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

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.