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Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Intriguing Players on the Opening Day Roster
After announcing the Opening Day roster yesterday, these three players are some of the more intriguing names for fans of the Pittsburgh Pirates to keep an eye on early in the 2020 season
Happy Opening Day, friends! Yesterday, the Pittsburgh Pirates announced their 30-man Opening Day roster. These 30 players will be the players that the Pittsburgh Pirates will go to war with to start the 2020 season.
While rosters will eventually have to be trimmed down to 28 players and then down to 26, for now at least, teams will have 30 players at their disposal. With four more spots than what was planned on the rosters, that means that every team has a couple of intriguing names that made the final cut that probably would not have made it under normal circumstances.
But 2020 is not normal. And the Pirates have a few of those guys on their roster as well. These three are the more intriguing names to keep an eye on to start this year.
Left Handed Relief Pitcher Nik Turley
Nik Turley is one of the four left0handed pitchers to make the Pittsburgh Pirates roster. However, as of right now, only he and Robbie Erlin are the only ones projected to be bullpen arms to open 2020.
Turley was claimed off waivers by the Pittsburgh Pirates from the Minnesota Twins way back in November 2017. Turley hasn’t seen the Major Leagues since that year. With the Twins, the lefty only appeared in 17.2 innings, but surrendered 22 earned runs on five home runs, 30 hits, and eight walks.
However, in Triple-A during 2017, he was a quite solid swing man. In 67.2 innings, the lefty had a 2.66 ERA, 1.18 WHIP and 2.84 FIP. He also struck out quite a few batters registering a 28.9% strikeout rate, and walking just 8.1% of the batters he faced. Turley allowed four long balls for a 0.5 HR/9.
Not only was 2017 the last year Turley was in the MLB, but the last year he was even in professional ball. After being claimed off waivers, Turley tested positive for PEDs, which led to an 80-game suspension in 2018. After being activated from the restricted list, Turley was placed on the 60-day injured list with an elbow strain. He missed all of 2019 as well with elbow issues still affecting him.
However, the Pittsburgh Pirates claimed Turley for a reason. His fastball can reach into the 93-94 MPH range and sits in the top 99th percentile in spin rate. He also has a curveball that sits in the top 85th percentile of spin rate as well. If he can do somewhat well, Turley could be an attractive trade piece come this winter.
Outfielder Jason Martin
Jason Martin was one of the pieces the Pittsburgh Pirates acquired in the Gerrit Cole trade, but he’s yet to establish himself in the Pirates organization. Last year, Martin got off to a hot start at Triple-A. Through his first 289 plate appearances of 2018, he was batting .325/.392/.522 with nine home runs and 13 doubles. All told having an outstanding 152 wRC+ and .403 wOBA.
But once he was promoted to Triple-A, the wheels fell completely off. His next 234 plate appearances saw him hit just .211/.270/.319 with just 12 more extra base hits. Martin’s wRC+ fell by nearly 100% down to just 65 while his wOBA fell dramatically to .268.
Last year, Martin spent most of his time at Indianapolis, but turned in a .259/.312/.419 line, 8 home runs, 25 doubles and an 83 wRC+. Martin did make his major league debut in 2019, but he didn’t do any better. Through 40 plate appearances with the Pirates, Martin hit just .250/.325/.306 with a .282 wOBA and 72 wRC+.
Defensively, he isn’t going to wow anyone. His short amount of time in the Majors saw him have -3 DRS, -1 arm runs above average -0.3 range runs above average and a -1.4 UZR. FanGraphs only gives him a future grade of 50 fielding with a 50 arm/throw grade.
Martin does provide some value as a base runner. He did have 1.6 base running runs above average during his major league stint. He also clocked in with an 28.1 feet/second sprint speed, which ranks in the top 76th percentile of runners in 2019. With the way extra innings work, and other guys who are more capable in the outfield like Adam Frazier and Guillermo Heredia, Martin will likely not see too many chances to hit, and mainly used as a pinch runner.
Utility Man Phillip Evans
Phillp Evans kind of appeared out of nowhere, but is making the Pittsburgh Pirates roster. Evans, a former New York Mets farmhand, has only appeared in 34 MLB games, that being in 2017 and 2018 with the Mets. He only collected 61 total plate appearances, and getting 13 hits, two of which were doubles, walked six times, and stuck out 16 times.
Last year, Evans spent the entire 2019 season with the Chicago Cubs’ Triple-A affiliate. He didn’t do all that bad, hitting .283/.371/.470 with 17 home runs. While that might be pretty good production at the Triple-A level, remember he did play in the Pacific Coast League.
The same league where the league leader in home runs, Kevin Cron, slammed 38 in just 82 games, and 2019 Rookie of the Year hit 23 in just the 50 games before he was called to the Majors. All told there were 63, 20+ home run hitters, but Evans still clocked in with a 106 wRC+ making him 6% above average.
Evans has a Triple-A slash of .276/.351/.464 with 42 home runs through 1294 plate appearances. He also had a solid 9.3% walk rate at the level, but an impressive 15.1% K rate at the level.
During the preseason this year, Evans was outstanding. While it was a very small sample size of 33 plate appearances, he hit for a .333/.405/.636 slash line with two home runs and four doubles.
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He could be a solid right handed platoon with Colin Moran until Ke’Bryan Hayes’ service time clock is ready. After all, he hit southpaws for a .349/.430/.550 line in 2019. Even if he can carry over any semblance of that production vs LHP in 2020, he might be a solid bench bat and platoon man.