Bubba Chandler’s struggles have Pirates fans pointing fingers the wrong way

Bubba Chandler’s growing pains have exposed more than just the Pittsburgh Pirates’ developmental challenges. They’ve exposed how quickly some fans are willing to point fingers at the wrong person.

Instead of acknowledging that one of baseball’s most electric young arms is still learning how to pitch at the highest level, a loud segment of Pirates fans has decided catcher Joey Bart is somehow the root of Chandler’s command problems.

The logic? Chandler entered Tuesday with a 17% walk rate when throwing to Bart compared to just 4.1% with Henry Davis behind the plate. But that argument falls apart the second you zoom out.

Because the Pirates’ biggest problem with Bubba Chandler right now isn’t Joey Bart. It’s that too many people are looking for someone else to blame.

Admitting the truth is uncomfortable: Chandler — one of the most talented pitching prospects baseball has seen in years — still looks like a pitcher who needs development. And that’s okay.

What’s not okay is pretending the warning signs weren’t already there long before he got to Pittsburgh.

Chandler’s command issues didn’t suddenly appear because Bart started catching him. They existed throughout Triple-A last season. Scouts talked about it. Evaluators talked about it. Pirates fans talked about it. The raw stuff was electric, but the strike-throwing consistency lagged behind. That was the tradeoff.

Now it’s showing up in the majors in an even harsher way. Through 14 appearances (11 starts), Chandler leads all of baseball with 26 walks. His 6.88 BB/9 ranks third in MLB, and his 17.1% walk rate ranks second. Those aren’t small blemishes. Those are massive red warning lights.

Tuesday night against the Arizona Diamondbacks offered the perfect snapshot of where Chandler currently is as a pitcher: a 38-pitch first inning, six walks overall, constant traffic and constant stress. Yet somehow, he still managed to keep the Pirates within striking distance across five innings of work.

That’s the maddening part about Chandler. Even when he’s struggling, the talent is obvious. He has the triple-digit velocity, the wipeout secondary stuff and the ability to escape jams that most pitchers never survive.

But raw stuff alone doesn’t make someone a finished major-league starter. And that’s where the discourse around Bart becomes ridiculous.

Pirates fans blaming Joey Bart for Bubba Chandler's control issues are wildly misguided

The anti-Bart argument sounds compelling until you remember how samples work.

It ignores Chandler’s entire developmental track record. It ignores the exact same control issues showing up in Triple-A. And it ignores the reality that pitchers — especially young power pitchers — often fluctuate wildly in tiny samples.

More importantly, it misunderstands the actual problem — because this doesn’t look like a catcher issue nearly as much as it looks like a max-effort issue.

Chandler appears to become a completely different pitcher once runners reach base. With the bases empty, opponents are hitting just .167 with a .600 OPS against him. He has 23 strikeouts and 13 walks in those situations.

With runners on base? Everything changes: opponents hit .255 with a .913 OPS. His strikeouts plummet from 23 to eight despite nearly identical walk totals.

That’s not framing. That’s not game-calling. That’s not a catcher secretly sabotaging him. That’s a young pitcher struggling to repeat mechanics, maintain composure, and execute consistently once innings speed up.

It’s the classic power-pitcher catch-22: he can throw 100 mph, but dialing everything up to max effort makes command harder to sustain. And when traffic builds, the delivery starts fighting itself. That’s development.

The Pirates don’t need to scapegoat Joey Bart. They need patience with Bubba Chandler. Because the version of Chandler Pirates fans dream about is probably still in there.

He just isn’t fully here yet.

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