Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Under the Radar Players to Watch in 2020

Pitcher Chad Kuhl

Chad Kuhl, despite missing most of 2018 and all of 2019 to Tommy John surgery, has a lot of potential in his arm. But so far in Kuhl’s career, he hasn’t put up the numbers you’d expect for a guy with his velocity and movement on his pitches.

In the 313 innings Kuhl has pitched at the MLB level, the right hander has a 4.37 ERA, 4.30 FIP and 1.42 WHIP. To go along with that, he only has a 20.4% strikeout rate and 9.2% walk rate. Although home runs haven’t been a big issue, they haven’t necessarily been his strong suit with a 1.1 HR/9. However he does have a solid 41% ground ball rate. Kuhl’s ERA estimators don’t paint him in a much brighter light with a 4.52 xFIP, 4.61 SIERA and 4.94 Deserved Run Average.

However, Kuhl’s pitch arsenal shows he can be a really good pitcher. Kuhl can run his fastball into the mid-to-upper-90s, hitting triple digits on occasion, along with some movement. In 2018, the pitch had 14.4 inches of vertical movement to go with 11.4 inches of horizontal movement. He was one of 22 pitchers who had both above average vertical and horizontal movement on their four-seamer and threw it for at least 95 MPH.

His curveball is the pitch that has the most potential, and it’s been his least used pitch throughout his career. Impressively, it sits in the top 96th percentile of spin rate, which gives it some of the most potential for outstanding movement in the Major Leagues. Kuhl can already put about 53.4 inches of vertical movement and 10.2 inches of horizontal movement on it, that being 6% and 24% better than the average.

He also uses a slider, change up and sinker. Though none of them have the kind of movement his fastball and curveball do, his slider still has above average movement both horizontally and vertically, and his change-up and sinker have above average horizontal movement.

To begin the season, Kuhl will piggyback starts with left-hander Steven Brault. Not only does this shortened season limit the risk of injury, but so will only having to pitch 3 or 4 innings each outing. This will help him ease back into playing after missing a season and a half from Tommy John surgery.

Pitcher Geoff Hartlieb

Many are still overlooking Geoff Hartlieb’s talent after a poor showing in his first 35 innings. Despite giving up 35 earned runs, eight home runs, and 18 walks, Hartlieb has the potential to be one of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ next closing pitcher options.

Just take a look at his Triple-A numbers. Through 39.2 innings, Hartlieb had a 2.50 ERA, 2.24 FIP and 1.16 WHIP. He also struck out over 30% of the batters he faced, getting 50 of the 163 batters down on strike three, and was solid at controlling free passes with a 9.2% walk rate.

The most impressive part of Hartlieb’s 2019 season at Indy was how well he suppressed home runs. Triple-A’s International league, the Indinapolis Indians’ league, last year had 29 players who had at least 20 home runs, and nearly 50 hit at least 15. 40 players had at least a slugging percentage of .500 and 200 plate appearances. Despite the juiced ball, and everyone hitting home runs, Hartlieb allowed no long balls with an outstanding 63.2% ground ball rate to go with it.

Hartlieb’s best pitch is his sinker, which he can run up into the mid-90s. Last year, it sat at 95 MPH on average. But has some sick movement to go with it. With 27.5 inches of vertical drop, and 16.5 inches of horizontal break, he has the fourth highest vertical drop mark, sitting behind Clay Holmes, Jared Hughes and T.J. McFarland, and his horizontal movement is still 1.6 inches better than the average. He is just one of 12 pitchers to throw their sinker at least 95 MPH and have above average movement both ways.

Hartlieb also has an outstanding slider to go along with it. With 8.8 inches of horizontal movement, he is one of 22 pitchers to have a slider that has horizontal break over 100% above average. He can also throw it for a bit of drop too, 36.1 inches of drop. That’s about league average, but still, it’s one of the best sliders in the game right now.

Though his fastball has the least amount of movement, having both below average movement vertically and horizontally, that doesn’t mean it’s a bad pitch. Hartlieb averaged 96.4 MPH on the pitch, which places it in the top 86th percentile of fastball velocity. Plus it sits in the top 88th percentile of spin rate.

Hartlieb will also occasionally throw a change up. Although it’s his least used pitch, still has 31.1 inches of drop with 15.3 inches of break on it. Both sit above average at 13% and 5%. With four really good pitches, Hartlieb has closer potential.

Hartlieb also got a bit unlucky last year. For one, he had a .411 batting average on balls in play, in-part due to the lack of defense the Pirates had in 2019. Despite having a 20% soft contact rate (MLB average was 17%), 35.6% hard contact rate (MLB average was 38% per FanGaphs), and 47.7% ground ball rate with runners in scoring position, Hartlieb had a .395 BAbip and sub-60 left on base percentage.

First Baseman/Outfielder Jose Osuna

Jose Osuna is set to get regular reps at first base with Josh Bell likely seeing most of his time from designated hitter. Based on last year’s results, Osuna could be a breakout candidate for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Through the 285 plate appearances Osuna received, the right hander hit .270/.311/.456 line. That also came with 10 home runs and 20 doubles, and a .320 wOBA. Overall, Osuna’s body of work at the plate was roughly league average. He had a 100 OPS+, 97 wRC+ and his wOBA was exactly the league average. Plate discipline wise, Osuna only had a 16.8% strikeout rate. He isn’t known to be much of a big strikeout guy, with a minor league strikeout rate of just 15.9%, but it does come at the cost of his walk rate, with a 6.3% walk rate in 2019, and a career walk rate of 4.8%.

However, Osuna did post a bit of a higher xwOBA of .328, meaning there is still a bit of room for improvement. Osuna had an expected slash line of .274/.323/.447. While those aren’t great numbers, overall still making him a league average bat, it shows that he can improve upon his 2019 season. There is good reason to believe that he can outperform his expected stats. Osuna has an average exit velo of 89.2 MPH. The average exit velocity is 87.5 MPH. He also had a 37.4% hard hit rate, which is also better than the league average of 34.5%, per Baseball Savant.

Osuna has the hard hit rate and exit velocity to be a good batter. All he needs to do is get the ball in the air more. Last year, he had a 47.5% ground ball rate. The average BAbip on a ground ball was .236. If he can get the ball in the air just a bit more, Osuna could be an underrated good batter.