BRADENTON, Fla. — Kyle Crick’s story is a mystery to most of his new teammates. Few know him as the former top-prospect starting pitcher who was stuck for three seasons in Double-A and struggled so badly that he was moved to the bullpen. To them, he is just one of many new faces who joined the Pirates during an offseason of change.
That’s a welcome respite for the 25-year-old reliever. One of two players acquired in the Andrew McCutchen trade, Crick is embracing a fresh start after failing to reach the lofty expectations thrust upon him as a first-round draft pick in 2011.
After all, it was a change of scenery last season that began his ascent to the major leagues.
“I’m absolutely excited for this,” Crick, who is competing for a spot in the Pirates' bullpen, said. “It will be nice. Nobody really knows anybody’s history here. No one knows what I did in High-A, Double-A or my struggles in ’16. I’m fine. All of that is in the past anyways.”
However, Crick’s past was of great interest to the Pirates during trade negotiations with the Giants. The hard-throwing right-hander averaged 12.5 strikeouts per nine innings in 14 starts at High-A in 2013 and was ranked by Baseball America as the game's No. 33 prospect entering 2014. Then he stayed at Double-A for three seasons, averaging 6.1, 9.4 and 5.5 walks per nine innings.
His command became such a problem that he was moved to the bullpen in 2015, only to be returned to the rotation in 2016. Crick, a supplemental first-round draft pick in 2011, allowed 9.1 hits per nine innings in 23 starts at Double-A in 2016, and he didn't reach Triple-A until last season.
“One of the things we find interesting is we go and look for guys that were really good and then have struggled, and Kyle would fall into that category,” Clint Hurdle said. “And actually he was trending up throughout last season. … He was pitching well, we're looking for him to take on an added role in the bullpen this year. He's experienced a lot. He's probably at the most confidence he's ever had. He seems to have found his niche with his pitches, so we like him, and we're looking forward to giving him the ball, seeing if we can put our eyes on him now.”
Crick’s emergence began last spring, when he allowed just one run in 8 2/3 innings during spring training, but it wasn’t enough to earn a spot in the Giants’ bullpen. He finally reached Triple-A at the beginning of the season — seventh as a professional — and his call to San Francisco came in June.
He recorded a 3.06 ERA and 1.20 WHIP with 7.8 strikeouts per nine innings in 32 1/3 innings for the Giants. Only 14 percent of his inherited runners scored and opponents batted only .191 against him with a .301 on-base percentage. His four-seam fastball averaged 95 mph, complementing an 82 mph slider and 87 mph changeup.
"It was having the confidence to throw whatever pitch in whatever count,” Crick explained. “It really didn’t matter. If [Buster] Posey called a changeup and I threw a bad changeup he’d throw another one down. Having the confidence to do whatever you want whenever you want on the mound.”
But Crick also averaged 4.7 walks per nine innings and benefited from a very fortunate .233 batting average on balls in play. Although he mostly pitched in the seventh or eighth inning, he was only asked to protect a lead or a tie in six of his 30 appearances.
Some of those struggles have continued this spring with the Pirates, too. He’s allowed five hits and two runs in three innings. Considering the player whom he was traded for, it’s likely Crick will indeed make the opening day roster.
He won't be asked to take on a late-inning role — Felipe Rivero and George Kontos will man the ninth and eighth innings, respectively — but Crick has the ability to throw multiple innings and can be of use in high-leverage situations. That versatility could prove valuable in his competition against Tyler Glasnow, Michael Feliz, Jordan Milbrath, A.J. Schugel, Edgar Santana and Dovydas Neverauskas.
“Kyle has an explosive fastball; the breaking ball can get swings and misses so there are two weapons to work out of a major league bullpen,” Neal Huntington said. “As we talked to Kyle, we told him to build on his success from a year ago, come here and compete to make our club and we see him as a quality backend reliever that, as a handful of these, may begin their time this year as a multi-inning reliever.”
The Pirates are taking a gamble that Crick has discovered his niche after spending those three seasons at Double-A. No Pirates player can speak of Crick's development quite like Kontos, whose locker was next to Crick's at the Giants' spring training complex in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Kontos was only on the Giants' major league roster with Crick for less than two months — he was claimed off waivers by the Pirates in August — but the one man who knows Crick's past expressed optimism that a bright future lies ahead.
"He’s a good kid," Kontos said. "He was young and very raw when I first met him in 2012. It seems like in the last couple of years he’s really developed and matured. He started to realize how to handle himself in a clubhouse filled with guys older than him or with more service time than him. He’s grown tremendously."