Pittsburgh Pirates: Four Bold Predictions for the 2023 Season

Multiple Players Receive Rookie of the Year Votes

The Pittsburgh Pirates have had a player receive National League Rookie of the Year votes in the last two seasons. In 2021, it was David Bednar, then in 2022, Oneil Cruz received a few votes. The last time multiple Pirate rookies received ROY votes was in 2010 when both Neil Walker and Jose Tabata received ROY votes. There's definitely a chance they will repeat this feat in 2023 and possibly have the first Pirate Rookie of the Year since Jason Bay in 2004.

Everyone is super excited to see what Endy Rodriguez can do. Since the Pirates acquired the switch-hitting backstop, Rodriguez has hit .310/.395/.554 with a .423 wOBA and 154 wRC+. He's only struck out in 18.4% of his plate appearances, with a healthy 11.4% walk rate. Rodriguez has struck out at a rate under 20% of the time while drawing a walk in 10%+ of his trips to the dish every year of his career. He's easily the best Pirates minor league batter (at least since 2006), owning the best OPS, slugging percentage, wOBA, and wRC+.

Rodriguez has only improved with time, with his wRC+ going from 140 to 151, then to 199, and finally 208 at each stage of the minor leagues. He only has 155 plate appearances above Greensboro, but still, rarely do you see a player get noticeably better at each level of the minor leagues. Rodriguez is super exciting, but Luis Ortiz is the organization's most exciting pitching prospect.

Last season Ortiz made his major league debut, showing off an upper-90s four-seamer, wicked slider, and effective change-up. He also had a quality minor league season, even if his surface numbers didn't reflect it. He had a 4.56 ERA, 4.40 FIP, and 1.14 WHIP. But he struck out 27.1% of the opponents he faced with a walk rate of 7.5%. Ortiz had a 1.45 HR/9 rate but with an HR/FB ratio of 17.4%. Given he had a ground ball rate of 47.8% and was a soft-contact merchant in the major leagues, it's reasonable to expect him to post a much lower home run rate.

Ortiz gets both swings and misses and (as stated earlier) induces soft contact at a high rate. As we've talked about before, the overlap between elite strikeout pitchers and elite soft-contact merchants is very small, with most including some of baseball's most dominant pitchers. Plus, Ortiz draws extremely favorable comparisons based on his pitch mix (velocity and movement based), according to Baseball Savant.

Rodriguez and Ortiz are far from the only prospects who could make a significant impact in 2023. Don't forget Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows, Kyle Nicolas, and Carmen Mlodzinski, as other notable pitchers who will start the year at Triple-A. There's also Nick Gonzales, Liover Peguero, Malcom Nunez, and Jared Triolo, which should make up Indy's infield to start the year. Plus, one of the Pirates' best relief prospects in Colin Selby will likely see some major league time this season. Don't forget the other Colin, Colin Holderman, who will start the year in the Major Leagues. Chances are, the Pirates will get at least one player with some ROY love. But it's a bit bolder to predict that the Pirates will have multiple Rookie of the Year candidates.

Mitch Keller Earns Some Cy Young attention

Don't get this confused with predicting Mitch Keller will win the Cy Young. It would be awesome to see Keller do that, but I think he'll get at least one Cy Young vote for now. After his outstanding 2022 season, where he made massive improvements and has continued to improve in Spring this year, Keller is on the up-and-up.

From May 25 through the end of the season, Keller had an impressive 3.20 ERA, 3.67 FIP, and 1.35 WHIP through 123.2 innings of work. Although Keller's strikeout rate clocked in at a below-average 20.5% rate, he had a decent 8.7% walk rate and an outstanding 0.65 HR/9. Keller became a ground ball specialist, inducing grounders at a 49.9% rate and keeping opponents to an 88 MPH exit velocity.

Two important things happened on May 25 onward that really helped Keller perform so well. The first was the addition of his sinker. Although it wasn't the first time in 2022 he had thrown a sinker, it was the first time he had used it more than just once. Keller used his sinker a third of a time on May 25, and it became a primary part of his arsenal from there on out. At the end of the season, Keller racked up -8 run value with his newly added pitch.

The second thing is he started to use a sweeping breaking ball that averaged out with 12 inches of horizontal break. His slider previously sat with 3-5 inches of horizontal break, but then he added over a half foot of movement to his breaking pitch. After June 19, he never average below 15 inches of horizontal break with his primary breaking pitch.

Keller has also worked on a cutter in Spring that looks really good. He's gotten a handful of called and swinging strikes. He hasn't played enough in Spring to make a full conclusion, but the early results are promising nonetheless. He added a brand new pitch to his arsenal that was highly effective and adjusted a second pitch to the point where it was essentially like adding another offering, so why can't he add a third new pitch to his arsenal?

I believe that Keller will get his strikeout rate back to around league average, but keep a similar BB% and HR/9, as well as a similar or better ERA. He could be a lot like Atlanta Braves' right-hander Kyle Wright, who finished 10th in Cy Young Award voting, and unlike Keller, Wright didn't have any sort of breakout pre-2022, mainly struggling as an up-and-down prospect beforehand.

Andrew McCutchen Has His Best Season Since 2017

The Pirates acquired long-time former MVP, and fan-favorite, outfielder Andrew McCutchen this past off-season. Last year, McCutchen was roughly a league-average batter, slashing .237/.316/.384 with a .309 wOBA and 98 wRC+. Those were pretty poor numbers for the normally lofty standards McCutchen sets, and while he hasn't been an MVP candidate since 2015, I believe he will have his best season since 2017.

In 2017, Cutch batted .279/.363/.486 with a .360 wOBA, and 122 wRC+. That was his best batting average, slugging percentage, wOBA, wRC+, and second-best OBP in each of his last five full seasons. McCutchen also hit 28 home runs (the second most of his entire career), with an 11.8% walk rate and 17.8% strikeout rate.

Now those are some high numbers to even come close to, given that he has just a 103 wRC+ since 2020 (also a 103 wRC+ since 2021). So why do I believe he can become a highly productive hitter again? McCutchen had a higher average exit velocity (89.1 MPH) and hard-hit rate (40%) compared to 2017 (88.4 MPH/38.3%). He also had a much higher barrel rate in '22 (8.6%) compared to 2017 (6.8%). Despite McCutchen's wOBA peaking at just over .309 last season, his expected wOBA (xwOBA) was .325, which was in the 61st percentile of batters last year and not too far behind his 2017 wOBA.

McCutchen was shifted on in 49% of his plate appearances and had a .274 wOBA in those events. When there was no shift, he had a .345 wOBA. A .274 batter was the equivalent of Adam Frazier last season, and a .345 batter was the equivalent of Rhys Hoskins. Not only do the new shift rules help him, but Baseball Savant makes some very promising comparisons based on his batted ball data.

Baseball Savant's top five comparisons include 2022 Francisco Lindor (.270/.339/.449), 2018 Aaron Hicks (.248/.366/.467), 2018 Francisco Cervelli (.259/.378/.431), 2020 Austin Nola (.273/.352/.472), and 2017 Jed Lowrie (.277/.360/.448). The mean slash line between these five batters is .265/.360/.453 (OPS of .813). If McCutchen were to post those numbers in a full season, it would be the first time since 2017 he had an OPS above .800 in a full season.

Plus, some intangibles could help him out. McCutchen could be in a better mindset compared to when he played with the Phillies or Brewers last season. He is returning to Pittsburgh, a city that he loves and the team that raised him. Mindset can be a game-changer for some players.

Cutch has a decent amount of things that point in his favor this season. The new shift rules will likely play a prominent role in many players' offensive games, but McCutchen could be one of the biggest beneficiaries. He still drives the ball with authority and could end up being a well-above-average offensive contributor.

Pittsburgh Pirates Return to October

Yep, we're gonna go with this one again. This year has a different vibe to it. The off-season alone was much different than in previous seasons, as the Pirates actually went out and acquired Major Leaguers rather than just patchwork. In terms of off-season spending, they've added about $30 million to their payroll (excluding players who are not arbitration eligible yet). That's a lot more than they spent in the 2021-2022 off-season, which came in at just about $16.25 million. Two off-seasons ago, they spent less than $5 million (around $2.5 mil). Sure, the 2020-2021 off-season was different for a multitude of reasons, but the point still remains.

As stated earlier, a ton of talent is coming through the pipeline, and it's made its way to the higher levels of the minor leagues. Since the rebuild began in the 2019-2020 offseason, many of the prospects the Pirates acquired in the early stages, like Endy Rodriguez, Liover Peguero, Nick Gonzales, Jared Jones, Carmen Mlodzinski, and Canaan Smith-Njigba, are at Double-A, Triple-A, or have made their Major League debuts already. Some of those prospects will likely play a regular or semi-regular role by the end of the season.

Now, of course, not every prospect is going to hit the ground at full speed. Some might, others might only do okay, and others may struggle and get demoted back to Triple-A. It's not reasonable to expect every prospect to be a Rookie Of The Year candidate, but as long as a good portion of them at least provide average or better production, the team could very much be in contention.

The Pirates also have a handful of breakout candidates on the team. Roansy Contreras and Johan Oviedo could end up being two of the Pirates' best pitchers. Yerry De Los Santos and Colin Holderman could also both be key high-leverage arms in the bullpen. Jack Suwinski has some promising underlying numbers that could help him in 2023. Both Bryan Reynolds and Mitch Keller will look to continue to build off their strong second half.

The veterans they have brought in, like Rich Hill, Andrew McCutchen, Ji-Man Choi, and Carlos Santana, all have the potential to be average or better contributors. They should help supplement the team's young players. Cutch, Choi, and Santana specifically have underlying numbers regarding the new shift rules that make them promising veterans.

Look, I'll be the first to admit it: a ton, and I mean a TON has to go right for the Pirates to make it back to October baseball. But this is my boldest prediction for a reason. You get Ke'Bryan Hayes, Oneil Cruz, Rodolfo Castro, Carlos Santana/Ji-Man Choi, Bryan Reynolds, Andrew McCutchen, Jack Suwinski, and Endy Rodriguez firing on all cylinders, and that line-up could sneakily be one of the better ones in baseball. That's a league-average or better hitter at every position. Mitch Keller, Roansy Contreras, and Luis Ortiz, with Johan Oviedo, Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows, Kyle Nicolas, or Carmen Mlodzinski making up the starting five, will also provide a formidable rotation.