Mark Texiera remarked that there are two kinds of major league pitchers. Those who have the "stuff" and those who are "location" pitchers.
Location pitchers need to hit their corners in order to be successful. A tight umpire strike zone turns an ace location (or control) pitcher like Jame Shields into an ordinary pitcher.
A pitcher with "stuff" does not need a wide zone to be successful. A pitcher will throw anything anywhere because it moves and breaks so fast that a batter has no time to adjust. Madison Bumgarner of the Giants is one of those pitchers who can throw any of his pitches by a batter.
This also brings into the discussion the dichotomy of the regular season and post season. Teams may want to have a staff with a 20 game winner like Clayton Kershaw or Adam Wainwright. But in the post season, they have not been as effective. Kershaw got lit up in the NLDS (some point to bad managing by Mattingly as a cause) and Wainwright may have had a tender elbow. But pitchers like Bumgarner thrive on the post season, much like a gritty grinder Jack Morris did during his career. You probably can't tell what kind of playoff arm you have until you get to the post season.
Control pitchers are the type who will keep their team in the game. A pitcher with stuff dominates his opponent for 8 plus innings like Chris Sale. Every team needs a "shut down" starter to avoid long losing streaks during the season. It is very rare to find a shut down pitcher on the open market.
The Cubs current starters are location pitchers not power pitchers. Arrieta, Hendricks, Wood and Jackson are all control pitchers without a dominant out pitch.
The majority of Cub fans believe that the team is going out and going to spend large on free agent pitching this off-season. As I indicated in previous posts, I don't think that will be the case. The Cubs are not ready to spend on pitching when the hitting is still so raw and immature. Trying to sign a Russell Martin to solidify the offense is also not going to happen because he is going to get multiple $16 million/year offers from contending teams.
With so much cash going to be needed to rush construction on Wrigley Field (currently, the bleachers have been demolished), I don't see ownership wanting to "risk" overspending on pitching if the prospect rebuild program fails. No matter the initial good impressions of Alcantara, Baez and Soler, they still have not put together an respectable, full, major league season. All three did taper off production by the end of the year. The core group of fielders may take another two years to sort out. And that is probably the business time table to loosen the purse strings on the baseball budget.
