Pittsburgh Pirates: Examining Potential 2023 Bullpen Arms

The Pittsburgh Pirates have an extremely deep farm system, but one area that they have a handful of young players at is relief pitching. So in a few years, what could the bullpen look like?

When the Pittsburgh Pirates were a postseason squad from 2013 to 2015, arguably their biggest strength was their bullpen. They rarely blew a lead once they started up the Shark Tank, boasting a pen that included Mark Melancon, Jason Grilli, Tony Watson, Jared Hughes, Jeanmar Gomez, Justin Wilson, and a handful of others. The bullpen has become some team’s greatest weapons, and by 2023, when the Pittsburgh Pirates should be ready to re enter competition, they could have a really strong bullpen.

Recently, we’ve went over what the Pirates’ line-up and rotation could look like in 2023. Their farm system is loaded with a ton of bullpen arms with a lot of potential. So today, let’s look at a handful of relief arms that the Pirates might be relying on out of the bullpen in a couple of seasons.

Geoff Hartlieb

2023 Opening Day Age: 29

Geoff Hartlieb has slowly become a hidden gem in the Pirate bullpen. Though he struggled in 2019 during his first call to the Majors, Hartlieb has some seriously impressive stuff. After all, just look at his Triple-A numbers. Through the 39.2 innings, the right hander pitched to the tune of a 2.50 ERA, 2.24 FIP, and 1.16 WHIP. He was a strikeout machine, getting 30.7% of the batters he faced on a third strike. He did have an unimpressive 9.2% walk rate, but he allowed no home runs on an absurd 63.2% ground ball rate. In a league where the long ball was king, he allowed no home runs, making that feat even more impressive.

Hartlieb mainly works with two pitches. His primary pitch in 2020 looks to be his sinker. He can throw it upwards of 94+ MPH, but it has some insane movement with 25-28 inches of vertical drop, and 15-16 inches of horizontal break. But it’s his slider that truly gets the strikeouts. The pitch sits in the 82-85 MPH range, but it also has some crazy movement too.

Hartlieb has put a lot more vertical movement on it so far this year, seeing it drop from 36.1 inches last year to 42.9 inches this year. But with 12.2 inches of horizontal break, it’s one of the best sliders in all of baseball. Last year with 8.8 inches of break, it ranked as the 30th break, and was one of 20 different pitchers to have a slider that was at least 100% better than the average break.

Hartlieb also has a change up which he has used sparingly compared to 2019, and hasn’t thrown his fastball yet, which is ok. His fastball had very little movement on it, but if he ever were to bring it back, all it might need is a small tweak speaking that it had 2479 RPM.