6-21-25 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X
There are almost always strange decisions, odd approaches, weird usage type things happening with the Pirates. Sometimes the reason is pretty clear, even if it’s hard to accept, other times, well, there’s just no making sense of them.
So, today, lets go over some of them, and see if we can’t think our way through them. Remember, it’s not about liking the answer you land on as much as feeling like you considered every bit of available information before forming your opinion.
Carmen Mlodzinski
All of it. What the hell are the Pirates doing here right?
I mean, it was clear as day that he was a good reliever, so why did they mess with what was working?
OK, for those of you who don’t know the whole story, let’s start at the beginning. Carmen was available with the Comp pick, essentially a late first round slot, largely due in part to his injury history in college.
Still, in many ways, he was more of a first round talent in 2020 than several pitchers with less pedigree that were taken ahead of him.
It’s important to know this about Carmen Mlodzinski, because if you don’t, and you just “met” him after he was called up to the majors, you probably see him as only the role he started in.
It’s important to know he was selected as a starting pitcher, as many eventual relievers are, just not when they’re drafted in the first round. That first round selection slot, has a lot to do with this attempt to see what he could do.
It’s not the attempt that’s weird, I can make sense of that, and just did. The odd part is the timing.
The Pirates do this in 2023 or 2024, you know, like say after Johan Oviedo was lost, something like that. I mean at that point, Carmen was still working as a starter and more than anything, the team really needed one.
They chose to start him in the pen by way of getting him to the league faster, and it worked great. He performed great.
Now, when they have a seeming overflow of starting pitchers or at least prospects who could deserve a shot, they chose now to give Mlodzinski a crack at starting?
So again, I understand why you’d think he has the talent. I understand why his draft slot would make you feel he has the pedigree. I can make sense of believing in the talent and wanting to get the most out of it you can, and I’ll give them a bit of a pass because the injury to Jared Jones made this play out on the Big League stage.
As I understand it, the Pirates planned to have Carmen start, but in the minors, which still would have taken one of their best bullpen arms out of the equation.
He showed he could do it, he also showed they had some work to do to start feeling it had legs. In many ways, I felt the timing on when they decided to pull the plug was strange. Not that Mike Burrows didn’t deserve a chance, he certainly does, but what I’m saying is what we were seeing from Mlodzinski at least to me said push on, not bail.
Anyway, you then have the GM spouting about how dedicated they all were, including the player, to keep going with this starting thing. He even went so far as to openly say it would be an effort for all of 2025.
A week later, he’s in the Pirates bullpen and Don Kelly is talking about how he’s a Major League arm and the team needs him, no matter the role.
So was this all a mistake? Meaning they shouldn’t have even tried it? Well, it’s not that easy if you ask me.
First, he probably bought them some time on Burrows at least, and Thomas Harrington the other guy the team thought might be ready needed more time too. And this is a bit of a reach admittedly, but having Carmen show his potential to be stretched out, well, it could also make him more valuable, and this team is going to eventually have to deal from this supposed strength.
Point is, there are some good reasons to have gone through this experiment, there are some good reasons to think the timing couldn’t have been worse for actually helping THIS team.
Carmen Mlodzinski is a talented pitcher, and I honestly believe, he COULD start in this league, or he could be a dominant bullpen arm. Both have value, both are possible.
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