North Shore Tavern Mound Visit: Three signs of progress, pessimism taken at PNC Park (Mound Visit)

PIRATES

Derek Shelton.

Let’s talk about progress. Again.

It’s Year 3 of the Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton era, and it’s quite possibly the third straight year the Pirates will finish with 100 losses or the equivalent winning percentage of a triple-digit loss season. It’s been a slow rebuild, and if you’re looking for progress in wins and losses, well, it ain’t there yet.

If you want to look deeper into the world of analytics, there are some areas that the team has truly grown in 2022. There are also areas where they have regressed. In this Mound Visit, we’re going to take a look at three areas to provide some optimism and pessimism with the direction the Pirates are heading.

PROGRESS WITH HITTING: HARDER CONTACT

Out of all the analytics and new data that has gone mainstream over the past decade in baseball, exit velocity seems to be the most universally respected. If you want to dive deep into batted ball data, it’s a great place to start. If you prefer to look at the game more traditionally, it’s still at least a fun tool and some tangible proof to go with the eye test of if a player is hitting the ball well right now.

But exit velocity has been a consistent team problem for the Pirates, having ranked in the bottom-half of the league in hard hit percentage (what percentage of at-bats that results in a ball being hit at least 95 mph) each year since 2016. This year, they’re right on the league average at 15th in the league, thanks to a noticeable spike in their hard-hit rate:

2019: 34.3% (26th in MLB)
2020: 36.8% (18th in MLB)
2021: 34.2% (30th in MLB)
2022: 37.6% (15th in MLB)

While making the leap to the middle of the pack may not seem like a big deal, that 3.4% jump (one batted ball in every 30) is the third-largest jump of any team this season. Their average exit velocity has also jumped up 0.9 mph to 88.4 mph, the second-largest improvement of every team, and their barrel percentage is up 1.3% (third-largest improvement in MLB) to 6.7%.

There’s still a lot of ground to cover, but it’s an improvement that extends beyond just getting Oneil Cruz in the lineup. As a team, they’re making harder contact.

PROBLEMS WITH HITTING: SWINGING IN THE ZONE

This is a weird one because most issues around swing decisions boil down to a hitter or team chasing too much. Not in this case. The Pirates’ 27.9% chase percentage is a little better than league average, even if it’s up a tick from last year (26.7%).

No, the Pirates just aren’t swinging at pitches in the zone. Baseball Savant tracks them at swinging at only 63.7% of pitches in the strike zone, the lowest in baseball. Excluding the shortened pandemic season, the 4.1% drop in zone swing rate is the largest of any team since the start of the Statcast era in 2015. Comparing just the Pirates’ swing rates at strikes per season:

2019: 71.9% (1st in MLB)
2020: 68.6% (4th in MLB)
2021: 67.8% (15h in MLB)
2022: 63.7% (30th in MLB)

I wrote about this in greater detail in a recent Mound Visit, but the heart of the issue is the Pirates are watching too many good pitches go by. They have taken the third-most strikes in baseball and the third-most strike threes (278). If the goal is to take aggressive, consistent swings against hittable pitches, they aren’t doing it enough.

PROGRESS WITH PITCHING: BETTER BATTED BALLS

As I wrote in last week's Mound Visit, the Pirates have made a switch to more sinkers as this season has progressed. That is reflective in the team’s batted ball data, which looks far more favorable than it has in recent years.

No team has seen a bigger decrease in fly ball percentage than the Pirates, dropping 2.8 points to 23.8%. Their ground ball percentage has gone from 42% to 44%. Mix in about league-average results on average exit velocity and barrel rates, and on the whole, the contact the Pirates have allowed is not as loud in recent years.

Consider how often the Pirates have allowed solid contact this season compared to recent years:

2020: 7.3% (29th in MLB)
2021: 6.8% (29th in MLB)
2022: 5.7% (8th in MLB)

That’s a noticeable jump. We can talk about the ball being less lively this year and how that can play a role, but even in a year where the pitching staff still has a revolving door feel, there’s been some improvement with the staff as a whole. Promote some top prospects instead of needing to rely on the waiver wire as much and this jump could be more significant in 2023.

PROBLEMS WITH PITCHING: THOSE WALKS AND STRIKEOUTS

The Pirates had plenty of troubles on the pitching side in 2020 and 2021. Walks were the one that bothered Oscar Marin possibly the most. After leading the league in walk rate in 2020 (11.2%), they dropped that number down a significant amount to 9.9% in 2021, but that was still the third-worst in baseball. They’ve seen that rate drop down a tick again to 9% this season, but that’s still the fifth-highest rate in baseball.

Meanwhile, the team’s strikeout rate has also been steadily dropping the last few years. As a result, the strikeout rate minus walk rate (K%-BB%) has been worsening despite the better walk numbers:

2019: 13.4% (19th in MLB)
2020: 12.9% (19th in MLB)
2021: 11.5% (26th in MLB)
2022: 10.6% (28th in MLB)

Sinkers can be a double-edged sword and probably did contribute to the decrease in strikeouts, but this worsening ratio of strikeouts to walks had been going on for years before the team started leaning into sinkers mid-2022. They need to get better in at least one of those two areas.

PROGRESS WITH THE INTANGIBLES: BETTER ON BASEPATHS

The Pirates can’t rely on just home runs and extra-base hits to drive in all of their runs. They’re going to need to play some small ball, and base running is a big part of the equation.

The bad news is they are still being thrown out more than their fair share, with Baseball Reference tracking them at 39 outs on the basepaths while the average team is at 36, but that’s more a product of an aggressive approach. As a team, they have taken the extra base – moving from first to third on a single, first to home on a double, etc. – 43% of the time, just above the league average. That’s a big jump from what we’ve seen in recent years:

2020: 37% (25th in MLB)
2021: 36% (27th in MLB)
2022: 43% (12th in MLB)

FanGraphs’ base running stat is BsR, which weighs stolen bases, caught stealing and if players are taking those extra bases. By their calculations, the Pirates have improved by eight runs on the bases this year, going from -3.9 BsR in 2021 to 4.1 this season. That’s the team’s highest BsR in almost 20 years, last being topped in 2003 (5.5 BsR).

For a team that has played so many games that were decided by two runs or fewer, a run on the basepaths can often be the difference between victory and defeat. They’ve done well in this area this season.

PROBLEMS WITH THE INTANGIBLES: PROBLEMS IN THE FIELD

Ke’Bryan Hayes is going to be in the mix for a Gold Glove this season, which is very well-deserved. He had some hiccups with errors earlier in the season, but on the campaign, Baseball Savant tracks him at 12 Outs Above Average (OAA), the second-most among all third basemen behind Nolan Arenado

I bring up Hayes’ errors because it’s important to point out that errors don’t tell the whole story defensively. Right now, the Pirates lead the league with 85 fielding errors. If you want to get analytical, their -21 OAA are 26th in baseball. (This does not include catchers, so losing Gold Glover Jacob Stallings does not hurt them.)

Looking at recent years, this is trending in the wrong direction…

2020: 1 OAA
2021: -13 OAA
2022: -21 OAA

… but that season total comes with an outrageous split. When a right-handed hitter is up, the Pirates’ defense is a perfectly average 0 OAA. When it’s a left-handed hitter, they’re at -21 OAA. Right-handed hitters are going to pull the ball to Hayes’ side, so he’s carrying the defense then. The right side of the diamond is where the problem is, whether it’s Ben Gamel with -3 OAA or Bryan Reynolds posting -5 OAA from just plays to his left into right-center alone.

Defense isn’t negotiable. The Pirates need to do better here, and Hayes can’t do it by himself.

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