Pittsburgh Pirates: Dovydas Neverauskas Needs to Go

The Pittsburgh Pirates have invested a lot of time into a certain reliever. However, he has failed multiple times and should be out of chances.

The Pittsburgh Pirates need to make a change. Yes, it is easy to complain about Adam Frazier‘s struggles, Jung Ho Kang‘s inconsistencies, and Jordan Lyles‘ up and down season. While frustrating, they have a higher expectation that fans have seen them meet. However, there is one specific player on the roster right now who flat out should not be anymore.

It is time for the Pittsburgh Pirates to cut ties with right-handed reliever Dovydas Neverauskas. Yes, he is a very intriguing story to follow, being the first Lithuanian born player to make the big leagues. Also, he has overall been a very intriguing prospect since joining the Pittsburgh Pirates organization.

He started off in the organization as a starting pitcher after signing with the team as a 16-year-old. The Bucs brought Neverauskas over from Lithuania back in 2009 as an International Amateur Free Agent. He was not very effective as a starter and in 2015 the Pittsburgh Pirates converted him into a relief pitcher.

This made sense as Neverauskas has all the projectability one could ask for in a relief prospect. He still shows it today, he throws in the mid to upper 90s and has a decent slider. While he has pitched very well as a reliever throughout his minor league career, he just has not cut it at the big league level.

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After a brief cup of coffee at the end of the 2017 season, which saw him post a decent 3.91 ERA, many had some optimism about the right-hander’s futures. However, he did not improve on those numbers during the 2018 year. He got pounded in his 27 innings of work (went up and down throughout the year) pitching to an ERA of 8.00. Still, he was throwing hard and was striking out nine batters per nine innings pitched.

Well, here the Bucs are in 2019 and they once again have Dovydas getting hit hard out of the bullpen. The 26-year-old is carrying an ERA of 10.61 in just 9.1 innings of work. His FIP and xFIP are not much better, both being around 6.5. Furthermore, he is walking over six batters per nine innings pitched and is seeing opposing batters hit .297 off of him, a recipe for disaster.

That disaster came to full fruition last night against the Milwaukee Brewers. The Bucs were down by a score of two-to-one when Neverauskas served up four more runs. First, Jesus Aguilar, who is hitting .209, took him deep for a two run shot.

That was quickly followed up later in the inning with another two-run jack to back up catcher Manny Pina. Both of these came in the eighth inning, expanding the Brewers lead from one run to five runs. Now, the Bucs ended up scoring five runs, but the club shouldn’t have been in that spot.

Clint Hurdle has to get creative with his bullpen to eat up some innings. But, this isn’t even about last nights game. This is about Neverauskas once again proving that he cannot effectively get outs at the big league level.

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Not only should the Pittsburgh Pirates get Neverauskas off the big league roster, but they should cut him altogether. He gets hit hard and lets too many players on base. At this point, he needs to be designated for assignment off the 40 man roster. This will put him on waivers, where he very well could be claimed due to his pure stuff and age. If a team wants to try a fix him so be it. With the club competing in the NL Central race, the Bucs cannot afford to have him spend any more games in their bullpen.

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