Pittsburgh Pirates: Debating if These Early Season Successes are Sustainable

The Pittsburgh Pirates have gotten off to a historic start to 2023 because of some phenomenal early season performances. But are some of these starts sustianable?

The Pittsburgh Pirates are off to a historic start to their 2023 season. They can credit the breakout and early season success to some very key players. The Pirates likely wouldn’t have been the first National League team to cross 20 wins without their contributions.

However, we’re still only about a month into the 2023 season. It’s a long campaign, and some may question whether or not some of these great starts are sustainable. But that’s what I want to debate today: are some of these outstanding starts to 2023 the real deal, or just an early season fluke?

Jason Delay

Jason Delay entered the year as the Bucs’ secondary backstop behind Austin Hedges. Despite little expectations with the bat, Delay is off to an astounding start to 2023. It’s only been 47 plate appearances, but he is currently slashing .390/.435/.610 with a .444 wOBA and 179 wRC+. With that, is any part of Delay’s season sustainable?

I hate to burst the bubble for any Delay fans out there, but nothing suggests that he’ll continue to bat over .300 or have a wRC+ that currently rivals Mike Trout. There are multiple reasons for this. First, he’s never been close to a great hitter in the minor leagues. He is a career .226/.297/.298 batter with an 80 wRC+ throughout the minor leagues. His best minor league season was in 2019, when he owned a .684 OPS, .307 wOBA, and 98 wRC+.

Delay also hasn’t changed much when it comes to hitting the ball hard. His exit velocity has gone from an already poor 84.9 MPH in 2022 to 81.8 MPH this year. Delay’s hard-hit rate has also dropped from 28.3% to 21.1%. He still chases pitches outside the strike zone over 30% of the time (30.9%). Delay’s overall batting average on balls in play clocks in at .417.

However, don’t get unsustainable confused with ‘will perform poorly’. There’s also a lot to suggest that he’ll be a much better batter than he was in 2022.

Delay still has a .358 xwOBA, which would still be above average. He’s upped his barrel rate from just 1.9% to 7.9%, meaning he’s making more quality contact despite making less hard contact. This is because he’s lowered his launch angle slightly from 15.7 degrees to 11.7 degrees. Overall, he’s just making more contact. While he may be swinging outside the strike zone at a similar rate to 2022, his chase contact rate has risen from a meager 47.4% to 72%. His overall contact rate is nearly 80%.

Again, Delay likely isn’t going to rival Tony Gwynn for the most recent highest single-season batting average. But there’s a good chance he’ll at least be noticeably better than his 2022, .213/.265/.271 triple-slash. That's not a high bar to set, but Delay is a defense-first back-up catcher, so any offensive value you get is more than welcomed and icing on the cake.

Vince Velasquez

Pirate fans were rightfully skeptical of Vince Velasquez when the team signed him to a one-year deal. The last time Velasquez posted an ERA+ of 100 or greater was back in 2016. Since then, he has only ever once posted an ERA+ over 90, with 2019 coming in at 91. However, Velasquez has been an extremely pleasant surprise for the Pirates so far this year.

In 32.1 innings, the right-hander has a 3.09 ERA, 3.80 FIP, and 1.18 WHIP. Velasquez has a strikeout rate of 23.4%, with a walk rate clocking in at 8.8%. Home runs have consistently been an issue for Velasquez in the past, but he currently has a very solid 0.84 HR/9 rate. Velasquez only has a 29.7% ground ball rate, but has made up for it with what has so far been a career-best 87.1 MPH exit velocity (top 75th percentile).

So what’s changed, and could those changes make Velasquez’s start sustainable? The first thing is that Velasquez has been using his slider nearly as often as his four-seamer. His 42.9% slider rate would be a career-high by over 20%. His slider has been one of the best in baseball, holding opponents to a .156 batting average, .219 slugging percentage, and .195 wOBA. He’s almost completely dropped his curveball, using it less than 0.5% of the time. His four-seamer also has the highest spin rate of his career.

The first thing to note is that ERA estimators do not like Velasquez’s performance so far. xFIP pins him at 4.60, while SIERA has him at 4.46. DRA absolutely hates him at 5.86. The most optimistic is xERA (Statcast’s expected ERA) at 3.80. That’s slightly concerning, especially given he only as a batting average on balls in play of .258. But do keep in mind that ERA estimator metrics also didn’t look upon Josė Quintana too fondly during his time with the Pittsburgh Pirates. Around this time in 2022, Quintana had a 4.35 SIERA and 3.99 xFIP. He ended up out-pitching both metrics by a large margin from May through October, both with the Pirates and Cardinals.

Of course, Quintana’s 2022 season is just one isolated incident and is far from a perfect one-for-one comparison to Vinny V on top of that. I still believe he could overperform his expected statistics, however. Plus, some expected stats like xwOBA (.304) still paint him in a positive light. I wouldn’t hold my breath that he produces an ERA in the low-3s, but if he were to end 2023 with a 3.50-3.80 ERA, which is much better than average for your no. 5 starter.