03/08/2024 / Ethan Smith @mvp_EtHaN
The Pittsburgh Pirates made yet another off-season pitching addition on Tuesday, bringing in former San Diego Padres and Milwaukee Brewers left-hander Eric Lauer on a minor league deal.
Lauer, who turns 29 this season, battled shoulder and elbow issues throughout the 2023 campaign, a campaign he’d like to put behind him. His 6.56 ERA in 42.1 IP along with a 1.671 WHIP were among just some of his worst statistics of his career, minus 2020, but Lauer has been a formidable starter before.
He holds a career 4.30 ERA in his six professional seasons, having his best time in Milwaukee in 2021 and 2022, when he ERA was 3.19 and 3.69 respectively. Those were also the only seasons his ERA+ was in triple digits, so the Pirates hope he can regain some of his past form.
Lauer’s offerings are a four-seam fastball, cutter, curveball, and slider, while he also mildly worked in a changeup last season. He tends to stick with the fastball, cutter and curveball, something new from last season as the prior two saw the slider become a more prominent selection in his pitch arsenal.
Leaning back into the slider may help Lauer regain some of his strong play, seeing as he hasn’t allowed an opponent’s batting average above .173 since 2020 with the offering. Meanwhile the curveball has been tagged a ton the past two years, allowing a .412 and .324 opponent batting average the past two years.
Keeping his strikeout rate in the mid-20s would also go a long way for Lauer, and that will surely be helped by regaining some velocity, as he tends to sit in the range of 92-93mph but dropped to 90.8 last season.
No one expects Lauer to flash ace potential by any means, but if he can regain some of his past form from before 2023, he could wind up being a valuable depth option in the rotation, adding to the already loaded battle for the final two spots that features names like Josh Fleming, Bailey Falter, Roansy Contreras, Quinn Priester, Luis Ortiz and even Jared Jones.
This signing of course is not a flashy one, but one could expect Lauer to get a few starts here and there if he regains past form and the Pirates need someone to fill innings, which Lauer has done well in the past and could do so again with the right adjustments.
He has to break the roster before anything of course, but no harm no foul on this signing if you ask me, so we’ll see what Lauer can offer going into 2024.
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