Pittsburgh Pirates: A Mid-Season Recap of the 2020 Campaign

The Good

Who’s the most underrated player in baseball right now? If you said anyone other than Jacob Stallings, you’re wrong. Stallings has been outstanding so far in 2020. Through 75 plate appearances, the backstop is hitting .323/.397/.415 with one home run, and three doubles. All coming to a 124 OPS+ and 128 wRC+. Among catchers with at least 70 plate appearances, he ranks 6th in wRC+ and 5th wOBA (.360). He also has a 10.7% walk rate, a decent amount higher from his 2019 mark of 7.6%.

Not only has Stallings been outstanding with the bat, but he’s going to be a Gold Glove finalist. Stallings has +5 DRS, has caught 45% of the runners trying to steal on him, compared to the 25% league average, and has been worth 0.8 framing runs above average per FanGraphs’ framing metric and 8th in Baseball Prospectus’ framing metric. Stallings leads all catchers in FanGraphs’ framing runs and DRS, and very few catchers in the National League, let alone baseball in general, have come close to bringing the defensive value Stallings has so far. The thing is that he hasn’t caught nearly as many innings as many of the other catchers in baseball either.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have also gotten solid seasons from Trevor Williams, Chad Kuhl, and Steven Brault. Williams has so far only had one really bad start. Before his most recent start, Williams had a 3.70 ERA, 4.22 FIP and 1.35 WHIP in 24.1 innings. With a 21.7% strikeout rate and walk rate of just 7.5%, Williams has been an overall above average pitcher.

Brault’s surface numbers aren’t all that pretty with a 4.80 ERA, 4.54 FIP, and 1.46 WHIP going into Sunday. He’s also walked more batters than he’s struck out with 11 walks and 9 strikeouts. But he currently only has an opponent exit velocity of 86.9 MPH, and 21.4% soft contact rate. Plus in four of his first six outings, he’s allowed no runs.

Then on Sunday, Brault made that five out of seven outings. Lowering his ERA to 4.00 and FIP to 3.92.

Kuhl has seemed to have found his groove after missing all of 2019 from Tommy John surgery. In 25 innings, Kuhl is pitching to the tune of a 2.52 ERA and 1.08 WHIP. Though ERA estimators only pin him with a 5.46 FIP, 4.97 xFIP, 5.04 SIERA, and 4.75 DRA, Kuhl is still able to get his fastball into the 94 MPH range. Really good considering that he did have TJ surgery. Hopefully, this is the start of some progress for Kuhl to be an effective MLB pitcher.

In the bullpen, it’s been nice to see the emergence of Chris Stratton and Geoff Hartlieb. Though Stratton does have a 4.50 ERA, he carries a solid 3.33 FIP, 3.41 xFIP, 3.23 SIERA, and 3.26 DRA, meaning he’s gotten a bit unlucky. His 28.8% strikeout rate is a career high by a fair margin, as well as his 7.6% walk rate.

Hartlieb has been a solid relief pitcher through 13.2 innings as well. Currently, he has a 2.63 ERA, but his FIP (4.38) and xFIP (4.86) don’t paint him in a great light. This is because Hartlieb currently has a 21.7% strikeout rate and 15.0% walk rate. However, considering that he has never had a strikeout rate below 22% the last three years, and a walk rate higher than 10% in that time as well, Hartlieb has the track record to become a real force out of the pen.

The Bad

Josh Bell and Bryan Reynolds have yet to follow up their great 2019 seasons with productive 2020 seasons. While he does appear to be heating up, Bell is currently batting just .218/.270/.345 with a 66 wRC+ and .267 wOBA. He’s still making loud contact with a 91.3 MPH exit velocity and 42.7% hard hit rate to combat a soft contact rate of just 8%, but he’s putting the ball on the ground more often than not. Currently, he has a 50.8% ground ball rate, compared to just 44% last year.

Reynolds is batting for a measly .184/.270/.320 line with a 61 OPS+ and 62 wRC+. That also comes with a .262 wOBA. Bell and Reynolds have essentially been the same hitter this year. Like Bell, Reynolds is making hard contact often with a 44.8% hard hit rate and 7.5% soft contact rate. Though he’s not hitting as many ground balls, he’s hitting a ton more fly balls with a 35.8% fly ball rate. But his home run to fly ball ratio is 8.3%. He has been really good defensively in left with +3 DRS, 1.9 arm runs above average and 1.1 UZR, but aside from that Reynolds has been struggling at the plate very much.

If you want to talk about strange, let’s look at Gregory Polanco. Polanco has a 95.9 MPH exit velocity, and a 57.9% hard hit rate. He’s second in the MLB in exit velocity and 4th in hard hit rate. But he’s batting just .120/.202/.347 with a 44 wRC+ and .235 wOBA. Now granted, he does have a 42.5% strikeout rate, but haven’t the results followed him absolutely crushing the baseball almost every time he makes contact? Well it’s probably to do with his 50% fly ball rate, and career low line drive rate. If he could start hitting more line drives, then he would be probably one of the best batters in baseball in 2020.

Middle infielders Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman are also struggling after solid or better 2019 seasons. Newman is carrying a .264/.313/.330 line and 78 wRC+ with Frazier only hitting .207/.258/.328 with a 59 wRC+.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have also been ravaged by injuries. Clay Holmes, Joe Musgrove, Mitch Keller, Nick Burdi, Michael Feliz, Keone Kela, Kyle Crick, Phillip Evans, and Colin Moran all are either on the injured list, or have spent a significant portion of the season injured. They were all expected to play major roles in the 2020 Pirates, and many of them were considered breakout candidates. Especially Keller, Holmes, Feliz, and Evans.

Since then, the Pittsburgh Pirates have used patchwork with varying results. Though Nik Turley and Sam Howard have been pretty solid this year, Richard Rodriguez has been inconsistent once again. Though he has seen his strikeout rate skyrocket to 35.3% and his walk rate dip to 3.9%, the long ball has been brutal to him as he’s surrendered 3. Dovydas Neverauskas has the third highest ERA (7.02) and 4th highest FIP (5.92) in Pittsburgh Pirates history among pitchers with at least 70 innings in a Pirate uniform.

The Future

As of writing this, the deadline is just a day away. So by the time you read it, it will be trade deadline day. Meaning that many of the players, like Frazier, Musgrove, Derek Holland, and Williams might be traded by the time you read this. But if they are traded by then, I have faith that Ben Cherington got the most back he possibly could for all of them.

Right now, the Pittsburgh Pirates have the 6th best farm system in baseball and with 6, top 100 prospects, are tied with the Padres for the team with the most top 100 players. The Padres rank 2nd in comparison. With many controllable pieces the Pirates have available to them to trade, they could possibly have a top 5 farm system, or even better after the deadline.

As for the rest of the year, the Pirates will still be playing for the #1 overall pick in the 2021 MLB draft. This is a rebuild year, and anyone who the Pirates can trade for decent prospects, or international bonus pool money should be traded.. Jack Leiter has taken over Kumar Rocker as the best draft prospect by FanGraphs’ rankings. So by the end of 2021, they should have one of Rocker or Leiter on their system.