The Pirates won 76 games in 2023, a 14-game improvement over 2022. They wound up being tied for 21st place in a 30-team league. What is rather remarkable, is that they are about in the same place, in what I believe are the most important categories. In other words, all phases of their game need to improve equally. Looking on the offensive side, they are 22nd in runs per game with 4.27, 21st in On Base Percentage with .315, and 23rd in the comparison stat OPS+ with 92, where 100 is league average. Pitching, the Pirates are 22nd in preventing runs, giving up 4.88 per game, Fielding Independent Pitching 21st, with 4.40, and 22nd in the comparison stat, ERA+ at 97, with 100 league average. Nothing surprising here, with the both the batting and pitching being below league average. The Pirates did improve their fielding, finishing 18th in the Baseball Reference stat, Defensive Efficiency, compared to 27th last year. According to Wins Above Replacement (WAR) the Pirates worst 2 positions were catching and right field both ranking 29th. It is obvious that catching should improve overall next year. Coming in at 28th were 2nd and shortstop, somewhat surprising in my mind but those positions have a lot of elite players. Coming in at 24th were the starting pitchers and centerfield. Jack Suwinski and Ji Hwan Bae were the 2 who played that position the most. The Pirates were the 23rd best pinch-hitting club in baseball. The bullpen came in 18th in WAR. The first position to be in the upper half of the league Bryan Reynolds in left field at 14th. DH was next at 13th, where Andrew McCutchen had the most plate appearances by a wide margin over Bryan Reynolds. Thanks to Carlos Santana, who is no longer a Pirate, 1st base came in 12th. According to WAR Ke'Bryan Hayes was the big factor in putting 3rd base in the number 2 position. It certainly looks like Hayes will pick up his first Gold Glove. It is obvious where the Pirates need help, and I will get into that when we look at what the Pirates may or may not do going forward to the 2024 season.
I wrote about a week ago, that despite the Pirates winning 14 more games, the season was a disappointment. Losing Oneil Cruz for the season in mid April was a huge loss. The other injury, that was more or less swept under the rug, was the strange nerve problem of left hand reliever Jarlin Garcia, who the Pirates signed as a free agent over the previous winter. He had pitched in 285 games over the past 6 seasons with an ERA+ of 112. He would have helped the bullpen immensely, but instead never threw one pitch. I thought the Pirates would win around 80 to 85 games with the pitching being the main strength of the team. That's where I was wrong. The pitching took a major step backward in 2023 and none more so than Roansy Contreras and Luis Ortiz. Let's just look at the run prevention stat of ERA+, from one year to the next. Contreras's ERA+ in 2022, 107 and in 2023, 67. He goes from being solidly above league average to way below league average with no physical problems. Luis Ortiz had an ERA+ essentially the same for both years at 92 and 93 respectively but he had one horrendous start at the end of 2022 that brought this number down. Both he and Contreras had huge drops in velocity at around 3 MPH less than they were throwing in 2023. Mitch Keller even though he did not regress never really made any big improvement. In 2022, he had an ERA+ of 104, 2023 ERA+ 105. Johan Oviedo in 2022 with both the Cardinals and the Pirates had an ERA+ of 126 in 21 games. This year, in 32 games his ERA+ was 103. Colin Holderman has digressed since coming from the Mets. They had better find a new coaching philosophy if this type of regression is going to stop. Then there is Robert Stephenson who the Pirates traded to Tampa Bay. With the Pirates, 111 batters faced, ERA+ 102. With the Rays, 140 batters faced, ERA+ 179. Are the Pirates really looking at these guys? The pitching which looked so good going into 2023 now looks like it could be a major concern.
With the stats, it is obvious where the Pirates need help. They need a right fielder. They need some stability at short and 2nd base. They now need some starting pitching because of injury and poor performances. What will the Pirates do in the coming off season? Who knows? What should they do in the coming off season? The subject of the next blog.
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