MESA, Ariz. – Long bus rides and new teammates. Former Highland pitcher Dalton Stambaugh’s story is as old as Minor League Baseball itself. Stambaugh’s latest stop is at the Chicago Cubs’ spring training and minor league complex.
Stambaugh, a left-handed pitcher, was drafted out of Morehead State in the 30th round of the amateur draft by the Baltimore Orioles in 2019. He tossed 21 1/3 innings for the Gulf Coast League Orioles in rookie ball, chalking up an ERA of 1.69 out of the bullpen.
Then COVID-19 hit and minor league baseball was canceled in 2020. This season, after getting released by the Orioles, Stambaugh found himself In the Frontier League with the independent Evansville Otters in Indiana.
“When the Orioles drafted me, I was a high 80s lefty,” Stambaugh said. “I was a starter in college, but with the Orioles, I was a reliever. A two-inning guy. When they released me and I went to (Evansville), the four outings I had there were starts.”
His 2-0 record and 3.57 ERA in 22 2/3 innings pitched for the Otters was enough to get him noticed by the Chicago Cubs, who signed him in late June. He is currently assigned to the Cubs’ Arizona Complex League team, playing rookie level ball, at Sloan Park in Mesa. Stambaugh arrived with a fastball, a cutter, a changeup and a slider in his pitching arsenal.
“It's a different look from the left side with those four pitches,” Cubs’ minor league pitching coach Doug Willey said. “From what I see now, he's a lefty that can throw strikes. He's going to go out there and compete.”
At 6 feet and 195 pounds, the 24-year-old Stambaugh isn’t going to overpower anyone. If he wants to move up to the next level, he will need to mix up his pitches and move them around.
“In the long run, we value strikeouts,” Willey said. “We focus more on development than pretty much anything else, so he just needs to keep getting all of his pitches better. That's the way we target anybody else at this level. We try to maximize what their pitches are doing. Then, we help them to be the best that they can be.”
Stambaugh threw out of the bullpen for his new team for the first time last week, going 2/3 of an inning.
“We'll just continue to get his feet wet and build up his innings,” Willey said. “His first time out there, he gave up a home run, but it was on a pretty good pitch. I think, for the most part, he went out there to attack guys and that's one of the main things we want to see. He got a couple of strikeouts as well. He threw his fastball on both sides of the plate. For a first outing, that's pretty good. He had a really good attitude about it and he came back ready to work the next day.”
Whether he remains a reliever or cracks the starting rotation will depend on hard work, attitude and just plain luck.
“When you’re a starter, you know in advance when you're going to be used, but as a reliever, you don't really know when you're going to be in the game,” Stambaugh said. “You just constantly have to stay ready. You might do some tossing in between Innings and stuff like that. As a reliever, you've got to stay more alert.”
The opportunity to move up to the next rung in the minors, and eventually get a shot in the big leagues, is always the dream.
“It's an ever-changing rotation down here, because we plan on guys leaving and we plan on guys moving up the chain,” Willey said. “If we're doing our jobs correctly, guys are getting sent up out of here to move on to the next step. For the moment, he'll be out of the bullpen, but that can always change.”
