On a new team, Cubs left-hander Drew Smyly might not have been so bold about making adjustments in spring training.
“And honestly, some of those tweaks I might not have even known about,” Smyly told the Sun-Times. “The team might not have even told me, or they might not have known.”
Back with the Cubs, Smyly’s taking advantage of the kind of stability that’s been missing for years in his journeyman career.
Smyly’s start Friday, as he limited the Twins to two runs in six innings, extended his strong beginning of the season and put the Cubs in position to beat the Twins 6-2. Since his first bumpy start in Cincinnati (when he gave up six earned runs in 42/3 innings), he’s posted a 2.04 ERA.
“I preach it to younger guys, it’s what I’ve tried to do my whole career is just being consistent,” Smyly said. “It’s way easier said than done. It’s such a hard, grueling, demanding league. Playing so many games, you’re going to have ups and downs, you’re going to have bad games. But I just want to be as consistent as I can.”
Now that he has the consistency of a multi-year contract with the Cubs and consecutive years working with their pitching coaches, does he think he can reach another level of performance?
“I hope so,” he said.
A reunion between Smyly and the Cubs wasn’t guaranteed heading into the offseason.
He’d spoken highly of Cubs, whom he’d also been with in 2018 while he rehabbed from Tommy John surgery. And the team had reciprocated. But after Smyly declined his mutual 2023 contract option, as expected, almost two months passed before he inked a two-year, $19 million deal to stay in Chicago.
“It’s been great,” Smyly said of working with pitching coach Tommy Hottovy and his staff again. “I love Tommy. You’re not starting from square one, you just pick back up to where we were last year. They know me very well, I know them very well. So it’s just an open line of communication. They know what I need, what makes me tick.”
Twice this spring training, the Cubs flagged slippage in his throwing motion, comparing his arm position to the best version of himself last year. They had the precise data to identify the difference and the relationship to bring it to him.
“That’s one of the big things I love about the Cubs,” Smyly said, “is they’re not pushy on anything, but they’re so on top of it, to make sure you’re not slipping down the wrong road.”
The Cubs also had Smyly’s trust, which was necessary to make an adjustment that would disrupt his normal compete-mode focus in the last couple weeks of the spring.
“It’s the way he can simplify it,” Smyly said of Hottovy, “the way he can find a couple of little details – that’s not reinventing how I throw a baseball, but it’s little notes or little exercises that he can bring to me that just re-engage my mechanics.”
Smyly has played for five different teams in the past five seasons. The last team he spent multiple seasons with was Tampa Bay (2014-2016). Still, Smyly entered Friday with a career 4.06 ERA, even while battling injuries over the years.
“It’s so refreshing to have a veteran guy who can go out there and be like, ‘This is who I am, this is what I’m going to do,” Hottovy said. “... And when you simplify things to that extent, you can see so much more. You can read hitters’ swings, you can read the reaction of how the game flow is going and things like that.”
Smyly showed just that against the Twins on Friday. He stuck to an iteration of his usual script, leaning on his curveball and mixing in his sinker. He held the Twins to four hits.
It wasn’t flashy. It was consistent.