2016 Pittsburgh Pirates projections – Jeff Locke

The back-end of the rotation in 2016 will be held down by Jeff Locke, who hopes to reverse the negative trajectory of his career to date.

This off-season the writers at Pirates Breakdown will take a look at two different sets of projections for meaningful players on the roster and give you, the readers, their take on whether or not they think said player will meet, surpass, or fall below those projections. The projections for Steamer and ZiPs (created by Dan Szymborski) can be found on fangraphs.com. Check out all of our previous projections here.

To the bemoaning of many Pirates’ fans, Jeff Locke will be back this upcoming season in his usual number-five spot, looking to prove doubters wrong and hopefully show some improvement to the form that made him a one-time All-Star in 2013. The Pirates avoided arbitration with Locke on a one-year, $3.025 million deal this off-season, and he’s surely going to at least compete for a spot in the starting rotation on Opening Day. There’s been some talk this off-season of Ray Searage working with Locke and noticing some minor things that he thinks he can fix, giving hope that Locke can improve from his poor 2015 campaign. If he sports anything close to a 4.00 ERA, I’ll consider his 2016 season a success.

Here’s what the projections have in store for Locke in 2016:

Neither the Steamer nor the ZiPS projections see Locke continuing the downward trajectory he’s experienced over the past three seasons. The stats, outside of a much lower ERA, seem similar to 2015 for both of the projections. There is one noticeable difference though: Steamer sees Locke’s innings dropping by over 20 from 2015 to 2016, which I absolutely see happening. I’m not sure of the reasoning for this by Steamer, but with Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon looking to make their major league debuts at some point this season, Locke and Ryan Vogelsong look to be the odd men out come that time.

I would love the projections to be right about Locke’s ERA, but I don’t know if they will. Searage has had two-and-a-half seasons to return Locke to the All-Star form he had in 2013 and hasn’t been able to do that. Locke has also gotten progressively worse since 2013, with his ERA rising from 3.52 to 3.91 in 2014 to a robust 4.49 last season. I believe and trust that Searage sees something he thinks he can fix, but I’m not sure it can be done. Essentially, it comes to Locke keeping his pitches in the zone; if he can limit his walks, he will have more success. Luckily, if Locke doesn’t improve, Glasnow and Taillon are on the horizon.

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