Mound Visit: Five non-roster players to watch this spring taken at PNC Park (Pirates)

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Chasen Shreve.

Spring training is a time of optimism, not just for fans, but for veteran players looking to stick with a new team.

For most of the offseason, free agents usually sign major-league contracts, which guarantees them a salary and a roster spot. Once spring training starts to near, a lot of players are just looking for a job. It’s around this time that teams starting signing players to minor league contracts.

These non-roster invitations (NRI) are not all created equal. Sometimes a player signs with the understanding that they have a solid chance of making the team. Some sign just to get their foot in the door, stick around with the Class AAA club and maybe get promoted later in the year.

Whatever the reason, there are pros and cons for both players and teams when it comes to NRI deals, and while they are usually free agent leftovers, sometimes a hidden gem or productive player is found. Richard Rodriguez came to the Pirates via an NRI, as did Phillip Evans last season and Francisco Liriano the year before that.

“Opportunity does play into it,” Ben Cherington told me recently about why a player would take an NRI deal. “There are cases where players will choose an NRI over a guaranteed deal if they see an open opportunity to win playing time.”

At the moment, the Pirates have 29 non-roster players coming to its Major League spring training. Here are five that could make an impact in 2021.

RHP Chase De Jong

The reality is most NRI pitchers will not pan out with their new club. Teams tend to gravitate to one or two attributes and hope they can mold that into a serviceable reliever. Most of the time they don’t, but since only a handful actually reach the Majors, it’s no harm, no foul.

For De Jong, it’s his curveball. He is a former starter and has used a four pitch mix throughout his Major League cameos over the last four years, but none of them ever really played in the Show. That was until his curveball last year. Yes, it was a microscopic sample size, but batters swung at 13 of his curves last year and came up empty eight times.

This is noteworthy because his curveball spin rate jumped significantly, going from a career average of 2,365 RPM in his first three years to nearly 2,600 RPM in 2020. By Baseball Savant’s measurements, his snapper now has 2.2 inches more vertical drop than the average curveball:

If De Jong can tweak his spin direction so it truly mirrors and tunnels with his four-seamer and just focuses on those two pitches, then he might have a shot as a reliever. If he can’t, then the Pirates don’t really lose anything. He could be a midseason promotion.

OF Brian Goodwin

Of all of the Pirates’ NRIs, Goodwin is the safest bet to make the team. They only have four true outfielders on the roster, and it doesn’t make sense to bring Jared Oliva north unless he is going to start. They need depth, and Goodwin provides that.

As a hitter, Goodwin provides a little pop and a healthy walk rate, but also strikes out a lot and usually only has an OK on-base percentage. He is a roughly league average outfielder, which is fine for the Pirates in whatever role they want to use him, either as a starter or a backup for all three positions.

If it’s the later, there could be concerns with him in center. Goodwin was worth -6 defensive runs saved in 2020, tied for the worst of his career. Baseball Savant tracks outfielders’ “jumps,” or how much ground they cover in the opening seconds while tracking a fly ball. His jumps were graded well before, but they weren’t in 2020, with the data suggesting it took him longer to hit top speed. The Reds revealed late last season that Goodwin was suffering from a groin injury. That could explain his drop in defensive production last year, assuming it had been bothering him for some time.

It’s also worth noting that Goodwin was traded for a couple of lower-level prospects during last year’s trade deadline. Don’t expect a huge haul if the Pirates go that route, but if Oliva is ready for the Majors midseason, Goodwin could fetch a prospect come July.

RHP Clay Holmes

Holmes has already been the subject of a Mound Visit this offseason, so perhaps the focus for this bullet should have been on Will Craig or Kevin Kramer, who were also booted off the roster this winter but were invited back to Bradenton.

But Holmes has always had good peripherals and pitch movement. He’s just had a hard time hitting the bottom of the zone consistently. He moved his release point up last year before a forearm injury ended his season in July. Geoff Hartlieb, another sinkerballer, did the same thing and was able to cut down on his walks, so the new arm slot and simplified mechanics could help him too:

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Holmes gets about 2,700 RPM on his curveball and average 6.7 more inches of drop with his sinker than the average pitcher in 2019. Those are two solid tools if he can hit the bottom of the zone consistently. If he does reach the Majors again, it will be interesting to see how many low strikes Jacob Stallings can steal for him that Elias Diaz couldn’t.

LHP Chasen Shreve

At first glance, there’s nothing that really sticks out about Shreve. A low-90s fastball is hardly anything to get excited about, and his slider doesn’t get a lot of spin or break. So how did he strike out one-third of his batters faced last season?

It was his split-finger. Of his 34 strikeouts last year, 28 were via the splitter. That was tied for the fifth-most strikeouts a reliever had on any pitch last year:

Devin Williams changeup -- 41
James Karinchak curveball -- 34
Jake McGee four-seamer -- 30
Tyler Matzek four-seamer -- 29
Freddy Peralta four-seamer --28
Chasen Shreve splitter- 28

This is what I was talking about with De Jong. It really only takes one good pitch for a reliever to stick. Shreve has that with the splitter. Yes, he gives up some hard contact and walks more than his fair share, but he gets whiffs and strikeouts. That’s the main battle in today’s game.

Shreve is in the same class as Goodwin that it would be more surprising if he didn’t make the team. He’s been a productive player for several years now and would fit in as part of most team’s second-tier of relief pitchers. With how the Pirates’ bullpen is set up, he may get more late-inning opportunities here.

C Tony Wolters

Wolters isn’t going to provide much on offense. That’s not a deal breaker for the Pirates, and in the grand scheme of things, there are more pressing things to worry about with this roster than the backup catcher’s OPS. If he can make the pitchers better and provide value on defense, he will make the team.

A lot of that comes down to pitch framing. During the Rockies’ last playoff run in 2018, Wolters was considered one of the best in baseball at stealing strikes. He’s lost that skill over the last two seasons.

Baseball Savant tracks how often a catcher is successful at getting a strike call based on which zone the pitch was located. Here was Wolters in 2018:

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And here he is in 2020:

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The most drastic drop was on pitches on the lower part of the plate, going from getting the call 59.1% of the time to 46.5%. That’s where catchers tend to have the most success, making this drop even more puzzling.

To throw an observation I had out there, it looked like he set up his target later at times in 2020, putting up his glove to receive after the pitcher had already begun his motion. It’s hard to say if that would influence an umpire’s call at all, but a catcher can help establish the edge of the strike zone based on their glove placement. It’s just a theory.

Either way, Wolters needs to frame pitches better if he wants to find a home with the Pirates. Michael Pérez, the Pirates’ other catcher on the roster, isn’t exactly graded well as a pitch framer either, so if Wolters can grab that low strike again, it would add a lot of value.

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