CHICAGO — It was less than two years ago, over consecutive days at Wrigley Field, that Jeremiah Estrada felt like the baseball had been taken out of his hand. In a literal sense, it was still there. But, as the Chicago Cubs rookie flung fastball after fastball against the Cincinnati Reds, his sense of autonomy was not.
“I was told by the catcher one time — he was like, ‘What the hell you doing shaking me off? I’m a veteran,’” said Estrada, now a standout reliever for the San Diego Padres. “And I’m not gonna be disrespectful to him. I mean, me on a normal daily basis, I would’ve told him, ‘Go f—k yourself, bro.’ It’s me pitching, you know? But it’s just kind of the relationship and the respect. Like, ‘OK, I got you, bro. I’m not gonna shake you again. I have respect for you. At the end of the day, you are a veteran.’ And then the next outing, he called 24 straight fastballs. And I got so much crap for that.
“Everybody was bashing me, like, ‘Dude, that’s all he throws is fastballs, fastballs, fastballs.”
The combined tally from that pair of May 2023 appearances: two outs, four hits, two runs, two walks, no strikeouts and 39 pitches, all thrown to then-Cubs catcher Yan Gomes. Thirty-eight of those pitches were four-seam fastballs, including one that was smacked for a home run.
Three outings later, Estrada was optioned to Triple A, where he continued to struggle with his control and a new splitter the Cubs had him throwing. He later resisted a move to Double A. Instead, he opted for the Arizona Complex League, where he could work in relative quiet.
“I went to Arizona, figured myself out, came back,” Estrada said. “I wanted to go to Arizona, not to where they told me to go to. And now, we’re here.”
Here, at least this weekend, means back at Wrigley Field. The right-hander spoke Friday before the Padres’ first road series of a new season. Last season, however, brought a major change in scenery and results.
Estrada began to develop his signature “chitter” two summers ago at the Cubs’ complex in Arizona. He joined the Padres that November as a waiver claim. After dominating Triple-A hitters for a few weeks, he resurfaced in the majors last April. He returned to Wrigley Field the following month, recording an out in a three-run win against his former team.
That was before he set an expansion-era record by striking out 13 consecutive batters, before he established himself as a high-leverage weapon, and before he began to fully reap the benefits of taking ownership of his career.
“It’s cool being back to a place where I pretty much grew up in the league,” Estrada said. “I’m so grateful for the Cubs for (drafting) me, having me be with the organization for as long as they did. Things just didn’t work out. … At the end of the day, I’m so grateful for them, but it’s also, like, a big thank you too for allowing me to come to a place where I feel more at home.”
Estrada was claimed off waivers from the Cubs in November 2023. He has since become one of baseball’s better relievers (Orlando Ramirez / USA TODAY Sports)
Estrada’s fastball has stood out to scouts for at least a decade. At Palm Desert High in California’s Coachella Valley, he threw in the mid-90s. In 2017, the Cubs selected him in the sixth round and gave him $1 million to forgo a commitment to UCLA. In 2024, Estrada’s primary pitch displayed the kind of life that has become readily quantifiable: His average four-seamer dropped less on its way to the plate than any other four-seamer in the majors.
Yet, as so often happens in the sport, Estrada did not travel a straight line to big-league prosperity. He went from being healthy throughout high school to encountering arm injuries in the minors. He underwent Tommy John surgery in 2019. At times, he wondered if the Cubs were having him do too much. Even after he arrived in the big leagues in 2022, he increasingly questioned what he was doing — and not doing.
“They kind of locked away my changeup,” Estrada said. “My draft, it kind of really helped out. And throughout my carer, it’s always helped out with how good of a changeup I had. But once they took away my changeup, it was kind of weird.”
The Cubs had Estrada lean on his fastball and throw significantly more sliders than changeups. Then, in 2023, they tried to teach him a splitter, with the ball wedged between his index and middle fingers. Estrada never got comfortable with it. Yet, he said, he kept being asked to throw the splitter in games — sometimes after he had worked on the pitch in a bullpen session the same day.
“My velo was getting down a little bit. I couldn’t throw strikes. I was throwing wild,” Estrada said. “I just still remember when they took away (the changeup) and we go to Angel Stadium. Facing (Shohei) Ohtani, the catcher called a changeup. And I’m like, ‘Which one? My old one that you guys told me to stop throwing or the new splitter?’ I tried throwing my old one, and I spiked it.”
Estrada was optioned to Triple A a week later. He went on to surrender 17 runs in 13 innings. In early August of that year, he retreated to Arizona, where he experimented with various splitter grips and eventually found one he liked, wedging the ball between his middle and ring fingers. The chitter was born. Estrada returned to Triple-A Iowa in September, then struck out 12 batters in 6 1/3 innings.
It was not enough to stick on the Cubs’ 40-man roster. By November, Estrada was a Padre. By the following May, he was making strikeout history.
“With relievers, it can click at any time,” Cubs president of baseball operations Hoyer said last summer. “There’s a churning nature to it. You’re trying to grab relievers at different times. Most teams’ bullpens are made up of guys that they got from other organizations at down moments.
“You have to be accountable and look and say, ‘OK, what did we miss? What tweak did we not look at, at the right time?’ But there’s no question relievers in general are volatile.”
Estrada did not join San Diego as a true reclamation project. Pitching coach Ruben Niebla brought the newcomer to the team’s biomechanics lab. There, the Padres saw that the fastball remained lively. The chitter, with rare horizontal movement, showed tantalizing potential.
“It was just, ‘Let’s see what you got,’” Estrada said. “And I showed them what I got, and they were like, ‘Everything looks good. The only thing is your slider’s getting a bit too cutter-ish, so we’re gonna try to make another slider that gets more depth.’ And now the slider that I have is what they showed me, and everything else is just kind of what I figured out in ’23.”
Early this season, Estrada has appeared nearly as unhittable as his 2024 peak. Despite a weekslong intestinal illness, he finished his Padres debut with a 2.95 ERA and a 37.3 percent strikeout rate. Now, through 4 1/3 innings, he has allowed one hit, one walk and no runs. He has struck out five batters. His fastball continues to have elite ride, with almost two fewer inches of drop versus last year.
That helps explain why he is leaning on it again. Estrada has surrendered only one hit, a single, in 14 at-bats ended by his four-seamer. He has thrown it 71 percent of the time, up from 56.4 percent in 2024. And though he now has the freedom to shake off his catchers, he has yet to do so in the new year.
“I had a good fastball (with the Cubs),” Estrada said. “Now I have a much better fastball that comes off a real slider and a changeup.”
Jeremiah Estrada, K’ing the Side. ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/rPyn71y558
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) March 31, 2025
It might be easy, Estrada acknowledged, to expend more effort than usual this weekend. If he is called upon to pitch against his former team, he could take the approach he took as a high school sophomore.
As a freshman, Estrada played for and lived near La Quinta High, also in the Coachella Valley. His subsequent transfer to that school’s top rival, Palm Desert High, led to significant backlash. La Quinta supporters, Estrada said, called for him to change residences.
Estrada ended up moving. Then came his first game against his old school.
“I was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna do good.’ And it was kind of an adrenaline rush,” Estrada said. “Like, I’m gonna freaking shove it up these guys’ ass.
“It feels like it’s the same thing (this weekend). But you know what? It’s more like, I’m 26. Let’s act mature. … I would love to freaking strike out the side, look at freaking Jed Hoyer and say what’s up, you know?” Estrada laughed. “I’m just gonna go out there and do my job. I want to do what’s gonna help us win.”
The Padres, coming off a 93-win season, have authored the best start in franchise history (7-1). For their recent success, they can partly thank the Cubs for unknowingly discarding one of the most dominant relievers in baseball. Still, what happened to Chicago happens to every team. Relievers have always been volatile, prone to inconsistency and bouts of wildness.
And, sometimes, they can take off after taking control.
“It’s your arm at the end of the day,” Estrada said. “When you’re getting drafted, it’s like a choice. You kind of got to be OK with them making adjustments with you, and them not making adjustments with you. … I think every guy wants to be closer to getting to the big leagues by just respecting the staff and kind of doing what they tell you to do.
“It’s not like everything (the Cubs) told me was completely wrong. I took so much advice from some great staff and coaches. But you need to figure out what helps you out the most. Yeah, it’s just kind of how it went. I trusted myself, figured it out and made up some goofy-ass pitch. And it works.”
(Top photo: Orlando Ramirez/Getty Images)