Pittsburgh Pirates: What to do With Steven Brault

Pittsburgh Pirates left-handed starting pitcher Steven Brault could be a potential extension candidate. So what would be the better option for the Bucs?

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Steven Brault has been pretty solid over his last handful of starts. The left-hander could be a trade piece this upcoming off-season, but I think the team should at least explore the possibility of each scenario. Which helps the club more in the long run? Extending the left-hander, or trading him?

Extending Brault

Extending Brault could secure a solid left-handed starting pitcher as a rotation anchor for a handful of more seasons. In his last 14 games (13 of which are starts) and 64.1 innings, Brault has a solid 3.78 ERA, 1.25 WHIP, and solid 3.96 FIP. He hasn’t struck out many batters, only having a 21.4% strikeout rate and walks have still been an issue for him. He has had a 10.3% walk rate throughout the past two seasons.

Also, home runs have not given him much trouble. His 0.56 HR/9 rate has been because of a 46.2% ground ball rate. Overall, he has just a 6.3% HR/FB rate. Last year, he had an exit velocity of just 85.8 MPH and a hard-hit rate of 32.7%, something else that helped him limit long balls.

While we are looking at a small sample size, Brault pitched extremely well in his first few outings of 2021. The first 14.2 innings this season saw him allow 3 earned runs, strikeout 21.4% of batters faced while keeping walks to a rate of just 3.6%. He got hit hard in his last outing, which has inflated his overall stats given the small sample size but despite that, he still has a relatively solid 4.03 FIP.

Brault has never been a hard thrower, so a massive decline in velocity leading to a massive decline in performance shouldn’t be a huge worry. The fastest his fastball ever averaged out at was 92.3 MPH. He’s lost a tick this year with just a 90.9 MPH average. While that’s not a small decline, it looks like he’s been able to work around it to some degree.

I also believe the Pittsburgh Pirates should build around their pitching staff, given the amount of pitching talent in their system. There’s no such thing as too many pitchers, and giving Brault an extension would give them a solid back of the rotation type of arm. What I’m saying is that it would give some stability to a young rotation.

Trading Brault

Now while Brault has done well over his past 57.1 innings, he was extremely inconsistent in the seasons leading up to 2020. His 273 innings from 2016 up through 2019 saw him have a 4.88 ERA, 4.80 FIP, and 1.57 WHIP. Brault had a sub-20% strikeout rate and walk rate well above 10%, with an 18.8% and 11.3% mark respectively.

Brault’s ERA estimators leading up to this were awful through this time. He had a 5.01 SIERA, 5.06 xFIP, Though he had a solid ground ball rate of 45.3%, his lowest DRA in these three seasons was 4.87. Even in the past 2 seasons, the under-the-hood measurements still aren’t very impressive. He has a 5.05 SIERA and 4.97 xFIP.

Brault isn’t getting any younger. He’s already 29. By the time his contract is up, the lefty will be 31-years-old. So far, aside from his last 64.1 innings, he’s been a fringe back-of-the-rotation starting pitcher. The Pirates have a boatload of young starting pitching that could take over sometime next season. Roansy Contreras, Miguel Yajure, Carmen Mldozinski, and Omar Cruz are all young arms that should be in the starting rotation by the end of 2022. Bryse Wilson, Mitch Keller, Wil Crowe, JT Brubaker, and Max Kranick are also potential arms that could round out the starting five.

If the Pittsburgh Pirates extend him a year or two into his free agency years, he’d be about 33-34 by the time his contract would be up with the Bucs. Sure, there are plenty of pitchers still effective into their early-30’s, but Brault has never been that great to start with. If there was any time to capitalize on a Brault trade, now would be the time.

My Verdict

In the end, it really comes down to what the Pirates could get back for Steven Brault. He’s been nothing better than a back-end starting pitcher, and an inconsistent one at that. Sure he’s looked decent over his last handful of outings, but not too many teams are going to be willing to part with all that much to acquire Brault.

The Pittsburgh Pirates are at a point where extending him may be worth more than trading him (notwithstanding a team getting desperate and massively overpaying). If this is the real Steven Brault, they definitely should consider extending him this off-season. Brault could provide some stability as a back of the rotation presence.

Though the Pittsburgh Pirates shouldn’t go overboard with an extension. With so much more pitching talent coming up through the farm system, there’s no reason to vastly overpay for a #4 or #5 starter.

The Pirates should keep an open mind about extending Brault, at the very least. Sure, he may not be high up on the priority list of extensions, especially over the likes of Ke’Bryan Hayes, Bryan Reynolds, and possibly even David Bednar. But he’ll be one to watch over the course of the next 12 months. I think the 2022 season will be very telling as to whether or not Brault will be extended. As things stand right now, 2022 would be his first year working primarily as a starting pitcher for the entire season. If he does solid, even if he’s just a 4.00 ERA/FIP kind of starting pitcher, the team should, at the very least, explore the possibility of keeping him around for a year or two past his free agency.