Pittsburgh Pirates 2022 Outlook: Reliever Chris Stratton

Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Chris Stratton proved to be a solid pitcher last season, but what does 2022 hold for the reliever?

Chris Stratton is one of the most experienced pitchers on the Pittsburgh Pirates roster. Formerly a first-round pick by the San Francisco Giants, the Pirates picked up Stratton by purchasing his contract from the Los Angeles Angels. The Angles had acquired him in a minor trade for Williams Jerez. Since being picked up by the Pirates, he’s become a reasonably solid reliever for the Bucs.

Since arriving in Pittsburgh, the right-hander has a 3.69 ERA, 3.76 FIP, and 1.327 WHIP. He has tossed a grand total of 156 innings. Stratton has had a solid 25.7% strikeout rate, 9.1% walk rate, and 1.1 HR/9. His underlying numbers paint a similar story with a 4.01 xFIP and 3.84 SIERA.

Overall, while Stratton hasn’t been lights out, he’s provided many quality innings for the Pirates. In terms of the league average, Stratton has an 87 ERA- and FIP-and a 117 ERA+. That makes him about 13%-18% better than the rest of the league.

Last year, Stratton tossed 79.1 total innings. He managed a 3.63 ERA, 3.76 FIP, and 1.298 WHIP. Strat had a 25.5% strikeout rate, 9.8% walk rate, and 1.02 HR/9. Again, while his numbers weren’t elite, the fact he provided nearly 80 above average innings made him a valuable part of the Pirate bullpen. He ranked 5th among all relievers in innings pitched who didn’t make a single start in 2021.

It’s also worth noting that Stratton was in the 60th or better percentile of most of Baseball Savant’s stats except for average exit velocity (46th percentile) and walk rate (29th percentile). He ranked the highest in fastball spin rate, ranking in the 99th percentile, and curveball spin rate at the 98th percentile. Unlike former teammate Richard Rodriguez, Stratton didn’t see a massive drop in spin once MLB started to crack down on foreign substances on the mound.

Stratton had started to see some higher leverage innings later in the year. Stratton had tossed 26.1 total innings in the 7th inning or later in the second half of 2021. All told, he had a 3.76 ERA but a phenomenal 2.94 FIP, 1.1 WHIP, 4.5 K/BB ratio, and HR/9 of just 1.03. This could be a similar role that Stratton takes up in 2022.

This could be for multiple reasons. The first is that the Pirates don’t have that many current options to help bridge the 7th/8th inning to David Bednar in the 9th inning. Previously, we looked at many different potential long-term bullpen options currently in the Pirates’ system. However, there are many relief prospects we likely won’t see until mid-to-late 2022 and beyond. Nick Mears, Blake Cederlind, and Blake Weiman may see some innings in the majors next year, but the likes of Tyler Samiego, Jack Hartman, Justin Meis, Santiago Florez, and Enmanuel Mejia won’t be in the majors ranging from late 2022 and throughout the 2023 season.

Another reason is that Stratton was pretty effective in high leverage situations. Stratton held opponents to just a .203/.274/.297 line in high leverage situations. He was more effective when it mattered the most as he had an opponent OPS over .700 in medium and low leverage situations. Giving Stratton the set-up role next season might end up helping him more than hurting him.

The last reason is that the Pirates might see Stratton as a trade piece and want him to prove he can regularly handle late-inning and high leverage situations. Now granted, when I talked about the Pirate playoff chances, I predicted that based on the prospects coming up the system, they very well could be, on paper, a 70-75 win team. If that holds true, they might have less of an incentive to trade Stratton if the team is trending upward and Stratton is a solid bullpen arm.

I don’t see the Pittsburgh Pirates trading Stratton right now, or else we probably would have heard his name thrown around more than we did before the lockout and during the trade deadline. The free-agent market still has a handful of quality relievers that could produce similar or better numbers than Stratton anyway.

Outside of the big fish in Kenley Jansen, the likes of Adam Ottavino, Ian Kennedy, Joe Kelly, Richard Rodriguez, Mychal Givens, Tyler Clippard, Steve Cishek, Brad Boxberger, Hunter Strickland, Andrew Chafin, and Tony Watson are all on the market still. Teams will probably find it more attractive to sign one of those options rather than give up any prospects for Stratton, at least at this moment.

This season he’ll likely serve as a set-up man to Bednar. Although Stratton likely isn’t part of future plans (most 30-something-year-old relievers on rebuilding teams aren’t), he’s not a pitcher who would get many bites on the trade market. It’s possible that the Pittsburgh Pirates hold onto him because of a lack of interest, and he’d provide a solid and durable  reliever to a 70-75 win team or trade him because a team is willing to cough up the price tag Ben Cherington has on Stratton.