What did the Pittsburgh Pirates expect from Vogelsong?

Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Ryan Vogelsong has regressed back to some poor habits. These habits have resulted in being pushed from the starting rotation to the bullpen. Here is a breakdown of those habits.

Before the start of spring, I took a look at what once-and-again Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Ryan Vogelsong needed to do to return the dominance he showed in 2011 after returning from a four year stint in Japan.  You can check out the full recap here, but without breaking it down into all of the stats, he had a lot of minor issues that collectively resulted in a pitcher that experienced a limited amount of success in his career.

I broke down the issues in Vogelsong’s mechanics.  In his delivery, he relies too much on body motion to locate his pitches rather than release point.  In 2011, when he posted All-Star numbers, he stayed tall in his delivery, which allowed him to break off sharp diving curveballs and changeups that kept hitters honest.  Before he left for Japan and after 2012, Vogelsong had a habit of corkscrewing on his stride foot and falling off towards the first base dugout.  This resulted in his control and command being hit and miss and his breaking pitches coming into the zone flat.

2011 is on the left, while 2015 is on the right

The pitch doctor Ray Searage and company had their work cut out for them this spring, and clearly, the end result wasn’t at a point the Pirates felt comfortable having him in their opening day rotation.  So what went wrong?

The video below is from the second and third innings in the March 9, 2016 spring training game.

This was one of Vogelsong’s more consistent outings, but what wasn’t consistent was Vogelsong’s delivery.  It’s virtually impossible for a pitcher to have the repeated motion every single time, but Vogelsong’s changes noticeably from pitch to pitch on the angle and the follow through.  The result is in 2015 was a noticeable rise in his walks per nine (BB/9) stat from no higher than 3.3 since returning from Japan to 3.9 in 2015, which was the highest point since a decade before with the Pirates.

This may be the result of him going from working heavily away against hitters in 2011 to working all over the zone.  Below are the zone profile and scatter plot from that spring start against the Red Sox and zone profiles from 2011 and 2015 for comparison.

March 9, 2016 – Vogelsong pitch scatter plot (2nd and 3rd innings):

March 9, 2016 – Vogelsong zone profile (2nd and 3rd innings):

Vogelsong 2011 pitch count and batting average zone profiles:

Vogelsong 2015 pitch count and batting average zone profiles:

It was Vogelsong’s history as a starter and the track record of the organization’s pitching coaches in correcting flaws that kept Vogelsong in the rotation competition.  It was his inefficiency and inconsistency that forced him to make his return to the mound for the Pirates against the Reds on Friday, April 8, 2016 as a reliever rather than as part of the rotation.

But today, he will be making his return to the mound as a starter in place of Francisco Liriano, who is dealing with a hamstring injury.

Ryan Vogelsong will start Wednesday in place of Francisco Liriano, who has right hamstring discomfort (status is day-to-day).

— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) April 12, 2016

It’s the situation the Pirates hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with, and at this point it seems fair to ask under what circumstances they ever truly allowed Vogelsong to be on the roster in the first place.  At the start of spring training, Neal Huntington revealed Juan Nicasio would be stretched out as a starter and the team would go from there.  His time as a Pirate had been extremely impressive until Tuesday afternoon at Comerica Park when he couldn’t make it to the fourth inning.

Vogelsong’s return has been the exact opposite. but after all, he was likely brought in to strictly be fodder.  The first indication should have been the contract, not the $2 million base salary, but the $3.1 million in incentives based upon a ridiculous points based system.

Of course, the Pirates included incentives for starts, but with two of the best pitching prospects at the Triple-A level in Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon, it seems highly unlikely Vogelsong ever truly had a chance to reach many of those incentive benchmarks.  He’s simply too easy to release, and it’s quite possible that was the only reason he was ever signed in the first place.

After the Vogelsong signing in December, Tyler Waite took a look at who was left on the free agent starting pitching market.  Fans clamored for Huntington to ignore his high-upside pitching prospects waiting in the wings and make a splash by signing Scott Kazmir, Mike Leake, Doug Fister, or, eventually, Mat Latos, but he never did.  The name that stands out the most to me is Mat Latos.  He would eventually be signed the Chicago White Sox to a one year, $3 million deal.  In his debut, Latos pitched six innings of one hit ball in a winning effort.  Vogelsong was on a plane bound for Cincinnati and his destiny to steal a statistical win on the back of Starling Marte’s grand slam.

Perhaps, Latos simply had no interest in coming to Pittsburgh. It’s not as if signing a player one year removed from being one of the best middle of the rotation starters in baseball to a one year deal would have been so hard to be rid of when Glasnow or Taillon were ready.  Latos is already the target of trade rumors just a week into the season, as the Yankees have their eyes set on the 28-year-old.

Instead, the Pirates will likely have to hope Vogelsong sparks sudden interest through trade or waivers from a team struggling with injuries or in the standings at some point in June or July.  Otherwise, they will have to eat all of his guaranteed base salary.  It seems like a high price to pay for a player that had already proven to be a burden before he even took the mound, instead of a high-upside alternative like Latos.

Vogelsong is certainly not an indicative of the notion among certain fans that the Pirates front office is either incapable or unwilling to spend money to compete this, or any other, year. It could certainly be interpreted as embracing dependence upon the farm system rather than the surplus of veteran pitching talent available through the free agent market this past offseason.

Today will be the first indication as to whether or not the Pittsburgh Pirates’ investment in Vogelsong was a worthwhile one. In all likelihood, it will also mark the first beginning of the fans’ suffering at the hands of a pitcher well past his prime, if two years out of a 19 year professional career can even qualify as a prime at all.

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