While the Cubs position players have had a fantastic first half, returns have been less than great on the pitching front. With ~60% of the season in the books, Jon Lester leads the pitching staff with 1.0 fWAR. I’ll go into individual player recaps below, but one thing I’ve been wondering for a while is why there has been so little criticism of Cubs pitching coach Jim Hickey.
Chris Bosio was let go in part because of a sense that he had a tough time integrating new pitchers into the Cubs system (e.g. Justin Wilson). This year, new acquisition Tyler Chatwood has taken a giant step backward, and new-ish acquisition Jose Quintana has taken a regular step backwards from his 2017 Cubs half season numbers, especially when it comes to his walk rate.