Pittsburgh Pirates: Looking At Potential Extension Candidates

Josh Bell

The one player the Pittsburgh Pirates have stated they are looking into extending is Josh Bell. Bell’s career has been an up and down roller coaster up through this point. After showing good power in his rookie season and improved plate discipline at the cost of some power in his sophomore season, Bell had a career year in 2019. Through 613 plate appearances, the switch hitter put up a .277/.367/.569 line, blasted 37 home runs and put up a .378 wOBA and 135 wRC+.

Still, 2019 was a tale of three Bells. Bell looked like an MVP-level bat in his first two months hitting .343/.405/.704 with a 178 wRC+ in 242 plate appearances. Then during the first two summer months, Bell slumped big time posting a .213/.318/.448 with a 94 wRC+ in 217 plate appearances. He did rebound in August and September to hit for a strong .258/.377/.516 line and 126 wRC+.

This past season was more of the same. He started off hitting just .190/.245/.270 line with a 41 wRC+ in his first 110 plate appearances but then heated up to hit .267/.360/.450 with a 115 wRC+ in 120 plate appearances.

Through all of this inconsistency, one thing that Bell manages to do consistently is make hard contact. In the past two years he has an exit velocity of 92.2 MPH. Bell was in the top 95th percentile of hard hit rate in 2019 and top 87th percentile in 2020. Though his hard hit rate went from 47.2% to 42.9% in between the two years, both are still well above average marks.

Out of all the players the Pittsburgh Pirates have, it’s odd that they want to extend Bell. Through 2191 plate appearances, the slugger has a fWAR of just 3.5, mainly due to his defensive limitations.

2021 will be a huge make or break year for Bell with the Pirates, although his future may hinge on what happens with the National League and the desiganted hitter. His 2020 season doesn’t tell you much since the season was so short and he was a good batter more often than not in 2019 given his strong start and strong finish that year. However, a hot start to 2021 could make him more valuable in a trade than extending him would be.

Bell is controlled through 2022 and if the Pittsburgh Pirates extend him they could have a power bat for a handful of years. The universal DH could return in 2021 and will likely be here to stay after CBA negotiations next offseason. Mason Martin looks like the first baseman of the future right now and Alexander Mojica could eventually be a notable prospect, but the latter is only 18 and 2020 would have been his age 17 season.

Joe Musgrove

If the Pittsburgh Pirates look into any extensions with their pitchers, they should look into one with Joe Musgrove. Since arriving in Pittsburgh, Musgrove has been a very solid pitcher. Through his first two seasons, the right hander pitched 285.2 innings posting a 4.28 ERA, but 3.72 FIP and 1.20 WHIP. Though he only struck out batters at a 21.3% rate, he put up a strong 5.1% walk rate and solid 1.04 HR/9. Musgrove also had a Deserved Run Average below 4.00 in both seasons.

This past season, Musgrove only pitched 39.2 innings, but was very effective. He had a 3.86 ERA, 3.42 FIP and 1.24 WHIP. After previously putting up sub-par strikeout rates, Musgrove struck out 33.1% of the batters he faced. This came at the price of his control as his walk rate spiked to 9.6%. His HR/9 still remained at a solid 1.13 and his DRA sat at a strong 3.64 mark.

His batted ball rates were excellent as well. He posted a career best mark in exit velocity (85.6 MPH) and hard hit rate (32.3%) which pairs well with his strong ground ball tendencies (45.2% ground ball rate since joining the Pittsburgh Pirates). Though he doesn’t throw hard with his fastball averaging just 92.6 MPH, it did sit in the top 81st percentile of spin rate. Impressively, Musgrove throws six pitches with his four-seamer being just one. He alsos throws a slider, curveball, sinker, change up and cutter. Musgrove’s curveball usage went up by over 10% between 2019 to 2020, going from just 9.5% to 19.9%.

Like Bell, Musgrove is only controlled through 2022. The Pittsburgh Pirates do have a handful of young, notable pitchers. Mitch Keller has been both extremely unlucky and extremely lucky, but has only seen 69.2 innings in the majors. He’s shown talent, but has yet to put things all together.

Their top pitching prospect Tahnaj Thomas, first-round picks Quinn Priester and Brennan Malone from 2019 and Carmen Mlodzinski from 2020 and top 10 prospect Cody Bolton are among their best young arms in the minors. Still, even though the Pirates have a handful of young pitchers, if they extend any players, Musgrove should be one the first player they look into.

Ke’Bryan Hayes and Bryan Reynolds

Of all the players that are on their roster, extending top prospect Ke’Bryan Hayes should be above all else. Hayes looked outstanding last year. He hit .376/.442/.682 with a 195 wRC+ and 5 home runs. Outstanding numbers, but in only 95 plate appearances.

Still, Hayes showed a great ability to drive the ball. He put up a 92.8 MPH exit velocity and 55.4% hard hit rate. Hayes has always had the ability to drive the ball hard seeing as his exit velocity in 2019 at Triple-A was 92 MPH, but struggled with a high ground ball rate. There’s never been any doubt about his defense. It’s his best tool with a 70 future fielding grade an 60 throw/arm grade. In only 198.1 innings at the hot corner in the majors, Hayes racked up +4 DRS and .5 range runs above average. His UZR/150 was an excellent 8.9 mark, which would have tied him with Anthony Rendon for 5th place had he played enough to qualify. He’s also a good base runner. His sprint speed of 28 feet/second was in the top 79th percentile

Even if he doesn’t reach that height again in terms of offense, he’ll still be a very productive bat. Baseball Reference projects him to hit .288/.364/.502 with 10 home runs but in only 248 plate appearances. If a full season is played, that would be an extremely productive hitter given his fielding ability and base running, and very similar to Matt Chapman’s 2018, another one of the best third base defenders the game has seen. The Pirates should capitalize now and give an effort to sign Hayes to an extension.

If the Pirates want to capitalize on a player whose value is lower, Bryan Reynods should be another player they look into an extension with. Reynolds had an outstanding rookie campaign where he hit .314/.377/.503 with 16 home runs and 37 doubles in 546 plate appearances. His 131 wRC+ and .880 OPS ranked 5th among rookies with at least 300 plate appearances in 2019.

Last season, however, Reynolds hit just .189/.275/.357 with a 72 wRC+, albeit,  in only 208 plate appearances. A big issue Reynolds ran into was a low batting average on balls in play, sitting at just .231 indicating he got pretty unlucky. Though he had a very high BAbip in 2019, sitting at .387, this is nothing abnormal for the switch hitter. The lowest mark Reynolds had in the minors across a fair amount of plate appearances was .362 in 2018 and even then, he had a 120 wRC+. Still, his 2020 season stats are just barely over 200 plate appearances which can lead to a lot of misleading numbers.

Reynolds did see a huge step forward defensively. In 2019, Reynolds was an average to below average defender. In the grass, he had +5 DRS, but -3.5 UZR, 0 range runs above average and only 2 outs above average. This past season, he had +7 DRS in only 435 innings while posting a 1.7 UZR and 0.5 range runs above average. He also displayed a good outfield arm going from -3.5 outfield arm runs above average to 1.4 runs.

Players like Reynolds and Hayes are going to be part of the Pirate core when they’re back in it. However, guys like Musgrove and Bell might not be based on what’s left on their contract. But locking down Hayes and Reynolds through their arbitration years and possibly beyond that would really benefit the Pirates.