Pirates Analysis
Perrotto: Pirates Embrace Modern Pitcher Usage
Utility players are all the rage in baseball, especially with the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Pirates have more than a dozen players in their spring training camp who can play multiple positions, and they aren’t apologizing for that.
The term utility player was once considered to have negative connotations. It meant a player wasn’t good enough to be a regular in the major leagues and would be lucky to get 100-150 plate appearances during a season as a fill-in.
When Clint Hurdle was managing the Pirates, he liked to point out that he spent the entire 1985 season on the active roster with the New York Mets and had just 97 plate appearances.
Things are different today. Injured list stints are more frequent. Players get more days off for load management.
Few players get less than 100 plate appearances over a 162-game season. Last season,16 Pirates made at least 122 plate appearances.
However, the Pirates aren’t content with just having utility players. They are developing two utility pitchers in spring training — left-hander Caleb Ferguson and right-hander Carmen Mlodzinski.
Ferguson and Mlodzinski will pitch at least three innings in at least one game before the March 27 opener to build enough stamina to start games in the regular season if necessary.
Neither Ferguson nor Mlodzinski figure to begin the season in the starting rotation, barring injuries. Reigning National League Rookie of the Year Paul Skenes figures to front a rotation that includes Mitch Keller, Jared Jones and left-handers Bailey Falter and Andrew Heaney.
However, Ferguson said part of the allure of signing with the Pirates as a free agent was the possibility of starting. Mlodzinski was converted from a starter to a reliever as a minor leaguer during spring training in 2023 but has always wanted another chance to start.
I cannot take credit for the term utility pitcher. Former Pirates left-hander Terry Mulholland started calling himself that more than a quarter century ago. The pride of Laurel Highlands High School prided himself in being able to pitch in any role — starter, long relief, middle relief, set-up relief, mop-up relief and closer.
Pirates manager Derek Shelton likes pitchers who can pitch in any role, including opener or bulk reliever. Neither of those jobs existed when Mulholland’s career ended in 2006.
The Pirates will keep a close eye on the innings totals of Skenes and Jones, who are beginning their second big-league seasons. Johan Oviedo was placed on the 60-day injured list on Monday after missing last season following Tommy John reconstructive elbow surgery.
A prospect-laden rotation at Triple-A Indianapolis – including Bubba Chandler, Thomas Harrington, Braxton Ashcraft and Mike Burrows – won’t be overworked.
Thus, the Pirates will need to cover a lot of innings this season to keep everyone fresh. They had 11 pitchers work at least 50 innings last season.
“I think one of the things we went into the offseason wanting to do is make sure we gave ourselves the options, or we gave the ability to adapt and adjust on what we’re going to do and then how we’re going to do it,” Shelton said. “One of the things we want our pitching group to think about is not worrying about which innings they’re getting, worrying about the out thinking within those innings.”
The Pirates seem to be getting buy-in from the pitchers.
“Conversations I’ve had with younger guys like Ashcraft, they’ve unprompted gone out of their way to say they are fine with whatever role we need them in,” Shelton said. “They just want the potential to show they are one of the best 13 pitchers in spring training and make the team or show that they can make some kind of impact at some point in 2025 at the highest level.”
The attitude is admirable and practical.
It is no longer a cliché to say a team can never have enough pitching. The Los Angeles Dodgers proved that last year. They won the World Series despite using 40 pitchers in the regular season and had just three healthy starters in the postseason.
That’s not to say the 2025 Pirates will duplicate the 2024 Dodgers but utility pitchers are more important than ever.
Now that we have the universal DH so you don’t have pinch-hitting affecting when you take a pitcher out, I’m surprised some team doesn’t try just having no real starters and just let guys go once through the order or so, then swap them out. Keep 4 or 5 dedicated late inning guys, and just stretch everybody else out to pitch 3 or so innings. The bulk guys would end up around 160 innings. Relievers would be a normal load.
Now if you have a horse like Skenes, you wouldn’t put him in that rotation. He would go every 5th day for as many innings as he can pitch.
This utility pitcher idea is as close to that as I’ve seen. It’s an ideal system if you have guys like Burrows and Ashcraft, who can’t take a full load for this year. Or for Keller, who seems to wear down in the second half. Or Jones, who has durability issues due to his size. Or Modlzinski and Ferguson, who are wanting to pitch longer.
The agents wouldn’t like it because starters would never get wins, which would hurt them in negotiations.
That is a very well thought out idea!
Bob Moose was around 50 years too early.