4 Chicago Cubs who could sneak onto the 40-man roster by Opening Day

4 Chicago Cubs who could sneak onto the 40-man roster by Opening Day - Tyler Duffey

If you've missed it before, I've given a rundown on Tyler Duffey recently as an under-the-radar signing. Duffey is my pick to break camp with the big league roster out of all the right-handed relief options. Though the fastball velocity has been down a couple of ticks since 2019, he has still found ways to succeed in the MLB. Until 2022, that is, where he finally had a down year, recording a 4.91 ERA and slightly lower FIP of 4.79 in 44.0 innings.

Still, I expect Duffey's 36.84% fastball utilization rate to drop and focus more on getting movement on his breaking stuff. He still utilized a five-pitch mix in 2022, and really as a reliever, you can certainly get by with just three pitches if you can throw them effectively. We will see, come Spring Training, if Duffey is still throwing as many heaters or if he starts sprinkling in more changeups and sinkers, which combined were only used at an 18.75% clip but yielded the best results, allowing lines of .207/.207/.345 (sinker) and .111/.111/.111 (changeup), respectively.