Have the Pittsburgh Pirates Done Enough to Address Their Rotation?

After re-signing Ivan Nova to a three-year deal, have the Pittsburgh Pirates done enough to address their 2017 starting rotation?

The Pittsburgh Pirates have signed SP Ivan Nova to a three-year contract.

Simply from that transaction alone, the club has already done a better job of bolstering their starting rotation for the upcoming season than they did as they approached 2016. Nova’s success since joining the Pirates has been well-documented, and though he will likely not be able to sustain his incredible numbers put up in his 11 Pittsburgh starts, he will provide a solid anchor for the rotation behind Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon.

But is it going to be enough?

Still Going After More

Before we attempt to answer that, we must point out that the club is still working to put together a trade package for White Sox left-handed starter Jose Quintana.

Source: #Pirates still trying to acquire #WhiteSox’s Quintana even after Nova deal. That pursuit was first reported by @Buster_ESPN.

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) December 22, 2016

It goes without saying, but we’ll say it anyway: If the Pittsburgh Pirates can land Jose Quintana in addition to bringing back Nova, their off-season as a whole would have to be considered a wild success, even before addressing a potential Andrew McCutchen deal. Without getting caught up in arbitrarily assigning them an order, a rotation including Cole, Taillon, Nova and Quintana is not only a strong one, but a complimentary one. Each pitcher offers something a little bit different from each other, and that fact alone can keep many opponnents off-balance in three or four game series.

However, the asking price is undoubtedly steep, and paying it would represent a significant change in organizational philosophy. So far, the Pittsburgh Pirates have not shown an ability to waver from their preferred personnel methodology.

So, the question remains. If the Pirates’ rotation stays static after the signing of Nova, is it enough?

Trying to Keep Up With the Joneses

We can start to answer that question by looking at some of the early 2017 National League playoff contenders and their rotations as they stand right now.

• The New York Mets will have some serious questions in their quintet, with Matt Harvey and Steven Matz coming back from injury. Jacob deGrom also had an up and down year partly attributed to nagging injuries as well, and the loss of Bartolo Colon will be felt. Noah Syndergaard had a fantastic season with a 5.07 strikeout-to-walk ratio, so the Mets have the rock in their rotation that many teams desire. The Mets’ rotation is the class of the National League in terms of talent, and if their horses stay healthy and productive, watch out.
• The Washington Nationals may have missed out on Chris Sale, but their rotation was pretty darn good before the name was even whispered by GM Mike Rizzo. Max Scherzer needs no explanation, but the Nationals have question marks of their own. Stephen Strasburg was shut down in September due to injury, and LHP Gio Gonzalez has a jekyll and hyde quality to him. One feather that that Nationals have in their cap is “back-end” depth. The combination of Tanner Roark and Joe Ross as “fourth and fifth” starters is the envy of many other teams in baseball, and solidifies this rotation as one of the best.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers boast the best starting pitcher of this generation in Clayton Kershaw, and just signed veteran Rich Hill to a three-year deal. Kenta Maeda showed well in his first year of American baseball. Assuming Hill can come close to replicating his 2016 numbers, the top of the Dodgers rotation is a fantastic one. It is on the back end that there lies a few question marks. The Dodgers have a glut of pitching, with either Scott Kazmir, Brandon McCarthy or Alex Wood the odd man out if young hurlers Julio Urias and Jose De Leon factor in significantly to the club’s 2017 plans (as they should).
• The San Francisco Giants will have Matt Moore for a full season to pitch alongside Madison Bumgarner and Johnny Cueto. Those three are formidable enough, but the Pittsburgh Pirates’ old friend Jeff Samardzija quietly turned in a solid season, pitching to a 3.85 FIP to go along with a 3.04 SO/W ratio. If “the shark” can come close to those numbers in 2017, the Giants rotation would be rock-solid, regardless of any contribution received from oft-injured Matt Cain.
• The St. Louis Cardinals rotation is one that has a serious logjam. It is also much akin to the Pirates’ rotation in that their top two pitching prospects – #2 MLB Pipline RHP pitching prospect Alex Reyes and #81 prospect overall Luke Weaver – saw action in 2016 and will look to take a step forward. The thing is, they may not get a chance to. They’ll join Adam Wainright, Carlos Martinez, Michael Wacha and Mike Leake as candidates for five spots in the rotation, along with Lance Lynn, who will be coming back from Tommy John surgery. The Cardinals can afford to bring Lynn back slowly, which will help, but they will have some tough decisions to make in forming this unit. Bounce back seasons from Wainright, Wacha and Leake will have ot be in the mix, though. Each of the three had ERAs of 4.50 or higher in 2016.
• The World Series champion Chicago Cubs are of course solid at the top with Jon Lester and Jake Arrieta, but they will have to likely replace Jason Hammel while counting on another solid season from Kyle Hendricks to stave off their lack of starting pitching depth beyond their five starters. Entering only his fourth year, Hendricks has not given us much history to draw from to determine if another 2016-type season is in the cards for him.

Why Other Teams’ Rotations May Not Even Matter

As we compare the Pittsburgh Pirates rotation as it stands right now against the teams listed above, it would be hard to consider the Pirates on the same level as most of the clubs on paper.

Of course, success is never defined on paper. It also helps that there is a precedent for the Pittsburgh Pirates to still play at a high level despite a so-so rotation.

In 2015, the club won 98 games. Their starting pitching unit as whole ranked fifth in the National League in Wins Above Replacement at 16.9, just 0.1 WAR ahead of the Cardinals, who had the best record in baseball. The teams above them? The Cubs, Nationals, Dodgers and Mets. The Giants were an outlier, ranking tenth, but this can show that having a lights-out rotation may not matter as much as many think.

[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]So, the question remains. If the Pirates’ rotation stays static after the signing of Nova, is it enough?[/perfectpullquote]

What does matter as much as people think, and possibly more then they think, is the effectiveness of a team’s bullpen. In 2015, the Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen ranked second in WAR as a unit with 4.7. They walked the third fewest hitters per nine (2.76), were the best at keeping the ball in the park (HR/9 of 0.65), and did this while pitching the sixth-most innings – 522.1.

That last number is important. As mentioned, the Pirates pitched the sixth-most innings of any bullpen. The four teams with the least amount of innings pitched? The Mets, Dodgers, Nationals and Cardinals.

There is two clear takeaways here. First, no matter how much debate swirls around the Quality Start statistic (a quality start is one in which a starting pitcher pitches at least six innings giving up three runs or less), It is still an important metric. The longer a starter can go, the less taxed a bullpen will be. That seems like obvious math, but in 2016 the Pittsburgh Pirates had a dearth of quality starts, and it led to an overexposed relief unit.

Second, the Pirates may fully recognize how much a bullpen can pick up its starters through the club’s investment in Daniel Hudson. The club seems committed to fielding not only an improved rotation, but a vastly improved relief corps as well. Many believe that the Hudson signing on its own is not enough to shore up the pen. There is a ton of off-season left, however, and it is virtually impossible to determine in December what a team’s bullpen will look like in April.

Regardless of what it looks like, the Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen can go a long way towards rendering any comparisons to other team’s rotations moot.

Even if they don’t land Quintana.

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