You know how sometimes you’ll look a player, mainly a pitcher or when an infielder zips a ball across the diamond, you’ll say how it effortless it looks? Well, that’s not really the case with Nick Madrigal throwing a ball over to first from third base.
And you know what, it may not ultimately matter how it looks as long as Madrigal continues to make the plays on defense. However, I can’t help but think that Madrigal is going to end up getting injured because it looks like he’s using every single ounce of energy in his body to make a routine throw over from third base.
To his credit, Madrigal has looked smooth in his early starts at third in spring training, but I don’t think that was ever really a concern. We know Madrigal can field, he’s had a stellar defensive reputation going back to his college days, winning a gold glove at Oregon State and in 2019, Madrigal won a gold glove when he was still in the White Sox minor league system. The worry for Cubs fans is how is the arm going to hold up.
During Tuesday’s Cubs game against the Milwaukee Brewers, Madrigal leadoff and started at third base. In the fifth inning, Madrigal made a nice play, fielding a grounder on a tough short hop by the third-base bag. So, in the highlight you can’t really tell how difficult the short hop was, but you do immediately notice Madrigal taking a few steps to his left and then seemingly putting all his strength behind the throw.
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And hey! It was a great throw, but holy shit is that what he’s going to have to do every time because if so he’s going to be spending some extra time in the trainer’s room, icing down his arm as if he just finished throwing 120 pitches on the mound.
Seriously, I just hope Madrigal doesn’t get injured after one of these throws. And if he has to put so much effort into throws that he’s making in front of the third-base bag, then how’s it going to look when he’s forced to field a ball deep behind third base? He is a good fielder, so I’m sure Madrigal will try to come in to field a ball as much as he can, but I continue to be skeptical when it comes to the long-term fit there for him.
From 2020-22, Madrigal averaged 79.4mph on his throws while playing second base with the White Sox and Cubs, which was slightly below the league average for second basemen. Meanwhile, the average throw from a third baseman in the past three seasons according to Baseball Savant has been 85.1mph.
Oh and let’s not forget that the bat has to come back to life for Madrigal, too. And actually this is an area that I will admit being too critical of during his first year with the Cubs. I guess it’s because his groin injury and subsequent surgery happened when he was still with the White Sox in 2021, so it wasn’t top of mind, but that was a major surgery for Madrigal to come back from and he wasn’t truly 100 percent healthy to begin the 2022 season. Madrigal had three injury stints last year and did have a good stretch in the summer, so I’m not ruling out that he can be the .300 hitter he was on the south side of Chicago.
But the throws, I’m sorry, I can’t get over those just yet!
I think that he was steadying himself for the throw. The more he plays the position, the better he will get.