10-9-24 By Josh Poe – @DaRealHanYolo on X
The last time I wrote, I talked about Endy Rodriguez and his role and importance to the Pirates in 2025. I wanted to flip that coin and talk about another player who was out all last year, Johan Oviedo. Johan is an interesting case because in 2023, he quietly became the number two in the rotation behind Mitch Keller, and when he went down, I was sad because he showed me he could be really good in 2023.
While his numbers don’t smack you across the face with how good they are, the thing I find interesting is that it seemed like Johan would have a great game and then a bad game.
For instance, there was a stretch where Johan had three starts and only gave up two runs over 20 innings. And then the next start he had, he gave up six over five innings.
What is noticeable from looking at his starts in 2023, is I believe that he has the capability to be a good piece moving forward. If you look at his savant page, it is very interesting as he has a very good grade for breaking stuff and has great velo on his fastball.
My issue is that he walks too many batters. If he can get the walks under control, that will help him take his next step. The thing I want to talk about, however, is what Johan could mean to how the Pirates handle this off season.
The first way to look at Johan is in the rotation. If you stack up Paul Skenes, Mitch Keller, and Jarred Jones (given all are healthy), you need to fill two other spots. There are a few options such as using one of the rookies in the pipeline. Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft, and Thomas Harrington are a few names that pop up. However, one of those spots could be taken by one of these guys, and the other spot could be for Oviedo. This leaves a question for Luis Ortiz and Bailey Falter. I think Ortiz was fantastic in 2024, and while I think he is a good starter, I would like to use him as more of a 6th starter/ bullpen piece. If you can retain this rotation, it makes their off-season easier. Take a player like Kirby Yates. He had a 1.17 era over 61.2 innings. The kicker here is Yates was paid only $4.5 million while Chapman was paid $ 10 million. You could put a good hunk of money and try to get a good bat.
The other way to look at Johan is moving him back into a bullpen role. This may be a good idea for him to be eased back into throwing so he doesn’t re-injure himself. The rotation builds out in this way the same top 3 (Skenes, Keller, Jones), and then you can use Chandler and Ortiz in a way where they could be given a short leash and bring in Oviedo. The bullpen in this scenario would shake out like this: Oviedo, Dennis Santana, Dauri Moreta, Ryan Borucki, and Kyle Nicolas – ramping up Oviedo and then swapping him into the rotation for either Chandler or Ortiz down the season. I am not worried about how the rotation shakes out, barring any injury (knock on wood). What I am interested in is how they decide to build out the pen. I think the foundation is there for a good and strong pen, even though it was what tanked the 2024 season. I think one of the issues with the ‘24 pen was that Bednar was not himself, and they chose not to do anything about it. Holderman was a little too overused and then he just lost all confidence. Chapman was either insane or very bad, and the rest was a lot of injuries. In the case of Nicolas just taking some time to figure it out, I honestly don’t think it was as bad as people say. I’m not saying it wasn’t bad, but there are things that I genuinely think could be positives come 2025.
Johan Oviedo, to me, is someone that could help the Pirates get over the hump next year. The Pirates have a crucial decision regarding how to use him next year and how to build out the roster around this decision. But, they have one of the hardest things accomplished in baseball, which is having a dominant rotation. So fear not, Bucs fans. I think this staff will be pretty good come 2025.
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