The Pittsburgh Pirates need some pitching prospects to step up and help the rotation in 2024. Who will it be?
After a 2023 season that showed a 14-game improvement in the win column over 2022 and a 35-32 record in their final 67 games, the Pittsburgh Pirates players and front office (if not their fans) are optimistic heading into 2024. However, last year’s strong finish was accomplished with only two legitimate starting pitchers, Mitch Keller and Johan Oviedo.
Oviedo is out for the 2024 season due to offseason surgery. The Pirates have acquired two veteran starters, Marco Gonzales and Martin Perez. That gives them just three sure starters to begin 2024. During the recent PirateFest, general manager Ben Cherington confirmed that the team had offered several free-agent starters multi-year contracts. None of these offers have borne fruit. While there’s plenty of time to add another starter or two via a trade or free agent signing, it’s clear some of their pitching prospects may have to step up and become significant contributors in 2024 if this team is to contend. Here is a brief look at six of them.
Roansy Contreras
Acquired from the New York Yankees in January 2021 along with three other prospects in exchange for Jameson Tallion, Contreras, 24, emerged as the key player. At times in 2022, he appeared to have the makings of a staff ace. At the end of June that year, he had a 2.76 ERA after 10 games. The Pirates thought highly enough of him that they shut him down for a few weeks of the 2022 season to manage his workload.
We saw a different Contreras in 2023, when, after 19 games, he was 3-7 with a 6.59 ERA, 1.566 WHIP, and 5.19 FIP that suggested most of his problems were self-inflicted before being dispatched to the minors. A lack of confidence on the mound accompanied a puzzling drop in his four-seam fastball velocity from 96.5 to 94.3 mph. He was a little better in the minors, with a combined 4.67 ERA in triple-A and single-A. It shouldn’t surprise anybody if he puts it all together in 2024. He was that good in 2022.
Bailey Falter
The Pirates acquired Falter from the Philadelphia Phillies at the trade deadline in exchange for the enigmatic infielder Rodolfo Castro. At the time, Cherington stated he had long coveted the 26-year-old left-hander despite Falter’s then 0-7 record and 5.13 ERA in eight games. In 10 games (including seven starts) with the Pirates, Falter failed to distinguish himself, finishing 2-2 with a 5.58 ERA, 1.388 WHIP, and 5.78 FIP.
Where he did excel was in long relief when following an “opener.” In three such situations as a Pirate, Falter surrendered just two runs and recorded 13 strikeouts in 13-1/3 innings pitched. However, usage in this fashion might also suggest that manager Derek Shelton may not have had much confidence in him as a starter. How Falter’s role plays out will be one of the storylines of 2024.
Kyle Nicolas
Of all of these pitching prospects, Nicolas, 24, is a dark horse inclusion on this list, as he’s likely spending 2024 in the minors. He was said to have been the key to the Jacob Stallings deal in 2021, although fellow hurler Zach Thompson was first to appear for the Pirates when coming over from the Miami Marlins. He came up late in 2023 for the proverbial cup of coffee, producing an 11.81 ERA and 2.063 in a small sample size, those stats skewed by a debut where he was employed as a sacrificial lamb in a 14-1 loss to the Cubs in Chicago.
He’s a hard thrower, sporting an average 96.8 mph on his four-seamer, well above the major-league average. Alas, control has eluded him throughout his professional career. Nicolas has walked an unacceptable 4.6 per nine innings in three minor league seasons. His 5.20 ERA across two minor-league levels in 2023 was a step backward from 2022. His late-season call-up may have been more to allow the Pirate’s brain trust to see first-hand what they had in Nicolas rather than a promotion he’d earned.
Luis Ortiz
What can be said about Ortiz that wasn’t already said above about Contreras? Ortiz also saw a drop in his four-seamer from 2022 to 2023, from 98.4 mph to 96.2. That’s still well above the major league average. Even so, not much went right for him in 2023. What went wrong? Pick a stat: a 1.696 WHIP, 5.57 FIP, five walks per nine innings of the 49.5 hard-hit ball percentage against him. It wasn’t lovely for the undrafted starter who showed such promise during a brief look in 2022. More than any of these other pitching prospects, it’s hard to know what to make of him in 2024.
Quinn Priester
Although the 2019 first-round draft choice rushed through the Pirates system in 2022, he was only so-so in triple-A Indianapolis in 2023. Yet, the Pirates called him up in July and September of 2023. Opposing hitters welcomed him unkindly to a 7.74 ERA, 1.700 WHIP, 6.74 FIP, and a hard-hit percentage of 47. Issuing 4.9 walks per nine didn’t help Priester’s cause much either.
Like the case with Nicolas, the call-ups may have been based on just getting a look at him in the majors rather than on merit. With only one entire triple-A season behind him, Priester, 23, seems ticketed to start another season there unless he’s lights-out in spring training.
Paul Skenes
The highly touted number one overall draft pick for 2023 may not belong on this list of pitchers who could “step up.” According to many observers who saw him pitch in his senior year with the LSU Tigers, he’s ready to dominate major-league hitters. In leading the Tigers to the College World Series championship, Skenes was 12-2 with a 1.69 ERA, 209 strikeouts, and just 20 walks in 122-2/3 innings, to go along with a .75 WHIP and 45.1 percent strikeout rate. In 2023, his fastball averaged 98 mph and registered as high as 102 on the radar gun. He impressed in five brief minor league outings before the Pirates shut him down.
The Pirates under Cherington have consistently proceeded with caution in deciding when to promote young prospects, preferring to err on keeping them in the minors too long vs. not long enough, or as the more cynical observers might suggest, to manipulate their service time. Given this history, it’s hard to imagine Skenes going north with the team this spring. It’s also hard to visualize him still in the minors come June.
As Cherington suggested at the aforementioned Pirate Fest, progress by young pitchers is seldom linear. Any of these pitching prospects could help in 2024. Any of them could crash and burn, too. It will be interesting to see who among this group takes a significant step forward in 2024.
Main Photo Credits: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
