Pittsburgh Pirates: Importance of Back of the Rotation Starters

The 2013-2015 Pittsburgh Pirates suffered from having glaring weak spots in their rotations. However, this is a problem Ben Cherington is looking to fix next time.

In episode 42 of Rum Bunter Radio we talked about a handful of Pirate prospects. Mainly, we brought up prospects mentioned when looking at 2022 as the potential light at the end of the tunnel for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

In our discussion, I mentioned Brennan Malone as one of the Pirates’ more underrated arms as he has the potential to be an ace, yet is overlooked by many. Marty Leap brought up that at the very worst, he’s a good back of the rotation starter.

Marty also mentioned how important the back of the rotation can be and how it affected the Pittsburgh Pirates of 2013-2015. However, after looking back at it, the 2015 Pirates were affected the most by not solidifying the last two spots in the rotation and paid for it dearly.

During the 2015 season the Pittsburgh Pirates had three big starters, that being A.J. Burnett, Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano. All three had great 2015 seasons. Burnett and Cole went to the All-Star Game, Cole finished 4th in Cy Young voting and Liriano had a strong 3.38 ERA/3.19 FIP with a 3.3 fWAR throughout the season.

However, the last two spots of the rotation were a revolving door until they acquired J.A. Happ at the trade deadline to solidify the rotation. Left-hander Jeff Locke pitched the third most innings on the team during 2015. Through 168.1 innings, Locke posted a 4.49 ERA, 3.95 FIP and 1.42 WHIP. Locke only had a 17.5% strikeout rate and 8.2% walk rate, but a solid 0.8 HR/9 and 51% ground ball rate. Locke also had a 3.94 xFIP and 4.18 SIERA and was overall a slightly below average pitcher. Not bad for the 5th spot, but the other pitchers who filled the #5 spot did not help the situation.

Before Charlie Morton became a Cy Young contender with the Rays, he was a back of the rotation starter with the Pittsburgh Pirates. In 129 innings during the 2015 season Morton had a 4.81 ERA, 4.19 FIP and 1.38 WHIP. Morton was known as ‘Ground Chuck’ due to his ability to induce gorund balls. In 2015 he had a 57.3% ground ball rate which led to a 0.91 HR/9 ratio. He showed off decent control walking just 7.3% of the batters he faced but only combating that with a 17.3% strikeout rate. Morton did have better ERA estimators than Locke with a 3.87 xFIP and 3.89 SIERA, but overall had a .7 fWAR. Good ERA estimators, but a 0.7 fWAR isn’t good no matter how you spin it.

Then there was Vance Worley. Although Worley did have a solid 2014 season as one of the Bucs’ primary starters, the soft tossing righty wasn’t guaranteed a starting spot in 2015. To start the year, he was in the rotation for Morton who was injured at the time. Through his 43 innings as a starter that year, the soft-tossing right-hander allowed 23 earned runs, walked 15 batters, only struck out 27 and opponents managed a .318 batting average and .833 OPS against him.

All told, these three pitchers tossed 340.1 innings as starting pitchers for the Pittsburgh Pirates and combined for an fWAR of below 3.0, coming in with a 2.4 mark. In comparison, there were 57 total pitchers who at least matched that.

The Pittsburgh Pirates ended up missing out winning the National League Central by 2 games before hitting the buzzsaw that was Jake Arrieta’s historic second half of 2015. Sure, while Cole, Burnett, Liriano and eventually Happ helped get the Pirates to 98 wins, the lack of a fortified rotation led the Pirates to losing the NL Central. Imagine how different the season may have played out if the Pirates acquired even a league average, 2-WAR pitcher like Mike Fiers or Jason Hammel to start the year as their number four starter.

While the 2015 Pittsburgh Pirates may have suffered the greatest consequences for not fortifying the back of the rotation, both the 2013 and 2014 also suffered from it. In 2013, the Pirates had Jonathan Sanchez in their Opening Day rotation. the team lost four of the five games he appeared in. The following season, the final two rotation spots were a carousel for part of the year with Brandon Cumpton, Wandy Rodriguez and the aforementioned Locke all getting starts. All three were inconsistent or downright bad throughout the season.

This seems to be an issue Ben Cherington is trying to rectify. Cherington has added a whole lot of pitching depth and has brought in a ton of pitchers, all of which could be part of the Bucs’ pitching staff in a few years. Throughout his two offseasons, he’s brought in guys like Malone, Miguel Yajure and Eddy Yean. This trio could be very productive arms in the majors.

Cherington also drafted five pitchers with his six draft picks. One of those included Carmen Mlodzinski who was taken in the first-round wtih a compensation pick. He may add another arm with ace potential this upcoming draft as some of the highest rated draft prospects are pitchers like Kumar Rocker, Jaden Hill and Jack Leiter.

They join young arms with top of the rotation potential who were already in the system when Cherington took over like Mitch Keller, Tahnaj Thomas and Cody Bolton. Obviously, we can’t forget about Quinn Priester who looks like he could be the best of all the Pirates’ young arms.

However, it’s been acquiring overall depth that could help round out the back of the rotation is where he’s put a decent amount of focus on. To go with his top-flite pitching prospects, he’s also gotten arms like Omar Cruz, Roansy Contreras, Drake Fellows and Wil Crowe to join JT Brubaker and Cody Ponce as guys who could be solid back end of the rotation starters.

The Pirates’ lack of a solid number four or number five starter in 2013-2015 really came back to bite them. Now, obviously, not every team is going to be like the Los Angeles Dodgers and have an ace at every rotation spot, but a competing team can’t have complete black holes in the back of the rotation. Luckily for the Pirates right now, they have an abundance of young pitching that could come together to make a strong, balanced rotation with no glaring weakness.