Pittsburgh Pirates: Examining Richard Rodriguez’s Early 2020 Success

After struggling in 2019, reliever Richard Rodriguez is off to a terrific start for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2020. Let’s examine what’s driving that success.

In 2018, Pittsburgh Pirates reviler Richard Rodirguez was one of the most underrated relief pitchers in baseball. Through 69.1 innings, Rodriguez worked to a 2.47 ERA, 2.60 FIP and 1.07 WHIP. The right hander was a strikeout machine, getting 31.5% of the batters he faced down on strike three.

To go with that, Rodriguez had a walk rate of just 6.8%. He also allowed just five long balls for a 0.65 HR/9. ERA estimators pinned Rodriguez as a good pitcher too with a 2.73 SIERA, 2.63 xERA, 3.47 xFIP, and 2.82 DRA. Overall, Rich Rod had a 1.3 fWAR. That tied him with Red Sox shutdown relief pitcher Craig Kimbrel, and outpaced notable names like Brad Hand, Seth Lugo and David Hernandez.

Obviously, after such an effective 2018, Rodriguez had expectations to meet in 2019, but he failed in many ways. Sure, he had a 3.72 ERA through 65.1 innings, but that’s about where the positives end, if you want to call that a positive considering it was a 1.25 rise from 2018.

Rodriguez saw his strikeout rate take a big dip down to just 22.1%. Though his walk rate was still a manageable 8.1%, it was still a rise. But Rodriguez got absolutely pounded by the long ball. He gave up nearly triple the amount of home runs from 2018, surrendering 14 for a 1.93 HR/9. His ERA estimators placed him as a well below average pitcher, clocking in with a 5.22 FIP, 4.99 xFIP, 4.30 SIERA, 4.06 xERA, and 4.70 DRA. It’s very surprising that his ERA wasn’t closer to 5 than it was to 4.

Before we see what he’s done to improve his results in 2020, let’s look at what made Rodriguez struggle so much between 2018 and 2019. One of his biggest culprits was being a predictable pitcher. Rich Rod was using his fastball 75.1% of the time in 2018, and his slider 24.8% of the time. He also didn’t use a sinker once during the season. But in 2019, Rodriguez started to use his fastball 81.9% of the time, and his slider just 14.3% of the time. He also started to use a sinker about 3.3% of the time.

His fastball-slider combo was his bread and butter combo, but he started to use his fastball noticeably more often, and his slider a decent amount less. While his fastball was quite effective in 2018, throwing it all the time means you’re going to get predictable, and many can’t get away with it unless you’re Aroldis Chapman. This overall made them less effective pitches. His put away percentage with his fastball and slider in 2018 was 22.3% and 23.2%. In 2019, those were 15.7% and 19.6%.

Another thing that really hurt Rodriguez was batted ball results. Though he induced more ground balls and less fly balls, batters were able to hit the ball harder off of Rich Rod. His hard hit rate went from 33.5% in 2018 to 39.2% in 2019. His opponent exit velocity went from 88.3 MPH to 89.8 MPH.

So far in 2020, Rodriguez has only pitched 9.2 innings with the Pittsburgh Pirates, but the results have been good. He’s allowed just 3 earned runs, and has seen his strikeout rate jump to an outstanding 36.1% rate and his walk rate go to 2.8%. The big thing is he has allowed just one home run.

The batted ball results aren’t super pretty. His exit velocity is 94.3 MPH and his hard hit rate is 52.9%. But the results on his fastball and slider are back, and better than they were in 2018. Rodriguez isn’t nearly as predictable as he was in 2019. He’s using his fastball just 53.4% of the time, and his slider now 31.6% of the time. To mix in with those two pitches, he’s now using his sinker 15% of the time.

He’s also seen his spin rate tick up to 2511 RPM with his fastball, a career high. Just to show how good that is, his fastball RPM in 2019 was 2506, and that placed him in the top 92nd percentile. That spin has helped him put away 20% of the batters that have faced that pitch. His slider put out percentage is now sitting at 46.2%, and his sinker put out percentage is 20%.

So far, ERA estimators have been kind to the right hander. Currently, he has a 2.73 SIERA, 3.61 xFIP, and 2.47 xERA. Hopefully, that points to Rodriguez to continue his early season success. While he is in his age 30 season already, if Rodriguez can show he can continue to produce the good numbers he has so far in 2019, he might become a key cog in the bullpen for the Pittsburgh Pirates in the coming years. After all, he is controllable through the 2023 season.