Carmen Mlodzinski Should Move Back to the Bullpen

4-19-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

Before I start here, I owe you an apology.

I’ve taken on Locked On Pirates, kept on with the Pirates Fan Forum, but just about all I’ve had time to manage here is to keep up with 5 Pirates Thoughts every Monday. Michael Castrignano has been and remains an absolute godsend for this site.

You all are my original audience, and I owe you better. I will make more of an effort here, I just needed to get my bearing with the new gig so I could do it justice. Now that I feel I have, it’s time to reintroduce my original baby back into the equation.

Now, onto the topic.

Carmen Mlodzinski is to be commended for wanting to try being a starter in MLB. It’s been his dream since high school ball in Hilton Head, it’s what he was drafted as, it’s what he trained as all the way through the system until he actually had a chance to make the team, then the Bucs made the switch.

All that said, this experiment has gone on long enough now. Both for him, and the team.

For one thing, Carmen has just about irreparably damaged his season numbers. While I have every confidence he’ll go back to the pen and succeed, it’ll take quite some time of being almost perfect to work his numbers back to palatable.

This doesn’t mean he or the team were wrong for trying it.

First, the player wanted it, and lest you think that was all it took to make it happen, do recall if Jared Jones had been healthy, he’s here, and Carmen is likely in the bullpen already.

Second, the team drafted him in what amounts to the first round, yes, comp picks are different but he is considered a late first round selection, so they saw and bought into the pedigree long ago.

To his credit, he tried to do it without losing any of his “stuff”, but learning how to face a lineup 2 or even 3 times is a skill set that you almost can’t learn until you’re asked to do it. In the minors, 75% of the lineup won’t gain much of an advantage seeing a guy throw more than one at bat, in MLB, 25% might not.

He’s pitched in 4 games, 1 was a legitimate “ok” start, the others were decent opens, decent long relief outings capped by a drubbing.

If the Pirates had no options, ok, keep going, see if a few more outings manage to help him find a way to get deeper in games, but as we sit here, they do have options, though, not as many in a state of readiness as you’d hope.

Let’s talk about room and how to make it.

First things first, it looks like David Bednar will return and I’d imagine that’s in exchange for Chase Shugart or Kyle Nicolas. I’d recommend Nicolas as I’d have not called him up yet in the first place based on what he did in AAA.

So if we are to move Carmen Mlodzinski back to the pen, I guess my first question would be, for whom?

Like, let’s make the space for him back there before we just decide its the obvious play.

I suppose Shugart, but he hasn’t done anything wrong. I guess you could decide to move on from one of the lefties, but honestly, they’ve all pitched well, including Wentz the other long man option in the pen.

I think I might be inclined to move him to AAA, to either keep working on stretching out and performing as a starter, or, even if put back in the pen, work to get his mix back in order for that gig.

See, Carmen added pitches to his mix for the starting opportunity, and that’s fine, he can even keep using them, but it’s hard to maintain a big arsenal when you pitch an inning at a time. In other words, if you are likely only going to throw 20 pitches or so in an inning, you aren’t going to get to your 4th or 5th best very often.

So, essentially, punish Shugart for Carmen not making it as a starter, or send him down.

OK, so we need a new starter.

First thing here is, they could just technically keep him in the role, and either predetermine to bring in Wentz for the 4th inning or, they could treat Wentz as an opener for Carmen.

Presuming they don’t want to do that, you have Carson Fulmer who’s off to a great start in AAA and while not on the 40-man, he has a lot of experience and he’s stretched out more than anyone else in Indianapolis.

Braxton Ashcraft has looked underwhelming in his 4 starts. He’s turned it around a bit recently, but he was really off to a bad start and honestly, he has a lot of the same characteristics as Mlodzinski whom we’re labeling a project.

Bubba Chandler has been unhittable, but he’s also been prevented from stretching himself out at all. 3 outings, 10.2 innings. He’s on the Skenes path, for sure.

Thomas Harrington has more innings in MLB than AAA early on here, he might make the most sense, but he showed us he has some work to do didn’t he?

Mike Burrows looks the most polished of those who have been stretched a bit, and also being on the 40-man, he could make some sense as he’s already had his cup of coffee in 2024.

So, they have some options, but I wouldn’t expect any of them to jump in and look like twice the pitcher Carmen is.

I’m not sure they’ll agree with me. They might feel another start or two is appropriate here for Carmen and for whomever they’d replace him with, but I can’t help but feel Moving Carmen to the pen would strengthen that unit.

It may not be that anyone “deserves” to be sent down to make room for him, but they simply may have to make a call that having Carmen is more important than carrying 3 lefties. That would be a hard choice for me, they’ve all performed, Mayza has probably done the least, but even he’s been good when they’ve called on him.

I’m also not 100% that the team is prepared. They may need to change the build up for at least someone in the starter pool down there in Indy, unless of course they do plan to use the veteran Fulmer.

No matter what, this situation isn’t as cut and dried as it may appear on the surface. I feel it’s time to end this, I’m just not 100% how they should approach that effort.