Potanko: Do Pirates Have Diamond in Rough With Sean Sullivan? (+)
Altoona- When you think of the pitching prospects in the Pittsburgh Pirates’ system, you’re probably not thinking of Sean Sullivan. You’re thinking of Quinn Priester, Mike Burrows, or even Anthony Solometo.
What if I told you that Sullivan has a shot to break out this season and jump on some radars?
If you look nearly on the surface and box score watch, one would think that Sullivan is just another career minor leaguer, or maybe a guy who gets a cup of coffee eventually but never pans out.
Everything has context, even Sullivan’s 4.68 ERA in High-A last year for the Pirates.
Sullivan had to pitch in Greensboro in 2022, which is a hitters’ haven, and out of his 16 homers given up, 11 of them were from his home ballpark.
Sullivan also struck out 84 in 75 innings pitched, which averages out to around 10.08 in ’22
Looking at the overall product, and actually watching the games he pitched, you can probably see why his xERA was significantly lower at 3.88.
Sullivan moved up to Double-A for 2023, and he has now moved from a hitters’ haven to a “graveyard,” as some of the Altoona players have called PNG Field.
“I wasn’t worried about the field mostly,” said Sullivan. “Last season, I was battling a few different injuries, so I spent this whole off-season at the facility in Florida to build my body up, and I could avoid things like that. I’m pretty excited about this year, and I hope that I can perform better than last year. I think my health is going to play a big part in that.”
Sullivan continued.
“But yeah, Greensboro sucks for pitchers, and it’s a graveyard here, which is awesome, but I have got to limit the hard-hit balls, limit the walks and just fill up the zone.”
A way Sullivan can limit the hard-hit balls is by learning how to master his repertoire and, more importantly, his off-speed stuff.
“I think I learned a lot this off-season. I added two new pitches, I don’t throw a curveball anymore. My two new pitches are a sweeping slider and a cutter now. I think the way my arm slot plays, the cutter and sweeper will play off of my other pitches better. I can throw my elevated fastball and then work my breaking stuff off of that. They’re still developing, for sure, but they’re only going to get better as the season goes on.”
Sullivan also added that his slider used to be kind of a hard cutter, and it really didn’t move or do what he wanted it to do, so after trial and error, they found the sweeper and cutter and adopted those two pitches to work off of his four-seam and changeup.
“I threw the sweeper a few times in spring training, and I got some good results with it. There were a few times I struggled a little bit with it because it’s fresh, so experience using it is going to be the key for me.”
After talking with Sullivan, he mentioned how his start was going to be pushed back a little bit due to an oblique issue, but it was nothing huge.
That would explain why he didn’t get his first start of the 2023 season until April 15.
Sullivan pitched a dandy in his 2.1 innings pitched but was pulled due to a pitch count limit, which you should expect early in the season, especially if they are coming off of a minor injury.
Sullivan struck out three, walked one, and gave up two hits in those 2.1 innings pitched.