Cubs Prospect Perspective: Tyler Suellentrop

Have you ever run through the information, all of the information available, and gotten it all garbled and wrong? And still stuck by your decision? Yeah, I thought you might have. Today’s article is about me doing that. Even though your “A leads to B leads to C” is based entirely on flawed logic or emotion, you hold to it. Because, sometimes, making a decision is, oddly, more important than making the correct and proper decision. Before your quizzical look gets any more puzzled, I should get to my perspective on Cubs prospect Tyler Suellentrop.

Tyler Suellentrop, right-handed pitcher

Born January 22, 1997, Plantation, Florida
Drafted by the Mariners (2018, 24th Round) from Indian River College (Ft. Pierce, Florida)
Signed by the Cubs in 2021 as a free agent

I’ve long known I should have a side in the English Premier League. After all, how can you partake in the most popular sport in the world if you son’t have a side in the top league in said sport. However, choosing a side in the Premier League was hard to manage. I wanted a side that was reasonably good, but not one of the two most popular. What it boiled to, was, I needed an acceptable way to make the decision. I was as far away as ever, until I decided how to go about my journey/selection It circled around The Kinks.

I spent my 18th birthday watching The Kinks in concert with The Romantics. The group from Muswell Hill, a region north of London (as my research would show) seemed the proper fit of cheerful, peppy and dysfunctionality. The brothers that led the group had squabbles throughout the years, but their music was normally about where I felt comfortable. Even when they veered a bit dark, with Muswell Hillbillies, the results were enjoyable.

I matched myself up with a map of England, and a map of Muswell Hill, and the rest was rather easy. Geographically, Muswell Hill was closest to Tottenham Hotspur. I’d heard of them, and I had a side. The Spurs lead piece, Harry Kane, is fantastic, and their team rarely wins the title. Fine and fine. The funny thing is, Ray Davies is a supporter of Arsenal, a bitter rival of Tottenham. However, the map doesn’t lie. Tottenham it is.

Now, back to today’s subject.

The Cubs pitching pipeline went through a metamorphosis in 2021. The players you knew from 2019, and looked forward to seeing in 2021? Many of them didn’t pitch at all, or barely pitched. Much of May and June was locating live arms to fill out rotations, both at the top and bottom of the totem. While Adrian Sampson, signed to Iowa, reached the show, Suellentrop was a less glitzy pickup.

The 2021 Myrtle Beach Pelicans were churning through pitchers like Rick Adelman churned through timeouts in the fourth quarter of Game Six of the NBA Finals in 1992. With somewhat similar results. Suellentrop’s first outing was... odd. Charged with no earned runs, he recorded two outs over 33 pitches. Initially, the runs were listed as earned, but they turned unearned shortly thereafter. He walked four, and four runs scored. If you were sorting Suellentrop on his first outing, his departure was imminent. It wasn’t imminent, and the Cubs stuck with him. Eventually, he earned a promotion to South Bend before, you guessed it, an injury ended his season.

His last three outings were longer form than for a traditional reliever. He made 63, 49, and 56 pitches before being shut down. What his future entails, and when he returns to the mound, is beyond my pay grade, but if the Cubs still believe in him, so do I. My logic might be flawed, but it is mine. Complete with a degree of dysfunction.