Starter Spotlight: Toppling the Spiers

6-17-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

Back home and facing the Cincinnati Reds for the first time this season. Game one will feature Carson Spiers, making his third career MLB start and first one this season as he enters today with a 2.33 ERA and 1.19 WHIP over 19.1 innings pitched. Used primarily as a bulk innings arm early on in the season, Spiers has allowed just 2 runs in his last 15.1 innings pitched – earning a turn in the rotation.

Looking at his arsenal, Spiers has three fastballs working in the 87-94 range in his 4-seam, sinker and cutter. He mixes in a low-80s sweeper and high-80s changeup, which doesn’t drop too much off his fastball.

He works off the sinker/sweeper combo against right-handed hitters and will focus 4-seam/changeup when facing lefties. It’s a small sample size but both his sinker and sweeper have been hit consistently by opponents this year with an oBA/oSLG of .300/.500 and .313/.438, respectively.

Spiers lasted 5.2 innings and 90 pitches in his last appearance on June 9th so he’s in for the long haul. He’s not striking out many batters (18.8%) but also not walking a ton (5%) so whittle him away with some solid contact when opportunities present themselves.

Rivalry runs deep against these Reds so it’s always a battle – and hopefully, one the Pirates will be able to win.

Let’s Go Bucs!

Series Preview: Reds (34-37) at Pirates (34-37)

6-17-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

Pirates head home to face divisional foe Cincinnati Reds with both teams having their eyes on October baseball and reigniting the fires of rivalry in their first series of the season.

This is also a first matchup of the tallest shortstops in baseball as MLB’s stolen base leader Elly de la Cruz meets up against one of the titans in exit velocity, Oneil Cruz.

The Reds were 25-32 when the month of June started but they have found their footing as they won the next 9 of 12 games before dropping the final two in the Brewers series this past weekend. Pittsburgh has won 3 of its last 4 series and 7 of their last 12 games.

6/17
Reds – Carson Spiers (R) –0-0, 19.1 IP, 2.33 ERA, 15 Ks/4 walks, 1.19 WHIP
Pirates – Paul Skenes (R) –3-0, 33.1 IP, 2.43 ERA, 46 Ks/6 walks, 0.96 WHIP

6/18
Reds – Nick Lodolo (L) –7-2, 58.1 IP, 2.93 ERA, 62 Ks/15 walks, 1.06 WHIP
Pirates – Bailey Falter (L) –3-4, 72.1 IP, 3.86 ERA, 49 Ks/19 walks, 1.11 WHIP

6/19
Reds – Hunter Greene (R) –5-2, 82.1 IP, 3.61 ERA, 89 Ks/37 walks, 1.18 WHIP
Pirates – Mitch Keller (R) –8-4, 85.2 IP, 3.36 ERA, 78 Ks/22 walks, 1.25 WHIP

Reds:
Jeimer Candelario: An offseason free-agent signing dismissed at the time due to the Reds dearth of infield options, Candelario has seen his playing time increase with injuries/suspension and he is not wasting this opportunity. His .802 OPS currently leads all Reds hitters this season as he is tied for the team lead in home runs (12) and has the most doubles on the team (17). He has been especially scorching in June posting a 1.089 OPS with six home runs and four doubles

Pirates:
Bryan Reynolds: Traditionally, June has been a good month for Reynolds and that has continued this year as he has a .339/.391/.559 slash line with 8 runs and 8 RBI in 14 games this month. Given that he routinely bats second in the lineup, his ability to maintain this level of production will go a long way in helping this team win games.

Reds:
Will Benson: Following a monster first season in Cincinnati where Benson posted an .863 OPS with 15 doubles and 11 home runs over 108 games, expectations were high for this level of success to continue. Unfortunately, while Benson has replicated the extra base hits, he is struggling to maintain consistent contact with a .204/.297/.403 slash line on the season. He’s been especially cold in June as he has a .570 OPS with just two extra-base hits over 34 plate appearances.

Pirates:
Ke’Bryan Hayes: Hayes is currently in the midst of his worst offensive season of his young career with a 79 wRC+ and a .620 OPS. Nagging back injuries have routinely derailed his ability to stay on the field and he has admitted that it never goes away. It’s very likely that this is impacting his swing at the plate, as well as his proficiency on defense as he has gone from Gold Glove-level production to just above replacement level in the field.

Key Injuries

Reds:
No new injuries

Pirates:
Martín Pérez/Quinn Priester: We saw last year how quickly a team’s depth thins when starting pitcher injuries pile up. With Marco Gonzales hitting the shelf earlier this season and Mike Burrows still working his way back from Tommy John Surgery to hopefully debut this season, the team has turned to bullpen games more frequently than expected – even as they have found success in these instances. An eventual return from either Perez or Priester will help rebalance the rotation and give some breathing room to the recently overworked relief corps.

Team Notes

Since 2021, the Pirates are 25-20 against the Reds, going 8-5 last season. These teams will face off 6 times in the next 10 days and then won’t play again until the end of August.

The momentum has been moving in the right direction for both teams but they will need more consistency on offense for prolonged success as the Reds and Pirates rank 26th and 27th, respectively, in team wRC+ (90 and 88).

Let’s Go Bucs!

Starter Spotlight: A Familiar Foe

6-16-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

The Pirates have turned making terrible starters look like aces into an art form lately. Today, they face long-time Cardinals pitcher in Rockies starter, Dakota Hudson – who enters play today with a 2-8 record and 4.87 ERA in 68.1 innings this year. Additionally, Dakota Hudson is 2-1 with an ERA of 4.82, 15 strikeouts and 1 save in 11 appearances against the Pirates in his career. Can they break through against him?

Hudson is a ground ball specialist with a 53.5% rate thus far this season ranking 9th highest in MLB among qualified starting pitchers. He manages that rate with a low-90s sinker and mid-80s slider as his main two offerings – with a low-90s 4-seam, low-80s curve and low-80s changeup as his secondary pitches.

He doesn’t miss a ton of bats with a sub-par 18% whiff rate and straight-up AWFUL 11.9% strikeout rate. While his slider has a 31.5% whiff rate, both his sinker and 4-seam have been hit hard this year, both under 7% whiff rate and .390+ xwOBA.

Pirates batters should key-in on the heat as it is his most used options (49.4% combined) and take advantage of the fact that Hudson has been worse at home (7.57 ERA) than away (3.07) and also worse during day games (6.07) than at night (3.96). 

Pirates haven’t won a road series in a nearly a month and haven’t won a getaway-day game in even longer. Turn tides and raise it before heading home this week!

Let’s Go Bucs!

Jared Jones is Having a Rookie Season, not Regressing

6-16-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

It’s a fine line between Phenom and flame out, especially for fans. Personally, I expect to feel just about every range of emotion a fan can have during a rookie season, hell, I expect it for the first 2 or 3 seasons with most guys.

Jared Jones is no different. Well, he’s different, but he’s still subject to all the same things every rookie has to deal with too.

His numbers as a whole still look great on the season, maybe not phenom anymore, but still exciting. His incredible start to the season created expectation, expectation that even the most pragmatic among us struggled to see through to mention the league would adjust and more than that, eventually he’d get tired.

That’s typically where the mind goes.

The league has him figured out you’ll hear. He needs more pitches. What happened to his velocity?

Well, some of the league at least figured out if they’re going to get to him, what they need to look for. He has pitches, he just needs to become a bit more consistent with a couple of them and his velocity comes and goes based on his rest and conditioning. Sometimes he’s still hitting 101, sometimes he sees it drop to 95-96 either as the game rolls on or on short rest, even early on.

14 starts, 79 innings pitched, a 3.76 ERA with a 1.13 WHIP. That’s not bad, in fact, there isn’t a team in baseball that couldn’t find room for him in their rotation.

It’s not like he’s in some freefall.

His last 3 outings, 6 innings against the Dodgers with no earned runs, 5 innings against the Twins with 2 ER and 4.2 against the Rockies surrendering 6 earned. If this had been him all year, you’d probably see people like me telling you to be patient, expressing how young he is and why it’s worth seeing more. You know, like a normal rookie that hadn’t had his name in the thick of the Rookie of the Year conversation.

I’d be a lot more concerned if I were seeing a down trend in velocity that stuck. I’d be more concerned if I saw a pitcher who no longer looked like he could go get the strikeout when he really needed it. I’m not seeing that though, I’m seeing a player who yes, the league has scouted, and yes, needs to adapt and make his own move to push back, but more than anything, I’m seeing a kid who needs to figure out how to command his fastball more than just get away firing it right over the heart and letting the movement do his work.

His stuff moves enough to have that work fairly often, but against some of the teams he’ll face he needs to be able to paint that pitch. There are guys in this league that won’t struggle with velocity and it only takes one pitch not moving enough or worse, moving right into the hitting zone to do damage. Jones advantage is, those types of hitters are few and far between.

The other thing Jones has to adapt is knowing when his fastball does dip, he can’t get away with that middle middle approach the way he can when he’s hitting 100. Unhittable at 100 for 99% of the league, fairly touchable at 96 for 50% of the hitters he’ll face. There are nights when it takes him an inning or two to realize he doesn’t have that velocity and start trying to use his other offerings, and be a little more precise with the heater.

Should you be worried that the Pirates 3 headed monster is actually more like 2? Well, if you wanna be, but I’d rather look at the stuff and the maturity beyond his years. He’s racing through lessons that take most players a season to learn, sometimes a trip back to AAA. Instead, we’ve seen him already adjust and focus primarily on his offspeed stuff from the jump against some lineups. I’ve seen that ability and will take years to develop, if ever.

Even last night against the Rockies, he suffered from trying to adjust. They were seeking his slider and doing a great job of laying off the pitch when it missed the zone. They hunted sliders that finished in the zone, an adjustment they forced him into by being selective.

Grandal and Jones punched back from that by throwing the heater and trying to paint edges with the slider. It led to uncharacteristic walks and ultimately more impactful contact. In the future, you’d like to see him use his changeup or curve to slow down the bats a bit to compensate for the velo being a touch down, but overall, just not his sharpest outing.

Altitude is always a factor in Colorado, but if it weren’t time to take a look at how the league as a whole was starting to push back before Denver, it wouldn’t be now, this has been going on for his past 5 or 6 outings.

I truly believe he’ll find his way and the talent is still elite. Bumps in the road, and non-linear bumps by the way. There will be more elite, there will be more not so elite, he’s a rookie.

Should he be seen in the same light as the comps to his early season numbers? Well, probably not, most of the comps have been doing this for years and that in and of itself is a level of special you can’t see until you’ve seen it. He has those kind of tools, but it’s too early to act like it’s a given.

If healthy, Paul Skenes and Jared Jones probably won’t reach their peak as pitchers until they’ve done it a few years and seen more of what this league does to someone who has largely not been hit in their career.

Jared is fine, he’s just not polished and at some point MLB is always the sandpaper.

The Pirates Patience is Unpopular with Fans, but Sometimes it’s Necessary

6-15-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

I’m as impatient as the next guy.

You may not see me tweet or post on Facebook every time a hitter stares at strike three over the heart, but if they ever get that future downfall of society brain implant thing that instantly sends our thoughts out, well, lets just say you wouldn’t see me as the patient fan many of you probably do.

Hey, even when I have time to think I make sure I go out there and push the panic button sometimes. I did it with Bailey Falter, I for sure did it with Nick Gonzales. In fact, when it comes to patience, it’s too early for all those silly apology forms to be filled out as well.

I’ve written before about why it’s really hard to pull off a meaningful deal for anyone at this point of a baseball season, so look, you’re either going to accept that or not. If you want to live in the world of 5% probability AND expect your Pittsburgh Pirates to be in that 5%, OK.

My guess is you’ll be mad long after the deadline has passed, almost no matter what they do.

If you’re willing and able to push on past that and see a month from now as more of a true open market, cool. I won’t go so far as to say it can’t happen, instead I’ll just say its far more likely that the store is open, with product on the shelves and real willing sellers in a month than there are now.

The Pirates are patient, most fans would probably say too patient. They have been.

We’ve watched them spend far too much time with players who had very little chance of mattering here. That’s all true, they’re guilty, you’re right, they’re wrong.

That’s also in the past.

They were playing games that mattered, but they were more interested in playing 162 games, keeping anyone they actually believed in healthy, and yes, losing so they could get cracks at super affordable, super high-end talent.

In other words, their patience with Josh Van Meter probably shouldn’t be seen the same way their patience with say, Jared Triolo is.

Jared is young, cheap, under team control for most of the decade if they want him, an excellent defender at several positions. The tools are there to say he can build on his frame and develop into something.

Doesn’t mean he will, doesn’t mean he’ll ever turn out but what makes him different than Josh Van Meter is he hasn’t already had 4 or 5 MLB teams give him every opportunity to prove what he was.

Jared is getting a long audition, and it’s a lot easier to justify with the way he flashes the leather. Well, that and the hard to ignore fact there isn’t anyone better pushing to do what he does. Nobody that wouldn’t equally be in full on audition territory.

When the team had seen a nice long stretch of Triolo as a starter and someone named Nick made a push, the team made a move and Gonzales has played in all but one game since while Triolo is essentially playing the Alika Williams role.

Now, patience with a guy like Rowdy Tellez, that’s a horse of a different color. This is forced patience in a way. Let’s paint a picture, say Jack Suwinski, Bryan Reynolds and Oneil Cruz are all doing what we hoped they would. Say they’re all sitting on like 15 homeruns apiece, well, you might see them pretty easily say goodbye to Rowdy Tellez. Cruz and Reynolds have been ok, I mean they’re hitting a few out, but this team has next to no left handed production. It’s popular to pretend anything could be better, and in some aspects, for sure, you can do better, the thing is, you can’t just pick anyone and get the very specific thing they wanted from him. Left handed power.

Don’t get me wrong, there comes a point where, look, it’s just not there. I mean Houston just paid Jose Abreu like 30 million dollars to go away. The Pirates will get there with Rowdy too, unless he actually produces. My point is, he’s gotten this much time expressly because nobody provided enough of what he was signed to provide.

Even my Abreu example is tainted, the Astros had seen an entire season of less than they paid for and this year he was just a shell of a baseball player let alone the absolute beast he was.

Fans are never going to be happy watching a guy struggle at the plate, especially a guy who has a history of not being perfect.

I’m not nearly as ready to claim Rowdy is back and going to perform from here on out like the broadcast seemed to crow about last week, but I am willing to hope for it.

Jack Suwinski keeps getting chances for many of the same reasons as Rowdy, and his ability to play Center field. His late inning 2 run shot in the opening game of the Rockies Series is exactly why. If he does that once or twice a week and almost nothing else, it’s more valuable than another right handed hitter. Jack has now been given almost 1,000 MLB at bats, so the massive adjustments and the deep dark slumps that engulf the far too infrequent hot streaks is becoming less about reaching potential and more about learning what’s there. 50 homeruns in that stretch is nothing to sneeze at, it’s certainly not something to DFA unless you have no choice by way of running him out of options.

A playoff team may never be able to accept a player with Jack’s profile, but there was one way to find out, playing him.

That’s what this is really about, understanding the only way to answer questions in baseball is to play. Henry Davis is a bust right this second if you decide you’re never going to give him another chance. Giving him a chance, yeah, it might mean you have to watch him look like an adult fishing with a toddler’s pole at times in the batters box, but he’s going to play, when healthy. It does this team no favors to enter next year still unsure what they have with Henry, or at the very least, to be sure they’re giving him the right list of things to work on this Winter.

Quinn Priester isn’t a bust, he’s a young starter with a bunch of stuff. He could go the way of Wil Crowe, or he could transform himself into a Mitch Keller type. If you’re the Pirates, it’s worth some patience, and yes, even some games “they clearly don’t care about winning” by starting him.

They want to win, but they can’t just ignore this stuff has to continue. It’s never for one season going to be a thing this franchise can avoid. They’ll always be on boarding a kid somewhere.

As the deadline approaches though, you’ll likely see them become a bit more selective. For instance, you could see the team feel they need a veteran backup infielder and they might option Triolo down to make room for it. That’s not so much giving up on him as it is “OK kid, you showed us half a season, need some work”. Now let’s go get this thing.

You might see them upgrade Michael Taylor, Rowdy Tellez, Edward Olivares, and yes, Henry Davis/Yasmani Grandal, they may even find by then that Falter has excellence in him, but it’s a bit too inconsistent and choose to upgrade there.

Patience always comes with a timeline. If you mention the word, you’ve already decided what it means to you. For baseball teams, the definition is never 2 dimensional, and it certainly isn’t fair or the same for everyone.

Fans never like a slow start, and they’re almost always loathed to accept a turnaround until the success period has doubled the poor stretch. Most players will tell you everyone has a cold month, and they’d all tell you fans usually forgive it late but never forget it early.

So yeah, that’s the story of patience. Few fans have it in the moment, including me. But take a step back every once in a while and at least try to understand why situations are different for different players. You can still call them dumb, promise.

Starter Spotlight: Paint It Blach

6-15-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

A weird case of having a better ERA at home (3.86) than away (7.50), LHP Ty Blach does exactly two things really well this year: limiting walks and getting hitters to chase outside the zone. Unfortunately for him, everything else he does as is fairly pedestrian or worse.

In 10 games this season (7 starts), Blach has a 4.84 ERA and 1.41 WHIP with 22 Ks and 8 walks in 44.2 innings of work.

The 4.2% walk rate is a career-best rate and far lower than his 7% mark – likely due to the fact that he gets hitters chasing pitches out of the zone at an above average rate. However, those chases have not resulted in many strikeouts as his 11.5% is one of the lowest in baseball. No one has a lower rate with as many batters faced (192) as Blach and only Sixto Sanchez (10.5%) has a worse rate with more than 150 batters faced (162).

His arsenal consists of a high-80s sinker, low-80s changeup, low-80s cutter and high-70s curve. He runs the sinker middle-middle and keeps the changeup low. His cutter and curve also run low but have less consistency on the location. The intent is to create ground-balls but the results don’t quite match up.

He relies mostly on the sinker with the changeup as his main secondary option with both pitches fairing poorly in both surface and underlying metrics.

His sinker has been hit at a .355 clip and slugged at .505 while his changeup has opponents hitting .375 and slugging .500.

The cutter (.275 wOBA) and curve (.095 wOBA) have performed much better for Blach but in smaller sample sizes as his cutter had an oSLG of .652 in 43 batted ball events last season.

With the slow-tossing southpaw on the bump today, Pirates hitters should look to attack early and often.

Blach has a first pitch strike rate of 70.8% and he’s allowed 4 runs in each of his last two games with all of the damage coming in the first 4 innings. The team couldn’t get to Feltner yesterday but has fared well against lefties with a 102 wRC+ thus far this season and a .712 OPS in these situations – compared to .635 when facing RHP.

Take some good swings and attack the meatball sinkers and hanging changeups. This is a team the Pirates should beat and a pitcher they should pummel.

Let’s Go Bucs!

Series Preview: Pirates (32-36) at Rockies (24-44)

6-14-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on X

The Rockies enter just about every season as a bit of an enigma. They almost always have a couple exiting young players. They almost always have some long in the tooth veterans. And while their record every bit says they should be one of the few ready to consider themselves sellers at the deadline, you can’t ever anticipate which side of the fence this franchise will fall on.

The Pirates are also in last place in their division which happens to be a game and a half out of second and in the thick of the wild card race.

Again, the Rockies aren’t some talentless rabble, they’re just young and they don’t have enough pitching, especially for that ballpark, and they’re playing in a division with 4 teams with legitimate playoff aspirations.

Point is, let’s hope our young Pirates have learned some lessons from that A’s Series, there are no free wins in this league, especially for a team that just let a very big series against a division rival slip through their fingers.

If this team is going to make a move to stop being on the outside looking in with their nose pushed up against the window, they have to start scoring sweeps in series like this, and they simply can’t have anything less than a series win.

Problem is, they’re clearly using this weekend series as an opportunity to get an extra day of rest for their youngster starters Paul Skenes and Jared Jones. Necessary as it may be, you’d rather enter this series with the best of what you got as opposed to running a 3 legged race everyone else is running solo.

Not that I’d like it any better against the Reds. So if it has to be done….

Look around, our “worst division in baseball” is kinda shaping up to not even be the worst division in the National League.

6-14
Rockies – Ryan Feltner (R) – 1-5, 69 IP, 5.74 ERA, 59 Ks/19 walks, 1.48 WHIP
Pirates – TBD

6-15
Rockies – Ty Blach (L) – 2-4, 44.2 IP, 4.84 ERA, 22 Ks/8 walks, 1.41 WHIP
Pirates – Jared Jones (R) – 4-5, 74.1 IP, 3.27 ERA, 79 Ks/18 walks, 1.06 WHIP

6-16
Rockies – Dakota Hudson (R) – 2-8, 68.1 IP, 4.87 ERA, 36 Ks/35 walks, 1.40 WHIP
Pirates – TBD

Rockies:
Charlie Blackmon isn’t playing like a guy who’s 37 finishing off a career, he’s raking. In his past 15 games he’s slashing .339/.381/.492. He won’t kill you with the long ball, but he’s a master at legging out doubles in the high altitude and his age hasn’t made him a statue out there either.

Pirates:
Well, I’m going to go with Nick Gonzales. He’s had quite frankly a dream call up scenario playing out. It’s exactly what you pray a player will do with a demotion, you know, work harder, focus better, fix issues, and more than anything, don’t try to do all that stuff extra hard at the MLB level, just trust that you’re ready and get going. I could go back 30 games with Nick, he’s hit .308 in that span, or I could talk about his last 15, .310 over that stretch, or maybe we go to his scorching last 7 where he’s hit .333. Bottom line, for a month straight, this kid has hit, no matter where they asked him to do it, no matter who they asked him to do it against.

Rockies:
My absolute favorite potential trade target Ryan McMahon, the Rockies have already claimed they have no interest in moving. To make me feel better, in his last 15 games, Ryan is slashing .175/.254/.333. Now, this guy is a good hitter, he’ll get back to being himself before too long and he still has a season OPS of .812, so it’s not like this little swoon has killed his season, it’s just noting when arguably your best hitter is that down for a stretch.

Pirates:
As good as Nick Gonzales has been, Jack Suwinski is every bit as bad. He’s done virtually nothing since his recall from AAA but we can go back as far as we like really, this deep dark hole has lasted almost all season on the roster, and the lineup. Again, this team’s need for left handed power forces the team to give him a chance, but all things much come to an end. In 159 ABs this year, he’s only got 27 hits, 5 of which were homeruns. An average of .170, a .265 OBP and an OPS of .561. This is a guy who’s hit 50 homeruns in 932 at bats, and while I believe he needs sent down, he’s not a guy I’d flush either. There’s value there even if you wind up turning him into a platoon player. That doesn’t mean you have to or should force it to happen here. Even if the move is for Josh Palacios, the Pirates must start to really help this kid.

Key Injuries

The Pirates have some things to think about here. Martin Perez should be returning shortly, maybe as early as this weekend. Marco Gonzales, and Ryan Borucki threw and are on to their next steps. Mike Burrows is about to start throwing sim games. Joshua Palacios was just returned form the IL.

The Rockies, stop me if you heard this one before, are missing Kris Bryant with a Rib Contusion. Brendan Rodgers is out with a whammy in his hammy.

What To Watch

Henry Davis is an interesting watch this series. If he’s doing anything differently since coming back from AAA, it’s getting the ball in the air a bit more, that could be a nice recipe for a kid who tends to fly out to the warning track. This could be a confidence building series for a kid who in my mind did not make enough adjustments at the MiLB level before being called on, and sometimes confidence can help a kid fake it for a while. That’s my hope here.

Aside from that, really how the Pirates handle this starting pitching over the weekend. I’d hate to see them decimate a bullpen that is finally starting to show signs of functioning at least on the back end. And I’d hope they aren’t rushing back Perez if he isn’t 100%. Interesting situation. Again, I see the need to help preserve Jones and Skenes, in fact I think you’ve seen Jones on short rest and it wasn’t the best of him. I just wish they had more healthy depth.

Things I Got Wrong on the Pirates Before 2024 Started

6-14-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

It’s funny how much detail some of us approach offseason prognostication. We predict homerun totals, and Rookie of the Year contenders, you know, we’re silly. That’s not what I’m going to talk about today though.

We all get these silly predictions wrong. Even when we’re right.

For instance, I straight up nailed the Pirates win total of 76 wins last year, so yay for me, unfortunately, I was just as wrong about how it would come to be.

This year I’ve predicted 84 wins, and already, with 90+ games remaining on the schedule I can see a world where that number is right, but it won’t have played out anywhere near the way I saw it.

Today, let’s talk about all the things that have gone in an entirely different direction than I had forecast.

The Starting Rotation

I could just leave it there really. I thought it would be bad early and gain strength as the year played out. I could probably just talk about Bailey Falter for a paragraph or two and show you how wrong I was right?

Well, a few things really surprised me.

First, I don’t think I truly believed the Pirates would let Jared Jones come North with the team until like, well, when I saw him pitching in a Pirates uniform and the regular season was underway.

I absolutely thought Jared would play a role this year, even gave him an outside shot at beating Skenes to the punch, but in no way did I imagine one of these two pitchers breaks camp and it’s Jared Jones.

Further, I think if anyone told you they expected to get what he’s provided at any point during this season, they’re at least stretching the truth. He’s been every bit a phenom, and while I was very high on him, It hasn’t been 6 months since I was questioning whether he’d make it as a starter or reliever.

Happily, dead wrong. Thought of him as a mid season addition at best and even then, not looking like he has.

Paul Skenes is different, and I knew he was. The team talked about him differently too, they knew what they got and to their credit they shocked me for sure and I’m assuming many of you by not playing Super 2 games with him.

For reference, we’d just likely be seeing him right now if they had, and this isn’t without risk, if he wins rookie of the year the Pirates lose a year of control, and get no draft pick compensation for it. Know what? I’m friggin’ proud they didn’t care and just made the move. He was playing wiffle ball in AAA, and he’s already pitching to veteran hitters like he’s been doing this for a decade.

Even so, I didn’t expect it. I find it hard to “expect” things that I’ve never seen. I’ve never seen a pitcher get called up to my team and dominate the league, once, let alone twice. So pardon me, I didn’t feel it fair to the kid or myself to expect this level of dominance.

Pile all that together, that’s 3/5 of a starting rotation I thought maybe I’d have gotten something out of at this point, that my friends is as dead wrong as you can get.

Lefty Power

I thought as I looked at the bits and pieces the Pirates were conglomerating, if they did one thing, it would be to hit homeruns against righties.

I looked at Oneil Cruz and ignored how hard being down for a year was going to be for him.

I saw Rowdy Tellez and figured he’d play average defense and hit 10-15 on the low side.

Bryan Reynolds I had penciled in for 15 from that side and Jack Suwinski I had as a lock for 20, I straight up thought this would be their dominant lineup.

The Pirates have a team OPS of .630 for the season facing right handed pitching. I don’t need to quote you individual stats or whatever here, you know the names and faces and you know how much better this team has fared against left handed pitching.

It’s been the main reason in my mind for the Pirates failure to really string together wins. Statistically speaking, you’re still going to face far more right handed pitching than you are left handed. It’s simply not been the Pirates strong side, and it’s killing them. To the point it’s the number one priority for acquisitions right now. Lefty power.

The Powerful Pen

It has not been that at all.

Lots of excuses for that. Chapman always does this stuff. Bednar should have maybe started on the IL. Holderman got sick. Mlodzinski got hurt. Moreta and Borucki injuries. Take it wherever you want.

The Pirates have made some very curious moves with their bullpen.

Let me tell a little story here, and before I do, I’m in no way claiming the Pirates have a garage full of fancy cars to choose from for the bullpen.

I had a neighbor growing up, super nice guy, used to let us fish in his pond on his estate. The owner had a gigantic garage with 13 cars in it. He had 6 kids, and as they grew and got their licenses, he would give each of them a car. Finally when he got through them all I was talking to him down at the pond and he says I have to get a new car. I remember looking at him like he was nuts, I was like don’t you have like 13? He goes on to explain his kids took all the cars you could actually drive around here. So he had to go get a car to actually drive.

The Pirates in my mind have frivolously tossed away much needed depth from their bullpen this year, either by making rash decisions or bouncing them up and down so much they can’t get their bearings anywhere.

Ben Heller, Wily Peralta, Eric Lauer, Jose Hernandez, Josh Fleming (retained), Roansy Contreras have all been given their release, DFA’d, in some cases a move was made in a panicked fashion to make sure they got to see his AAA numbers not play out in MLB with Ben Heller.

Ryder Ryan is up and down and up and down and sometimes not pitching at all for a week.

I really do believe arms like Mlodzinski and Kyle Nicolas, have a role and I advise patience with both, I really think the team needs them, but can you tell me everything that’s happened since moving on from Contreras has been better than what Contreras was providing?

Was Jose Hernandez, a guy you held on to all year as a Rule 5 player, and allowed to pitch 50 innings, some in high leverage really so bad you had to DFA him? A guy with options and YEARS of control. A lefty, who’s already shown you he has something there. Were they that tight on the 40-man? Really?

Can you look me in the eye and say they won’t claim someone off waivers soon who is at least not as good as what we’ve seen Hernandez do here?

Frankly, I think they got some underperformances that timed up together, and further I think they made some of that timing happen.

They’ve taken a bullpen that should be well rested based on their starters delivering 375.2 innings, that’s 7th in all of baseball to this point and they’ve eliminated the advantage by shuffling it at weird times and choosing to use some members so sparingly they might as well be carrying a 6th starter.

The constant need to refresh partially came from not having the ability to move out underperforming veterans and instead having to shuffle out arms that weren’t necessarily taxed as much as having the ability to be shuffled.

We’re seeing signs that the backend is forming now, and Hunter Stratton going down will deal another blow.

Suffice to say, this has not been the strength I saw it to be. In fact I saw this facet carrying the staff up to close to this point.

The Worst Division in Baseball

I thought for sure it would be the NL Central or the AL Central. Early on though, it’s easily been the NL East.

Outside of the Dodgers, it’s possible the NL East still has the 2 best teams in the league in the Phillies and Braves, but the Braves have hit a rough patch in the wake of losing Ronald Acuna Jr. and last place in the central would be good for 3rd over there.

I could even make a strong case for the AL West, only the Mariners are above .500 out there.

Maybe I was a bit extra claiming the NL Central would be the weakest division in baseball, but it’s certainly shaking out to be one of the tightest. If Milwaukee falls back to the pack at all we could legitimately be looking at 5 teams who all think they’re in the division race and the Wild Card, that simply can’t be seen as “weak”.

Starter Spotlight: A Feel For Feltner

6-14-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

When the Pirates last faced Ryan Feltner on May 5th, he lasted just 5.2 innings allowing 5 runs off 8 hits. It was a very poor showing that is not even in his top 5 worst outings this season as Feltner has had a VERY rough season. This is despite having fairly decent stuff and is more a result of some UNREAL bad luck for the Rockies starter.

Among all qualified pitchers, Feltner has the 2nd highest ERA (5.74) but his xERA of 3.69 is the same as Mariners ace, Luis Castillo. His ERA-FIP (1.69) is the largest in MLB as his FIP of 4.05 is better than Twins starter, Pablo Lopez (4.12), or Yankees rotation piece, Carlos Rodon (4.10).

So why are the results not matching expected values? Well, he allows a LOT of baserunners with 83 hits, 19 walks and 2 batters reaching via hit by pitch for a WHIP of 1.48. If it weren’t for Patrick Corbin, Feltner would be leading in a number of unsavory categories.

But I mentioned bad luck before because Feltner’s BABIP of .339 is the third highest in MLB despite not allowing an exceptional amount of hard hit balls or doing really any one thing particularly poorly.

Yes, he doesn’t have a great K rate. Most starting pitchers are comfortably striking out 20% of hitters or more, and Feltner’s 19.2% mark ranks 59th among qualified starting pitchers. But, overall, these are not metrics you expect to result in some of the WORST numbers in MLB. Enter: Coors Field.

Playing away games this year, Feltner has been a below average – but still serviceable – starting pitcher. At home? Woof!

These sub-par numbers are bolstered by an UNREAL .390 BABIP, which will eventually regress to the mean – but hopefully, not until his next home start.

Feltner works mostly mid-90s fastball and high-80s slider, though he also offers his mid-80s changeup, mid-90s sinker and infrequent curve in high-70s.

His slider and changeup have been hit the hardest though he has been leaving more on fastball/sinker in his recent few starts.

Hitters should expect a healthy dose of fastballs tonight and just need to be ready for them.

Let’s Go Bucs!

Starter Spotlight: Looking to Win Against Lynn

6-13-24 – By Michael Castrignano – @412DoublePlay on X

After splitting the first two games in the series in St. Louis, the Pirates look to win the rubber match against long-time rival, Lance Lynn. 

Lynn has a 7-8 record with an ERA of 5.31 and 108 strikeouts in 24 career appearances versus the Pirates – but most players currently on the roster have never faced the veteran righty.

After posting one of the highest ERAs in MLB last year among qualified starters (5.73), Lynn has bounced back in his return to the Cardinals, where he spent the first seven years of his career. 

In 13 starts this season, he has a 2-3 record with a 3.58 ERA and 63 strikeouts in 65.1 innings. While his resurgence in his return to the Cardinals on the surface appears to follow in the footsteps of Albert Pujols, the underlying metrics paint a far less rosy picture.

For starters, Lynn’s strikeout rate (21.7%) is his lowest since 2017 while his walk rate (9.3%) is his highest since 2018. His xERA (4.30), FIP (3.99) and xFIP (4.17) weight heavily on these numbers to predict expected values.

Home runs have historically been an issue for Lynn. He allowed an MLB-leading 44 last year with a 19% HR/FB rate and 2.16 HR/9 – some unsustainably high figures. This year, he has somehow cut his HR/9 down to 0.96 and HR/FB rate to 9.6% despite still allowing hard contact with an average exit velocity of  88.6 MPH, an 8.7% barrel rate and 38% fly ball rate. These all point to a likely regression ahead for the veteran Cardinals starter – and hopefully, that starts today.

Looking at Lynn’s arsenal, his main 3 pitches are all around the same high-80s/low-90s range, working a 4-seam fastball, cutter and sinker with infrequent low-80s slider and mid-80s change.

The lack of velocity range allows hitters to maintain timing on his pitches as he uses them indiscriminately against both lefties and righties. 

His fastball has been his most used and most effective pitch in the early going with an oBA of .194 and oSLG of .366. When hitters do time the pitch up, however, it’s led to 4 of his 7 home runs and has an EV of 91.6 so hitters shouldn’t discount attacking the pitch.

Opponents have had a fair bit of success against his cutter (.432 oSLG) and his sinker  (.417 oSLG) so look for hitters to try hunting one of them to drive in the game today.

Lynn has posted worse numbers at home (4.55 ERA in 29.2 IP) than away (2.78 in 35.2) this year but has a 2.84 ERA in day games versus 4.28 ERA at night. 

Pirates hitters need to be patient with Lynn, take walks and ambush mistakes. This is a beatable pitcher and winnable series so team needs to take advantage and prepare to head to Colorado on a high note.

Let’s Go Bucs!