Chicago Cubs: Remember these players from the past decade

Chicago Cubs: Rowan Wick in 2019

What more can we say about the Chicago Cubs’ 2019 season that hasn’t already been said? The team was a big disappointment, finishing 84-78 and missing the playoffs for the first time in five years. 2019 saw the end of manager Joe Maddon’s tenure with the Cubs, and the team brought in David Ross to try to help turn things around in 2020.

I had to look to the bullpen again to find an under the radar performer for 2019, and there were two obvious candidates. One was Kyle Ryan, a Detroit Tigers castoff who didn’t even pitch in 2018 and helped to solidify the bullpen from the left side, posting a 3.54 ERA in 61 innings pitched. Ryan will almost certainly be counted on to be a key piece to the bullpen in 2020.

However, I decided to go with Rowan Wick, another arm the Cubs will be relying on to start the 2020 season. In 2019, Wick got into 31 games, pitching 33 1/3 innings and allowing just nine earned runs. Wick’s only previous big league experience came in a short and unimpressive stint with the San Diego Padres in 2018. The right-hander may have been overshadowed by the bigger names such as Brandon Kintzler and Steve Cishek, along with the struggles of closer Craig Kimbrel.

It seemed appropriate to write a column like this now, as the Chicago Cubs have been going bargain hunting in their additions to the team so far this offseason. With supposedly little money to spend, they are trying to find those under-the-radar types that they hope will find something and be solid contributors in 2020. Will any of these moves work? That remains to be seen. Yet what we can take from this article is that there are some underappreciated players that the Cubs have had this past decade. They are out there to be found.