Pittsburgh Pirates Potential Free Agent Pickups: Yusmeiro Petit

The Pittsburgh Pirates may be able to add another successful reclamation project to their resume in reliever Yusmeiro Petit.

As the Pittsburgh Pirates look to construct their 2017 roster, they will have to spend some attention on their bullpen. We have previously written on the need for the club to look to improve right-handed relief pitching. The Pirates have A.J. Schugel firmly in tow, with Juan Nicasio and Jared Hughes set to go through the arbitration process.

While many firmly expect both Nicasio and Hughes to be tendered contracts to ensure their services for 2017, others – including your author – remain unconvinced. Of the two, Nicasio has the most upside, while Hughes’ effectiveness faced serious questions at times during 2016. Set to make an estimated $6.5 million between them in arbitration, the team might feel that those dollars could be better spent elsewhere.

With those issues in mind, the Pirates might do well to take a look at Yusmeiro Petit, whose option was recently declined by the Washington Nationals.

Pitcher Profile

Petit is perhaps best known to fans as a member of the San Francisco Giants, a time in which Petit helped the Bay Area club win the World Series in 2014. Here now is a quick peek at his career numbers:

 

 

Petit’s numbers through the years will not strike fear in the hearts of many major league hitters, though his time with the Giants (beginning with the 2012 season) found him reaching a certain level of consistency. Petit began his Giants career with an eye towards a starting rotation spot before being relegated to the bulpen in 2014.

Petit is not going to blow anyone away, with a four seam fastball that averages 89.23 miles per hour. He does carry an interesting pitch mix, throwing in a cutter, curveball and changeup.

Over the years, the right hander has made a conscious effort to bypass his lack of heat through a deceitful delivery. “I try to keep my wind-up and delivery short so batters don’t see the ball well,” Petit told the Washington Post after signing with the Nationals. Indeed, Petit does have a funky delivery, as seen below:

Coincidentally, the gif above comes from Petit’s perfect game bid on September 6 of 2013. He came within one out of the feat before giving up the single you see above.

The Case For Petit

Despite his shortcomings, Petit does have an out pitch. His curveball produced an 18.53 percent whiff rate in 2016, and was awfully effective on two-strike counts. Hitters put up a .180 batting average against on the pitch in two strike counts, and Petit recorded a strikeout in 20 of the 39 at-bats decided by the curveball on those two-strike counts.

His ERA and FIP have been inflated at times – especially in 2016 – but there are some positives to Petit’s results. His 41.5 groundball rate in 2016 was the highest of his career, and his line drive rate of 17.4 was four percentage points below the National League average. Though he had an undesirable 2.2 walks per nine innings in 2016, his overall walk rate came in at just 5.4 percent, well below the NL average of 8.4.

Fair or not, Petit does carry a “damaged goods” label, and that might be a net positive for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Having his very reasonable $3 million option declined by the Nationals has set his market value accordingly. He will likely come cheap.

Petit could be a prime candidate to – stop us if you’ve heard this before – sign somewhere for one year to rebuild his value. What better place than Pittsburgh? Ray Searage‘s reputation as a miracle worker was dinged early in 2016, but by the time the dust settled and Ivan Nova turned himself into the cream of the free agent crop, reports of Searage’s demise were greatly exaggerated.

The Case Against Petit

The most damaging case against a team signing Petit is that there are simply better options out there. The Pittsburgh Pirates’ own Neftali Feliz springs to mind, as do names such as Aaron Barrett, Tommy Hunter and others. Even older arms such as Jason Grilli or Fernando Rodney might be had for less than many think. The trade market for relief help figures to be very active as well. We recently profiled Pat Neshek (see link below), who is just one name of many that could be available. UPDATE – Neshek was just acquired by the Phillies.

In today’s MLB landscape, relievers are so effective – and thus teams are building ‘super bullpens’ – in part due to velocity. Having multiple arms who can throw in the high 90s is too tantalizing for many teams to pass up. While there are exceptions, Mark Melancon being a most recent Pittsburgh Pirates example, a pitcher with high velocity can get by with warts on his game. Petit does not have that, and his margin for error is thus incredibly small. He has no other path to effectiveness other than hitting his spots, and if he isn’t, then he’s going to have a bad time.

Left-handed hitters also did a number on Petit last year, slashing .280/.342/.600 against him, not too far from his carer split of .273/.334/.493. This inability to get left-handed bats out could relegate him to a part-time specialist role, and the Pittsburgh Pirates already have something of a specialist in Hughes.

Conclusions

Due to his lack of intimidating, or even close to intimdating, stuff as well as an inability to get left-handed hitters out, there are definitely better options for right-handed relief help than Petit. However, should he remain unsigned closer to Spring Training, a low-risk minor league deal could be on the table for some club looking to roll the dice. Should that scenario play out, the Pittsburgh Pirates would be well-served to take a flyer on the once-promising reliever.

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Featured Photo Credit – Keith Allison – Flickr Creative Commons