Will Masterson be the Pittsburgh Pirates latest masterpiece?

With the latest addition, the Pittsburgh Pirates will have to do some maneuvering to accommodate all of their starting pitching depth.

Consistency, it’s not the first term that would be used to describe Justin Masterson, who was signed a few hours ago to a minor league deal by the Pittsburgh Pirates.  You can find his full career stats as part of Jason Rollison’s initial thoughts here.  Drafted in the second round of the 2006 amateur draft, Masterson has yet to fulfill the top of the rotation potential that made him so highly regarded early in his career.

It started out bright when he made his major league debut on April 24, 2008 with the Red Sox against the Los Angeles Angels.  He allowed one run over six innings in that start.  That year, Masterson would go on to post a 3.67 ERA over nine starts and a 2.36 ERA as a reliever.  For his career, he holds a 4.42 ERA as a starter and a 3.17 ERA as a reliever.  Both sound equally bad, but in baseball, statistics are only half of the story.

For his entire career, Masterson has been treated as a swing man capable of starting or coming out of the bullpen.  He has only had two season in which he was exclusively used as a starter.  That approach can be mentally and emotionally taxing on a pitcher, especially one expected to be an up and coming superstar in the sport when he made his debut.

Masterson made his only All-Star appearance in 2013 with the Cleveland Indians after posting a 3.72 ERA in the first half and a 2.81 ERA in the second half.  In 2011, he posted a 2.64 ERA in the first half and a 3.95 ERA in his second half.  Much like Jeff Locke, he’s only been consistently good for half a season at a time, but unlike the polarizing lefty, it’s not necessarily one half or the other in which Masterson performs better.  That inconsistency is the main culprit that has held Masterson back.

Whenever he is on his game, there are few as good as he is.

In 2014, he experienced a significant drop in velocity with his fourseam fastball, going from averaging 94 mph to struggling to hit 90.  Typically, such a drop in velocity would accompany an increase in movement or injury concerns, and during the 2014 season, Masterson battled knee issues.  He also experienced a decline in both horizontal and vertical movement on the fastball, which was accompanied by a rise in batting average against and isolated power against.

Even at 6’6”, Masterson doesn’t use his frame to full effectiveness to throw on a downward plane.  Instead, he relies on a very low, three-quarters arm slot delivery, which almost comes out like a sidearm delivery depending on the release point.  Doug Thorburn of Baseball Prospectus provided some further great insight into Masterson’s mechanics for Beyond the Box Score available here.

It’s really noticeable how he plants the stride foot before following through on the delivery.  Earlier in his career, he matched up the arm motion with planting his stride foot, which reduced his injury risk and allowed him to push off to gain a few extra mph.  In 2014 and 2015, his arm motion was a little bit behind his stride foot planting, which limited his ability to push off.  Here’s the difference between his 2011 and 2015 deliveries.

This corresponded with an increase in usage of his sinker, although the natural heavy movement on all of his pitches did not translate into a significant increase in groundball rate from his career average of approximately 57%.  Specifically, he stopped using the fourseam fastball with two strikes as an out pitch.

If Masterson is healthy and can return to his old pitching delivery, trust his fourseam fastball again, and hopefully regain velocity, he can provide a quality depth option as either a starter or reliever right now for the Pirates or Indianapolis Indians, but in whatever capacity he is used, it should be in a situation where he can establish a comfort with relative consistency on workload.  It would be irrational to assume he will suddenly reach his pre-draft upside out of the blue, but stranger things have happened under the watchful eyes of the Pirates pitching coaches.

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