The way you hear some analysts and broadcasters and fans talk about Jhoulys Chacin, you’d think he had never pitched well in his life. What’s really happened, though, is that Chacin and his success were just forgotten by those who pay attention to Major League Baseball. He was a success story with the Rockies through 2013, posting a 126 ERA from his rookie season of 2009 through then. The injuries came in 2014, though, and Chacin’s descent into anonymity began.
Stop being surprised by Jhoulys Chacin
The Brewers picked Chacin up on the relative cheap, but the hope was always that he’d be exactly what he is right now.
Photo by Harry How/Getty Images
Chacin would make just 11 starts in 2014, and then appeared in just five games in 2015. When he fully returned to the mound in 2016, something just wasn’t working: he was getting more strikeouts than he used to, but at the same time, giving up far more hits. His command came back to him in 2017 while with the Padres — this is no way to re-achieve national recognition, of course — and Chacin produced his best season since the early part of the decade, with a 108 ERA+ in 180 innings of work. Maybe most important, the hits he allowed were once again under control.
The Brewers signed Chacin for a much richer deal than the $1.75 million the Padres gave him: two years, $15.5 million. That’s not massive money, not by a long shot, but it was an indication the Brewers expected him to repeat his success. He ended up throwing 192 innings in a league-leading 35 starts thanks to pitching and winning Game 163 for Milwaukee, and he did so with a 116 ERA+ while once again keeping his hits allowed in check.
Chacin has now thrown 10-1/3 scoreless innings in the postseason, in games the Brewers won including Monday night’s 4-0 Game 3 victory. He’s not an ace, but for five innings at a time, he can occasionally fake it, and the Brewers’ bullpen has allowed him to avoid the situations that would be awful for both himself and the team’s chances later in games. He is not what he’s supposed to be, basically, and we should stop acting surprised about it.
Chacin was pretty good back in the day with the Rockies. Maybe inexplicably, if you look at some of his advanced ERA figures, but eventually, those are less reflective of reality than actual ERA. Chacin is 10 years, 202 starts, and 1215 innings into being an above-average starter who can occasionally flash brilliance. The Brewers hoped they were getting that guy, and it turns out that they did.
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