10-10-24 – By Ethan Smith – @mvp_EtHaN on Twitter
I wrote yesterday about Paul Skenes and the ceiling he has for his career moving forward after a historic rookie campaign that will be hard to match from a pitcher ever again.
With that said, Skenes has phenomenal, and gathered most of the attention throughout the season, but looking at the starting pitching staff as a whole, it was clearly the best unit the Pirates had in 2024 because of the efforts of the entire group, not just Skenes.
Take Jared Jones, the other strong rookie pitcher the Pirates had in their arsenal, who made the team out of spring training after 16.1 scoreless innings and 15 strikeouts in Bradenton and had one of the more impressive debuts we’ve ever seen from a Pirates pitcher versus Miami, collecting 10 strikeouts in 5.2 IP while allowing three earned runs.
Jones, unlike Skenes, had more turmoil over the course of his campaign, the biggest being his lat strain that sidelined him for considerable time from July 4 to August 27. Even before the injury, Jones showed signs of fatigue, allowing five or more earned runs in two of his four starts before heading to the injured list.
A 5.06 ERA in September was more indication of fatigue from Jones, but with the full sample available, which included a 4.14 ERA in 121.2 IP, as a rookie, you’ll take those numbers from a 2020 second round pick who will no doubt be apart of the rotation moving forward.
Like Skenes though, Jones is a fireball thrower, eclipsing 100 mph quite a bit across his 2024 campaign and used strikeouts as his main catalyst for success, collecting 132 of them, which ranked third on the roster. The second half struggles warrant some worry, but with him now completing his first full campaign in the bigs, the expectation is that more innings should come and those signs of fatigue should dissipate, meaning Jones next step should be a fun one as potentially the second best pitcher on the staff.
You then move on to Mitch Keller, who had a strong argument to be an All-Star once again in 2024, posting a 3.46 ERA in 114.1 IP before the All-Star Break along with 105 strikeouts. He didn’t make the mid-summer classic, but he was still as strong as his breakout 2023 campaign prior to the break and solidified himself once again as a consistent pitcher worthy of his extension he received prior to the season.
Post All-Star break is where problems arose, as Keller posted just one victory in 12 starts along with a 5.65 ERA. His strikeout-to-walk ratio also dropped, as prior to the break, he had 105 strikeouts to 30 walks, and after, 61 strikeouts to 20 walks.
From 2023 to 2024, to further point out his struggles late, Keller’s ERA, wins and WHIP all increased while his strikeouts decreased. Also, per Statcast, his fastball run value dipped considerably from last year to this year, from plus-11 to plus-3, the biggest change in any run value on any type of his pitches.
Keller’s hard hit percentage allowed jumped from 35.6-percent last season to 39.3-percent this year, resulting in the third highest hard hit percentage he allowed in his career in a season.
With all that said, 2024 was a step back for Keller, but his numbers were still in range of his past two seasons. Keller made 30-plus starts again, and although the increase in numbers happened, they weren’t considerable enough to have massive worries.
Keller will remain with the staff, there’s no doubt in that, and he hasn’t left doubt in his play at any point over the past few seasons in the first half, but the second half has been the call to action for improvement. Having a trio of Skenes, Jones and Keller is formidable enough, but taking a step back and looking at what else the Pirates have truly makes the entire staff a formidable one.
One of the biggest surprises of the 2024 campaign came from Luis Ortiz, who entered 2024 being left out of the starting rotation, thanks to the offseason signings of Marco Gonzales and Martin Perez and the emergence of Jones, starting the season in the bullpen with Pittsburgh.
Ortiz impressed in his time in the bullpen, posting a 3.45 ERA prior to his first start of the season on June 26 versus Cincinnati, where he struck out seven Reds hitters across six innings while allowing just one earned run.
Ortiz never looked back following that start, posting a 1.75 ERA in July with four starts and five appearances, which included 20 strikeouts. He followed that with a 4.19 ERA in August and 3.97 ERA in September, collecting 19 or more strikeouts in each month.
What was most impressive out of Ortiz was his command, which made a much better return than what was seen from his command in 2023, as his walk rate dropped from 12-percent to 7.6-percent while his strikeout rate increased from 14.8-percent to 19.2-percent.
On top of the command returning, Ortiz added a cutter to further enhance his pitching arsenal, but his fastball returned to the dominance we had seen in spurts in 2022, as hitters versus Ortiz’s fastball slashed .187/.209/.331 with a xwOBA of .308. Compare those numbers to 2023, where hitters slashed .383/.371/.704 with a xwOBA of .520, and you see clear improvement with his most important pitch. Ortiz also brought down allowing hard contact, dropping his hard hit rate against from 49.1-percent to 37.7-percent.
Exiting 2024, it is hard to not imagine Ortiz as a starter with what he was able to do in his 15 starts this year as well as becoming a major success story out of the international signing period. If the command remains consistent, like we saw this year, Ortiz should be a strong candidate for the back-end of the rotation moving forward and, at worst, be a viable option in the bullpen, both of which we saw this year.
Another surprise was the performance of Bailey Falter in 2024, who was all but expected to be moved out of the rotation at some point due to his poor performance from last season.
Instead, Falter impressed, posting a 4.43 ERA across 28 starts in 142.1 IP, with the innings count coming in at second on the roster. 2024 showed what a full sample of Falter’s 2022 campaign, a campaign that featured a 3.86 ERA in 16 starts and 20 appearances overall and was the most comparable season to what we saw in 2024.
Falter posted the highest strikeout total of his career, collecting 97 strikeouts this season, 23 strikeouts higher than his previous career high. His WHIP of 1.29 was also the second best mark of his career when he starts more than 10 games and he also allowed the lowest batting average against of his career, surrendering a .260 opponent’s average.
The Statcast numbers will not fly off the page by any means for Falter, who ranked no higher than the 56th percentile in any major Statcast category outside of extension, where he ranked in the 99th percentile at 7.3.
Falter is by no means a centerpiece of the staff, but he helped the Pirates a ton in 2024, posting a sub-3.00 ERA in two months this year and remaining mostly consistent throughout his season and offering much needed innings when injuries and transactions changed the staff through the summer.
Could Falter be in the rotation in 2025? Surely, and most likely, but the Pirates starting pitching staff will be in a good place with not only what we saw this season, but what could be on the way as well.
Currently, five of the top eight Pirates prospects are pitchers, with the highlight being Bubba Chandler, who could very well make his way to Pittsburgh next season. Braxton Ashcraft also has a case to make noise next season despite late season injuries, while Thomas Harrington, Anthony Solometo and Hunter Barco all have strides to make in their pursuit to the majors.
Mike Burrows also made his MLB debut late this season after a long recovery from Tommy John surgery and could make a case in spring training to be on the big league roster with the right play, much like we saw with Jones this year. You also have the return of Johan Oviedo from Tommy John at some point in 2025, but its unclear whether the team considers him a starter or a reliever moving forward.
If you are keeping up, I have mentioned what would be two, full pitching staffs if these players were all to pan out, which they rarely ever do, but depth is king in today’s baseball when it comes to pitching, and plenty of teams would gladly trade places with the Pirates as far as pitching is concerned right now.
This also doesn’t rule out the Pirates making a trade or acquiring another starter via free agency this winter, especially with potential questions arising with injury concerns, which every team deals with in today’s game. If they do indeed though, expect it to be a similar acquisition to what we’ve seen in previous offseasons, in which the Pirates have acquired veterans that they could move at the deadline and eat much needed innings in the first half.
Before any moves are made though, the Pirates pitching staff and what lies behind it are in the best place of any group on the roster, and for a team that doesn’t spend a ton in free agency or the trade market for top-end pitching, its a commodity that should help the front office fill clear needs this offseason without having to put a massive emphasis on acquiring pitching like they have in the past, so for now, enjoy this well above-average staff because things could change, but for now, the Pirates starting pitching group should be among the best in baseball when next season arrives.
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