Good pitching beats good hitting, as the saying goes.
Pirates starter Jameson
Taillon repeated the baseball adage last month. Manager Clint
Hurdle did the same, adding: "It always has."
The Bucs are counting on that still being true in 2019.
Left-hander Steven Brault called
the Pirates' collection of arms "scary." Hurdle and Taillon used another
word -- "strength" -- to describe the rotation. That will be the
group to watch as players begin reporting to the Pirate City complex in the
coming days.
Taillon, Trevor
Williams and Joe Musgrove will
be back on the starting staff. Chris Archer will
return for his first full season in a Pirates uniform. Right-hander Jordan Lyles will
likely round out the group, though Brault and right-hander Nick Kingham are
also competing for the final spot.
The last point is what should make for an interesting Spring
Training. This is not a rotation full of established veterans. Each starter has
something to prove after last year.
Taillon went wire-to-wire in the rotation for the first time
last season, working 191 innings with a 3.20 ERA in 32 starts, but he wants to
take another step forward. How will his new slider enhance his arsenal now that
he's had a full offseason to work on it? Can he reach his "ace"
potential this year?
Archer, 30, already has that "ace" reputation with
two All-Star nods and three straight 200-inning, 200-strikeout seasons on his
resume. The Pirates believe Archer is a top-of-the-rotation pitcher, but he
hasn't posted an ERA below 4.00 since 2015, and he's coming off a season in
which he recorded a 4.31 ERA while pitching only 148 1/3 innings due to
injuries.
Archer said last season that he is still not a finished
product, and he backed up his words last year by adding a curveball and
reintroducing a two-seam fastball. He returned to top form in September,
posting a 2.70 ERA with 36 strikeouts in 30 innings after ditching his windup
and gaining familiarity with catcher Francisco
Cervelli. Can he build off of that?
Williams might have been one of baseball's best second-half
stories -- and maybe one of the least heralded. The 26-year-old right-hander
doesn't have an overpowering arsenal, but he put together a 1.29 ERA over his
final 13 starts and he finished the season with a 3.11 ERA and a 1.18 WHIP in
31 starts.
There will be talk of regression for Williams, considering
his 3.86 FIP and his low strikeout rate. But Williams is a cerebral pitcher,
highly aware of his strengths and weaknesses and when to make adjustments. And
for all the questions about his stuff, he's made 57 Major League starts with a
3.53 ERA in that role. Maybe he's the rare breed of pitcher, like the
Cubs' Kyle
Hendricks, who can consistently outperform his peripherals.
Then there's Musgrove, one of four players the Pirates
received from the Astros for Gerrit Cole.
Musgrove's season was bookended by injuries, limiting him to only 115 1/3
innings over 19 starts. But there was a lot to like about the 26-year-old
right-hander's performance when he was healthy. In his return to the rotation,
Musgrove put together a 4.06 ERA (with a 3.59 FIP) and 1.18 WHIP while leading
all Pirates starters with a 4.35 strikeout-to-walk ratio.
Musgrove also proved himself to be a fierce competitor, a
loyal teammate and one of the club's most athletic players. The missing element
was good health, and that will again be a question after he underwent abdominal
surgery earlier this offseason.
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