METHOD FACTOR
WITH BORZELLO’S GAME PLANS, DARVISH COULD REACH NEW HEIGHTS
CUBS
MESA, Ariz. — Ask one Cubs official, and he might tell you that Yu Darvish throws five pitches. Ask another, and he might say six.
One Rangers official said it’s seven.
“It’s 11 technically,” said Cubs catcher Chris Gimenez, a former teammate in Texas, where he was Darvish’s personal catcher for a two- month stretch. Eleven. Funny. Except Gimenez didn’t laugh. “Six of the 11 are different fastballs that he throws,” Gimenez said. “When I first started catching him, his interpreter at the time came up to me and said, ‘ This is what he throws: this, this, this, this and this.’
“I literally looked at his interpreter, and I was like, ‘ Man, I only got five fingers.’ ”
What’s important to the Cubs is that under coach Mike Borzello, they have a scouting system and strategy for pitching that might make Darvish the ideal fit because of his unusually large array of above- average pitches. And that might make him the Cy Young pitcher he has never quite become in six years since leaving Japan.
That was the vision when the Cubs signed Darvish to a six- year, $ 126 million deal last month.
“For Borzello, man, he’s just salivating,” Cubs pitcher Kyle Hendricks said.
Borzello, who was brought into the organization by former manager Dale Sveum in 2012, has continued to develop his hyper- detailed and tailored system for attacking hitters with the help of advance scouting coordinator Tommy Hottovy, the former big- league pitcher who originally laid out the plan for Darvish in a December meeting.
“Some of the stuff I’ve never seen before,” Darvish said through his interpreter. “I hope to utilize everything here to better my results.”
The keys are those five or seven or 11 pitches and his apparent willingness to buy in, which often is easier than it sounds.
“When you have [ a pitcher with] five weapons and you’re able to use those in specific areas and sequences in the way you want to, yeah, that’s a dream,” Borzello said. “I mean, you don’t see that. You just don’t see a five- pitch- mix guy where across the board it’s all plus.”
Jake Arrieta was as close to that as Borzello has worked with, he said. Arrieta won the 2015 National League Cy Young Award.
Darvish is 31. He’s a four- time All- Star. He has pitched for the Rangers and briefly last year for the Dodgers. He missed one full season and half of another because of Tommy John surgery.
And yet, as he enters his second full season since the surgery, some believe his career could be on the verge of a rebirth.
“The second half of his career could be the best,” said Rangers assistant general manager Josh Boyd, a key in the pursuit of Darvish as a Rangers scouting executive when the pitcher was posted as a free agent in Japan.
Boyd — who still talks in awe about Darvish’s natural ability to “manipulate the baseball” — suggested the Tommy John rehab was also a maturation process. He also believes Darvish has built a deep comfort level in the majors after six years in the United States.
“I think the more he gets to that point where the delivery is where it’s totally capable of being, the command improves,” Boyd said. “If the command improves a half- grade or a full grade, with the elite level of stuff he has, does that manifest itself in consistency? That’s where I believe you see the upside.”
And that’s not counting the Borzello- Hottovy system.
“I don’t want to blanket- statement it with he’ll be better because he has all this information that we’re giving him,” said Borzello, who only began engaging Darvish with the system in the last week after observing him for more than a month.
“If anyone could be, it would be him. Because he can do everything we want to do. Everything we have on a sheet doesn’t apply to everyone. So you have Kyle Hendricks looking at our reports. Well, the slider stuff is thrown out the window [ because Hendricks doesn’t throw a slider]. Well, it’s not with Yu Darvish.
“There’s not one thing that he doesn’t possess. Most guys have to take what applies to them out of that box of information on a hitter. All of it applies to him. That’s why it’s a dream.”
The system starts with every data point the Cubs can gather on a given hitter. Then a chart is created on how to get the hitter out based on count, game situation, previous at- bats, recent trends and pitch- specific tendencies.
Darvish effectively throws every basic pitch ( fastball, cutter, slider, changeup, curveball), plus a harder curveball and variations of fastballs.
For Borzello, the trick isn’t how to make all those pitches fit his reports. It’s making his pitcher trust that his “best” pitch isn’t always his best pitch in a given count or situation.
“To this specific hitter, what you perceive to be your worst pitch now becomes maybe your secondbest pitch,” Borzello said. “That’s the stuff that I try to make guys understand.”
Darvish said he appreciated that his first meeting this spring with Borzello, Hottovy and pitching coach Jim Hickey felt more like a soft sell than orders. He also said he expects to throw what Borzello recommends.
“In some situations, if you’re told to throw that certain pitch, it’s hard to take that pill and swallow [ it],” the right- hander said. “But they have a great database there, so in that sense, it’s something that I’ve got to go with.”
If the Cubs are right, that might start solving some of the up- anddown tendencies of his career, which includes a 24- 9 record and 2.89 ERA in 42 career starts in April and May, and a 32- 33 mark with a 3.67 ERA in 89 starts the rest of the season.
Darvish suggested that has been caused by hitters seeing more of him as the season wears on, but he said he isn’t sure.
Borzello wondered if he might sometimes get “lost in his stuff a little” but is reluctant to speculate.
What’s certain is that the Cubs are indeed salivating over the possibilities.
“He’s got as deep an arsenal as any power pitcher in the game,” team president Theo Epstein said. “We think he can get even better.” Follow me on Twitter @ GDubCub.