‘It eats me up:’ A slimmed down Crowe works for another chance

BRADENTON, Fla. -- It wasn't until Halloween that Wil Crowe had seen how bad he looked.

It was his one-year-old son Koa's first real Halloween, and Crowe and his wife, Hil, were dressed as Mickey and Minnie with their little one, Goofy. The family photos were adorable, but looking at them, Crowe saw what his body had been trying to tell him.

He was too heavy.

Crowe has always heard about his weight. At 6'2", his listed 245 pounds was a point of concern for the Nationals, who had him weigh in often. In doing so, his focus sometimes shifted to the scale rather than getting hitters out. With the Pirates, he performed for five months in his first turn as a reliever, but his season ended on an ugly note.

He made 60 outings last year and recorded a 3.12 ERA over 66 1/3 innings through the first 51 games he pitched. Those last nine outings really hurt the back of the baseball card, taking three losses and allowing 14 runs on four home runs and 11 walks through 9 2/3 innings. 

What made it worse was the feeling that the September slump was self-inflicted because he had gotten to 265 pounds.

“My arm wasn’t tired. My body wasn’t tired. I just felt heavy," Crowe told me. "It wasn’t like I couldn’t move, but my ankles, my knees, my joints, they were like, ‘we can get you through this, but we feel it.’ ”

Crowe's dropped that extra weight and entered camp at 240 pounds through refining his diet, lifting weights and doing what he admitted was an excessive amount of cardio. It's what he felt he needed to do, not just for the family photos, but his mechanics.

Crowe's delivery can be broken down into five parts: He sets, moves up, comes back down, stays loaded and then explodes towards the plate. 

Towards the end of the season, he had a new, unintentional first movement: He would lean forward, which would throw his mechanics off. This gif of two deliveries from the start and end of the season shows that the slight changes could snowball, especially with how he pushes off of the rubber.

“All my energy was rotational towards home plate rather than down, through home plate," Crowe explained. "That hurt me on some sliders. I would throw some changeup and they wouldn’t have the horizontal [movement] that I needed. Everything was up a little bit because rather than driving through the baseball, I was driving around the baseball.”

Making matters worse was September was arguably the month the Pirates needed Crowe the most. Almost all of the team's leverage relievers were hurt for at least a few weeks of the final months of the season, and while Crowe was deployed in just about every role possible last year, it was his first look as a closer. It was a missed opportunity to show he could pitch out of that role.

“That last month, it freaking sucked," Crowe said. "It was as hard for me as it was for anybody. I’m an ultra-competitor. Anything I can do to help [the team], I want to do it to win. Not being able to help my team and do my job, it freaking sucked."

But at the same time, it was a lesson and a chance to reflect on what he did well and what he needs to do to improve. He never had mechanical issues before, but he also never got this heavy before. The two had to be connected, and he was going to fix the issue.

“It’s your job," Crowe said while explaining his offseason mentality. "Put your big boy pants on. You can sulk about it if you want, but this is what you’re paid to do. Go out there, get it done and get your a-- back in shape. And that’s what I did.”

That September could have lingering effects for 2023 still, even after dropping the weight. Crowe was arguably the team's second-best reliever behind David Bednar, for most of the year, but he doesn't have a guaranteed roster spot.

The roster and collection of bullpen arms has greatly improved now that everyone is healthy and the Pirates added some players in the bullpen. There are a couple jobs up for grabs, and Crowe has to prove he deserves to keep his.

"He’s in competition in the bullpen," Derek Shelton said. "In terms of what the role is right now, I would say it’s probably going to be a multi-inning role. But it’s really hard this early in camp to determine where he’s gonna be... We’re going to have a lot of competition with guys we brought in and guys who were on our club last year. He’s right in the middle of it."

Crowe mostly pitched out of that multi-inning role last year, and even if he starts there, he could theoretically pitch his way into a leverage spot again. Bednar is the closer -- and Crowe wished him a decade of perfect health while in the middle of the interview -- but there are few guarantees outside of the All-Star in this bullpen. Crowe could get that look again.

For him to get that shot, he has to prove that late-season slump wasn't because of the added pressure the final innings brings.

“Do I think I can pitch in the ninth? Yes," Crowe said. "Does it suck that it turned out like it did? Yes. Whose fault is it? Mine. I put my body in a position where I couldn’t perform at the highest level. They gave me an opportunity to do something, and I wasn’t in the right position physically to do it, and I take accountability for that."

Crowe then paused for a moment to reflect before becoming more stoic.

“In my reflection, I looked back [on September] and I f—ed up. I f—ed up that opportunity, and I lost some games for the guys, and that freaking kills me. It eats me up. F—ing hate doing that. I hate losing. F—ing hate it, especially when it’s my fault.”

For a team looking to take a step forward in 2023, learning to hate losing is certainly going to help. It's what made Crowe a respected voice in that clubhouse a year ago. He has the change to build on that.

When working out to drop the weight, Crowe channeled some Deion Sanders in his offseason preparation: You look good, you feel good. You feel good, you play good.

And he definitely looks good.

“I’m never again going to get to a spot where if they give me an opportunity, I can’t do it physically."