyoshi doesn’t have a very deep history in the MLB only pitching for 3 years in the United States. He only pitched 38 games in the minors combined from 2012-2014 before getting the call up and making quite the splash for the Cubs starting 13 games for the team and ending the season with a 4-4 record and a K/BB of 3.00. His 7.40 K/9 was a little before league average but still solid, more so considering his 2.47 was better than the league average 2.89. Overall when it came down to it Wada had a surprising good rookie year in the states.
Now we look at some of the warning signs for Wada, mainly that ERA and FIP issue. Wada had a strong ERA in 2014 at 3.25, which put him at roughly 13% better than the league average, but it’s the FIP and xFIP that concern me. The 3.75 FIP means that he was getting a little lucky for what he was doing but safely puts him into the league average when it comes to FIP. The gap between the two is a concern so regression would be expected in 2015.
The real concern is xFIP, xFIP takes more factors into account and weighs things like homeruns and field heavier than FIP does. A good FIP should be roughly equal to his the xFIP and vise versa but Wada’s FIP and xFIP has a 20 point difference and considering we just stated that Wada had a league average FIP he’s also 20 points higher than the league. All this is coming down to is Wada didn’t just get lucky he got really lucky and some major regression may be on the way and especially when he pitches in places where homeruns are easier to hit, like in Chicago. This isn’t a terrible signing for a team like the Cubs who have some favorable options behind Wada but this could also end badly if the numbers start averaging, as they should.
