Losing Oviedo Feels Like a Huge Blow, but That Outcome is on the Pirates

11-14-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

When it comes to pitching, it’s a lot like Brad Pitt’s character Rusty from Ocean’s 11 talking to George Clooney’s Danny character about potentially needing 1 more for their crew. The brilliance of the scene is that Rusty completely wrestles with himself over the question while Danny sits there silently. Essentially saying, was there ever a question here? Of course we need one more.

You could play this game with pitching ALL. DAY. LONG. I mean, the Rangers just won the World Series getting nothing form mega signing Jacob DeGrom and mega acquisition Max Scherzer. LOL, I mean, you can’t figure it can you?

Regardless of knowing the outcome here with Oviedo, just the idea of losing him, a player that should very much so still be seen as a work in progress, took a very weak rotation with a promise to add and turned it into a barren wasteland with Mitch Keller essentially achieving his dream of being the undisputed Ace of a staff and all alone standing in a cornfield.

Reality is, they have plenty of starting pitchers to field a rotation, and if this were 2021 I’d be likely telling you they’re going to struggle but this will pay off. Yeah, back in 2021 if you told me I had Keller entrenched, Priester after a taste, Ortiz after getting punched in the mouth and challenged, Roansy looking to rebound, Jones, Skenes, Solometo, Ashcraft, Sullivan all a level or two away.

Why I’d be over the moon!

It’s not 2021 however. It’s about to be 2024 and the Pirates have already started the clock on far too many hitters and yes, even some of those starters I mentioned to backtrack.

They already needed to fortify this rotation and that was with us graciously giving them Oviedo as a nailed on member.

Here’s the thing though, it’s November. There hasn’t been one big free agent signed, no major trades. Everyone who was available, is. This isn’t like Cruz last year, where you had no hope of replacing him, and again, not to be ignorant, but Oviedo ideally when the dust settled would have been your 4th or 5th starter to begin the campaign. He has talent to reach higher, but I think he’d have served as qualified backend to begin with and continue being a horse.

The Pirates needed to get two starters, they still need two starters after that they have a decision to make, do they go with two youngsters like Keller, FA/TRADE, FA/TRADE, Contreras, Ortiz? Or, do they go with Keller, 3 FA/TRADE, and only one youngster?

Again, back in 2021, I’m probably talking up the virtues of letting this play out. Find out about Jones, find out about Quinn, make Ortiz shove or STFD, get Contreras going, now though, in 2024, I’m sorry, you had your crack at developing this internally and the timing didn’t work. You want to win, so unless you come out and directly have the stones to tell me losing a 9 win pitcher means another year of “building”, that’s what I’m holding onto.

All along this process we’ve discussed even through the losing the team would be wise to start bringing in some vets on 1-3 year deals. Rather than having to shop for an entire rotation, they’d maybe have to shop for 1-2 potentially. Perhaps you’d have to be replacing one of them as well, but at least you’d get news like this about a promising kid and look at that guy you were about to part with, polish him up a bit and at least know you’ve got an answer, even if you wish it was a better one.

Meaning, back in 2021, say they signed Anderson for 3 years. 2024 would be his 3rd and final. Maybe last year instead of Hill, you went and got Lyles for 2. Regardless, you can see the cascading effect here, not to mention, if kids come along, it’s not like you couldn’t find a taker for a vet lefty right?

To me, when you leave yourself at the mercy of the market as it changes every year, you’re bound to get burned needing to spend more than you can (or allow yourself to) the moment the stars don’t align, and I feel that’s where we are.

On the plus side, this is one of the deeper pitching markets in MLB this decade, so it’s a good time to have this problem. Unfortunately, if you already felt it was unlikely Bob Nutting would do enough to reach the playoffs, well, you’re now asking for more.

This whole thing got me thinking, if this were Mitch Keller, I honestly don’t know what I’d advise. I don’t think it’s feasible to expect them to procure an ace level pitcher on the open market, just don’t, yet the reality of the clocks they’ve started is very much so the truth.

Bluntly, it’s a lot like what the Tigers went through. Now, they hired a stiff in Javi Baez as their big get, but they had a stable two deep of prospects for their rotation and between failure to develop and Tommy John procedures, everything they were trying to do early in the decade got pushed back to 2025.

What do you do ya know? Like you can’t hold back players you already called up. You can’t keep just developing one side and never support their effort with quality on the other.

Bottom line, this team needed to spend money this offseason, and now they need to spend money this offseason.

One thing is for sure though, you don’t get to show up in April crying about a loss you suffered in November. None of us will forget the 5 months in between Ben.