Pittsburgh Pirates: Looking Ahead to 2022 for Three Starting Pitchers

Bryse Wilson

The Pittsburgh Pirates were quite active at the 2021 trade deadline. One of the trades they made was with the eventual World Series-winning Atlanta Braves, who sent over two young pitchers for reliever Richard Rodriguez. One of the two arms they got back was major league ready in the form of Bryse Wilson.

Wilson was formerly one of Atlanta’s top prospects. But going into 2021, he had yet to receive a regular chance to start. From his debut in 2018 up through 2020, the right-hander had just 42.2 innings under his belt plus 6 more from the 2020 postseason. He then added 33.2 more before the trade.

Throughout the minors, Wilson has done pretty well. He has 198.1 total innings pitched at Triple-A, having a solid 3.86 ERA, 1.24 WHIP, and 3.64 FIP. He had a solid 1.18 HR/9 rate and a usable 22.8% strikeout rate. But he excelled at limiting free passes. Wilson only allowed 45 total batters to reach via a walk, leading to a strong 5.5% BB%. His K/BB ratio was a healthy 4.18 mark.

So far, Wilson hasn’t done all that well in the major leagues. He has a 5.55 ERA, 5.47 FIP, and 1.58 WHIP in 116.2 innings. But he’s yet to be given a real shot to prove himself. Nor did the Braves ever give him anything that resembled a fair and consistent shot in the major leagues. Just this year alone, the Braves recalled, and then optioned Wilson back to Triple-A  a total of six times before the trade. He’s been sent to Triple-A 16 total times since his debut in 2018.

Wilson may not have anything overpowering, but he has excellent command that helps his offerings play up. Currently, FanGraphs sees his command at a 55-grade and projects it to reach a 60-grade. Wilson was formerly ranked among the Braves’ top prospects. Going into 2019, FanGraphs ranked him as the team’s 10th best prospect and the 72nd best overall. He topped out at #60 on Baseball Prospectus’ pre-2019 rankings. The Braves had one, if not the best farm system in the late-2010’s, so ranking that high for Wilson was impressive.

Wilson is still pretty young. He will be going into his age-24 campaign and has just over 100 MLB innings under his belt. What he needs more than anything is regular playing time. Getting shipped back-and-forth from the major leagues to the minor leagues six times before August probably isn’t a good way to get acclimated to major league hitters. No player that bounces around that much will ever find success in the majors because they’re never being given a consistent shot or enough time to figure it out.

At the very least, I think he’s a solid #4 starter, like 2021 Zack Greinke (low-4.00 ERA pitcher, limits walks). At the most, maybe even a very low-end #2/high-end #3 starter, such as a right-handed Wade Miley (mid-3.00 ERA pitcher with good control). Many experts had Wilson as one of the higher-end pitching prospects in baseball. It wasn’t just one or two sites either. He was a consensus top 100 prospect going into 2019. All of FanGraphs, MLB Pipeline, Baseball Prospectus, and Baseball America had him in their top 100. Maybe all he needs is regular playing time. Time will tell, but I believe he can be a very competent MLB pitcher in 2022.

Dillon Peters

The Pittsburgh Pirates purchased left-hander Dillon Peters contract from the Los Angeles Angels. Originally nothing more than a depth move, Peters was given the chance to start down the stretch and made the best of his shot.

Peters only pitched 26.2 innings but had a quality 3.71 ERA, 3.66 FIP, and 1.35 WHIP. He wasn’t a strikeout machine, getting just 19.7% of batters faced down on strike three. His 8.5% walk rate wasn’t out-of-this-world amazing either. But he allowed just 2 home runs and had a strong 48.2% ground ball rate. Most of the damage that was done to Peters was in his last start, in which he gave up 4 earned runs on 4 hits, including a home run, in just 3 innings. Outside of that, he had a sub-3 ERA, 3.17 FIP, and allowed 1 long ball in 23.2 innings.

Peters’ biggest strength is limiting the long ball. Up until he reached Triple-A, his highest HR/9 at any level was .6 at Low-A. So far in his major league career (which has only been 159.1 innings since 2017), he has a healthy 45.6% ground ball rate. A pitch-to-contact approach seems to be what Peters needed. He added a sinker this year, which he used 16.7% of the time while dropping his slider in the process.

In terms of run value, none of his offerings were below average. The very worst was his four-seamer with +0.2 RV/100 (the lower, the better with 0 being average), which overall, is still pretty much average. His curveball was a quality offering that had a -2 RV and -2.3 RV/100. Small sample size yes, but 4 offerings that played around average isn’t bad in any case.

Peters was never a top prospect like Wilson was. The highest he ever ranked was as the Miami Marlins’ 5th best prospect on MLB Pipeline’s pre-2017 list. That was back when he was still considered a powerful left-handed arm, one that reached around 92-96 MPH with his fastball. He also appeared at #15 on Pipeline’s pre-2019 list, and as the Marlins’ #17 prospect on FanGraphs’s pre-2018 list.

Realistically, Peters probably isn’t going to be anything more than a back-end starter, maybe a lefty swingman. But I really would like to see him succeed. He looked pretty good the first time the Pirates gave him a chance. It would be really nice to see the Pirates find a diamond in the rough with Peters.