In 26 appearances, Pittsburgh Pirates’ setup-man Tony Watson has been far from his elementary self in 2016.
Currently, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ eighth-inning wizard sits 1-2 with a 4.15 ERA so far in 2016. Watson’s two losses came in the last week one coming against the Miami Marlins while the other came against the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim this past weekend.
Watson’s season has been a wild ride so far with a tumultuous month of April followed up by a superb month of May. However, since coming back from paternity leave, Watson has struggled mightily, his only bright spots coming Tuesday and Wednesday against the Mets when Watson had his first 1-2-3 inning since May 28th Tuesday and struck out the side on Wednesday.
What’s the culprit? Could it be a dire case of overuse?
April Showers
After a flawless first five outings where Watson only gave up two hits total, the lefty reliever suffered a major hiccup against the Detroit Tigers on April 14th, giving up two hits and three runs in one inning of work.
Watson went on to struggle in two more outings in April, both of which he went one-and-two-thirds innings. Against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Watson gave up three runs, one earned, on two hits while giving up a home run. In his outing against the Colorado Rockies where he went one-and-two-thirds innings, Watson gave up one run on two hits while striking out two.
What strikes me as a red flag in the month of April is Watson appeared in 12 of the Pirates’ 26 games. As the graph below shows, Watson lived in the heart of the plate, a recipe for disaster for any pitcher.
May Flowers
The month of May was much greater for Watson as he did not allow a run in any of his nine outings. Appearing in only nine of 29 games for the Pirates in May allowed Watson to pitch in back to back games only once compared to three times in April.
Watson finished the month of May allowing only four total baserunners and striking out six.
As the graph above shows, Watson lived on the inner half of the plate against right-handed hitters. It was a stark contrast to his April, and it allowed a great deal of success avoiding barrels.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”PBD’s Justin Kosanko” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Watson has made 222 appearances covering 224.1 innings in his role as seventh and eighth inning guy over the previous three years. This averages about 74 games and 75 innings per year. To put this in perspective, only 125 relief pitchers in the 140-plus year history of baseball have had workloads like this in one season, let alone three consecutive seasons.[/perfectpullquote]
Bats boomin’ in June
In each of Watson’s first three starts following his return from paternity leave, Watson gave up at least one run. In his outing on June 4th, he failed to get out of his lone inning giving up four runs on three hits and one walk.
Watson’s next appearance, he was able to get out of the inning, but he yielded two runs on two hits. The two home runs Watson has allowed in the month of June are just one shy of the total he allowed in his 12 appearances in the month of April. Watson has only appeared five times so far this June.
However, in his past two outings Watson has shut the door on the Mets, striking out the side Wednesday night while posting another 1-2-3 inning Tuesday night. Watson’s outing Wednesday night in the Pirates’ loss to the Mets was the first outing in which he struck out the side this season.
Overuse
The biggest issue looming for Watson and his success is his usage. Over the course of his career, dating back to his first full season with the Pirates in 2012, Watson has thrown in 315 games. He’s averaging nearly 79 appearances per season. Those appearances are usually high leverage coming in as the set-up man for All-Star closer Mark Melancon.
We’ve previously reviewed Watson’s usage, and found some harrowing facts. At the beginning of this year, manager Clint Hurdle’s unusual deployment of the southpaw also led some to speculate that the overarching plan may have been to at least limit Watson’s high leverage innings if not reduce his usage altogether.
That has simply not happened.
As Watson has shown, prior to his back to back scoreless innings this week, he is normally better with a day or two off between appearances. While this is not always possible based on game situations and usage of other pitchers, if the Pittsburgh Pirates want to get the most out of Watson and get him back to his successful ways, they’d be better off giving him time between appearances.
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