Despite the 4-1 start to the season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, there has been one glaring weakness for the Bucs.
The bullpen is terrible.
It’s only been five games and the conditions have not been ideal, but the Bucs pen has been awful to say the least.
That begs the question of whether Tyler Glasnow should be promoted to a bigger role already this early in the season.
So far this season the Pirates’ relievers have combined to post a 5.82 ERA and a 1.66 WHIP. Even with such a small sample size, it’s evident that the pen is going to be a problem.
The question is what should Clint Hurdle do to maximize his bullpen and where should Glasnow be getting the ball?
Current Group
Dovydas Neverauskas and Josh Smoker shouldn’t be in the majors right now.
Neverauskas had a low K-rate in the minors and he needs his breaking stuff to play better at the MLB level to be effective. He’s leaving pitches over the plate and is getting hit.
Smoker just isn’t very good and should be sent down since he has options available.
Edgar Santana and Michael Feliz haven’t been great, but their stuff is better suited to get batters out at the big-league level.
Overall, the Pirates have blown leads in three of five games, including blowing two leads on Wednesday night against the Twins.
However if not Neverauskas and Smoker, then who?
No help in the minors
There’s a few bullpen arms like Kevin Siegrist and Kyle Crick in the minors, but they did nothing in spring training to separate themselves from the others so they aren’t really the answer.
Although I like both options a lot better than Neverauskas and Smoker, it’s hard to pull the trigger on such moves after five games.
Siegrist doesn’t have his velocity back and Crick didn’t have a good spring so there’s not a definite answer in Indianapolis, but Hurdle can’t keep watching Neverauskas and Smoker cough up leads, even if it’s only been five games.
That’s where signing a free agent or two could have helped.
There were tons of relievers on the open market that the Pirates could have signed. I have no problem with the way they tried to rebuild their pen with guys with high strikeout rates, but adding a veteran or two that had a proven track record could have made this pen pretty darn good.
Glasnow
The million dollar question now is what to do with Glasnow?
Given the way things have gone in the past, should Hurdle thrust Glasnow into a higher leverage situation after just five games?
That answer is yes.
Glasnow is more talented than most of the other arms in the pen and he’s actually pitching pretty well.
He gave up one run Tuesday night, but that probably shouldn’t have happened given that it looked like he picked off Eddie Rosario in the seventh.
He threw 35 of 55 pitches for strikes and has now just given up the one run in five innings of work while striking out seven. He’s still walked four guys in that span so that’s still a concern, but so far Glasnow has looked good and confident.
I actually said at the stadium last night that I would have turned to Glasnow when Ivan Nova was done getting hit around in the sixth inning, but it didn’t turn out that way.
Throwing him in a couple of tight situations, whether it be in the fifth, sixth or seventh innings, won’t hurt. And he can also still give Hurdle more than one inning if necessary.
Given the talent he possesses, ultimately I think Glasnow will end up back in the Pirates rotation, but for the time being with the options currently ahead of him, it’s time to get a better look at the youngster out of the pen in more meaningful innings.
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