Chicago Cubs look to replace Brian Duensing in the bullpen

Chicago Cubs: Randy Rosario

The Cubs could also slide in Randy Rosario into that role with Duensing gone. Rosario had a solid season in his first with the team, but in most cases seemed to be pitching above his pay grade. While he posted a 3.66 ERA, he appeared to be beating the metrics. Rosario had a strong DP% of 17 percent, even while allowing a line drive rate of 26 percent, per Baseball Reference.

His walk rate of 4.2 compared to his K/9 of 5.8 left him with just a SO/BB of 1.36. But when you’re getting a lot of double plays and keeping the ball in the park? You can stay ahead of the hitters. One of the other places that Rosario excelled was first-pitch strikes. He threw a strike on 58.5 percent of at-bats. That led to him allowing just four hits when being up 0-2.

This spring, it seems the metrics might be catching up to Rosario. In 8 1/3 innings, Rosario has allowed eight runs (seven earned), with a WHIP of 1.680. He’s striking more hitters out with a 9.7 K/9 but has only faced an opponent quality of 6.8 this spring (Double-A). To the untrained eye, Rosario seemed to get away with a lot last season, but the numbers were solid.

But Rosario, while placed in some high-leverage situation, wasn’t the first lefty called upon out of the bullpen. Could Joe Maddon be able to trust Rosario in that position?