Pittsburgh Pirates: Three Players Who Still Deserve Another Opportunity

First impressions aren't always everything, and while these young Pittsburgh Pirates players may have struggled in 2023, they deserve a second chance to show what they could do in 2024

Some say first impressions are everything. But if that were always true, many of the greatest baseball players of all time would have never gotten another shot. Mike Schmidt batted .196 and struck out over a third of the time in his rookie season when having a strikeout rate over 20% was below average, Mike Trout had a sub-.700 OPS in 2011, and Randy Johnson had just an 82 ERA+ in his first year.

Sometimes, it also takes a couple of years for players to figure things out. It took Sandy Koufax nearly 700 innings before he would put it all together. There are many other late bloomers in baseball. One of my biggest baseball pet peeves is when fans are already throwing their hands up and are ready to give up on a player who may not even turn 25 for another year or two after just one or two years, and that’s because of so many instances of players figuring it out after that first or second season.

A handful of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ top prospects haven’t hit the ground running full sprint, and that’s okay. In an era where players are flying through the minor leagues and suddenly becoming MLB all-stars, we forget that guys like Juan Soto are the exception, not the norm. But these Pirates players certainly deserve a second chance. On top of that, I want to look at what they need to improve upon to try to rebound or break out in 2024.

Roansy Contreras

Roansy Contreras entered 2023 with big expectations. After a quality rookie year where he entered the season as a consensus top-100 prospect, Contreras looked like he could secure a long-term rotation spot, but things didn’t go according to plan.

Contreras’ rookie season wasn’t bad. In 95 innings, he pitched to a 3.79 ERA, 4.38 FIP, and 1.27 WHIP. While his 22.1% strikeout rate, 9.6% walk rate, and 1.23 HR/9 were solid but unimpressive, it was a successful rookie campaign overall. Plus, in just his age-22 season, there was reason to believe he could get better and improve upon his game. He also had above-average whiff and chase rates, so there was a good chance that you may have seen his strikeout rate go up.

2023, however, was a rough year. At the end of April, he had just a 3.58 ERA, 2.98 FIP, and 1.34 WHIP. Sure, his K% dropped to 20.7% while his walk rate saw a slight uptick to 10.3%, but he didn’t allow a single home run through his first 27.2 innings, mainly due to his barrel rate dropping to just 5.1%.

But after April, things all came crashing down around Contreras. Over his next 40.2 innings, he had an 8.63 ERA, 6.72 FIP, and 1.72 WHIP. While his walk rate didn’t take much of a hit at 10.8%, his strikeout rate plummeted to just 16.7%. Meanwhile, his home run rate went in the completely opposite direction at 2.43-per-9. Contreras was optioned to Triple-A after July 5th and wasn’t recalled again for the rest of the year.

Contreras got his walk rate under control at Triple-A, cutting it down to 8.2% while upping his K% to 22.4%, but his HR/9 remained above 2.00. Part of that is because of a 20.4% HR/FB ratio, and while he is more of a flyball pitcher, HR/FB rate above 20% is unlikely to be sustained across a full season.

So why should Contreras get another shot? Well, for one, he’s only 24. He won’t turn 25 until next November. Giving up on a young arm, who was considered a consensus top 100 prospect less than two years ago, would be foolish, especially considering he was not bad in his first look in the bigs.

Two, it’s very possible Contreras was injured this year. The right-hander averaged 95.8 MPH on his fastball in 2022 to just 94.4 MPH. That’s nearly a one-and-a-half loss of velocity. That’s the difference between the 78th percentile and the 56th percentile of fastball velo. However, he was sitting just 92-93 MPH at Triple-A. Let’s see what he can do after a full off-season of rest.

Another thing he needs to work on is his pitch spin. Contreras’ fastball went from just 12.3 inches of drop and 7.4 inches of horizontal break to 14.2 inches of drop and 5.1 inches of break. His fastball became flat, losing the ride and break he had shown in 2022. That’s because his active spin rate went from 93% to just 89%. 

Some of this may have also to do with the pitch clock. Contreras sped his game up significantly with men on base, going from 16.7 seconds to just 13.2 seconds. When the bases were empty, he dropped it from 9.9 seconds to 8.1 seconds. He was already working at a good pace in 2022 and didn’t need to speed things up. 

One last thing to note is that this might just be a sophomore slump. Some players struggle in the following year after their first big league season or breakout campaign. Contreras is only 24, and he wouldn’t be the first player under 25 player to struggle in their second season following their rookie/breakout season.

Luis Ortiz

Luis Ortiz had a super impressive September in 2022. In his first three outings, Ortiz pitched 15.1 innings, allowing just two earned runs, no home runs, and struck out 17 batters. While he also walked seven, you couldn’t have asked for a better start to a big league career. While he tanked the last and final outing, only making two outs and allowing six earned runs, Ortiz had the inside track for a future rotation spot. I even went so far as to say he could have Rookie of the Year potential because of his elite ability to induce swings and misses and weak contact.

Ortiz pitched 86.2 innings in 2023 and struggled to the tune of a 4.78 ERA, 5.57 FIP, and 1.70 WHIP. The right-hander cut his walk rate down to 12%, however, his strikeout rate fell to a mere 14.8%. But even more worrisome was his opponent's exit velocity going from 84.9 MPH in 2022 to 92.3 MPH, and his HR/9 rate spiking to 1.35. Ortiz had some solid games this year, going five or more innings while allowing three or fewer earned runs nine times, but when he was off, he was way off.

Ortiz came up hitting triple-digits on the gun, but what happened to his velocity? How did he go from averaging 98.4 MPH to 96.2 MPH? In all honesty, Ortiz likely came up, saw this as a good opportunity to show off his potential, and decided to grip it and rip it. Ortiz didn’t go very many innings in his brief 2022 sample size, averaging four innings a start, but it worked for him.

Ortiz may simply be someone whose fastball is significantly better at 97-99 and topping out at 101 than 95-97 MPH and topping out at 98. The real question is how sustainable is that kind of heat over the course of 6+ innings? I get why Ortiz may have been asked to go less than 100% on every fastball. But maybe we should just let Ortiz fling fastballs at high velocity. Stop making the pitch play down because you want him to go 6-7 innings instead of five. Five great innings will give the Pirates a better chance to win than 6-7 average to below-average innings.

Another thing Ortiz needs to do is stop leaving the ball down the middle with his fastball. Sounds like basic baseball knowledge, but this is something Ortiz struggled with during 2023. He worked down the middle and occasionally up and in on right-handed batters/up-away vs left-handed batters. Compare that to 2022, when Ortiz worked up and in on RHB/up-away vs LHB more often, as well as working on the edges more frequently. 

Just look at the difference in fastball distribution in 2023 vs 2022, as I did in the tweet below. Working down the middle that often is typically not a recipe for success:

Giving up on Ortiz when we know what his ceiling is would not be a wise move. As I pointed out, some of his struggles may simply be a tweak in location and velocity. If Ortiz is holding back from throwing 97+ on the regular so he can try and go into a game longer but sacrificing overall stuff to do it, it’s time for him just to go all out. Sure, Ortiz may not be Greg Maddux 2.0, but he’s more than good enough to locate on the edges more frequently as he did in 2022.