BRADENTON, Fla. — For the better part of a decade, the Pirates were spoiled with at least one elite left-handed reliever every season. However, this year’s team only has two southpaw pitchers on the 40-man roster — Steven Brault and Sam Howard — and a handful of non-roster invitees, some of whom have a good chance at making the team.
Even if one of those NRIs does make the team, it’s more likely they’ll be a Francisco Liriano rather than a Tony Watson. That’s not a knock on Liriano. He was a serviceable hand and would have been able to contribute to just about any team in the majors. But the Pirates had a problem with lefty batters in 2019, one that happened despite having a pair of good lefties in the bullpen.
Left-handed hitters feasted against Pirates’ relievers last year. In 2019, opposing batters had a .478 slugging percentage and .357 wOBA against the Pirates’ bullpen arms. That was the second worst slugging clip and worst wOBA a team had against left-handers.
The Pirates are counting on bounce back, healthy years from several pitchers to help curb those averages, including Keone Kela, Kyle Crick and Richard Rodriguez. Perhaps Rodriguez the most since he had outstanding reverse splits in 2018. But a strong season from a lefty pitcher would probably do the most good.
Speaking of lefties, the three batter minimum rule is going into effect Mar. 12. This is expected to finally kill the LOOGY. Since quality left-handed relief is so hard to find, it could cost some lefties their jobs, or a spot on the roster.
Between the competition for bullpen jobs and the rule change ahead, Derek Shelton was asked this week if the team had to carry a lefty.
“I don’t know the answer to that,” he answered before the game on Mar. 5.
Ok, that was a bit unexpected.
“I worked for a guy who didn’t have one for a lot of years,” Shelton said, referencing his time with the Rays and Joe Maddon. “[With] the three-batter rule, I think we’ll take a hard look at how we’re going to do it [bullpen construction].”
It’s probably not worth reading into this anymore than Shelton saying the Pirates don’t have to do anything with roster construction. It’s a new era, and they’re going to do weird things, like four-man outfields. Maybe this could be another weird thing. But it’s far more likely that he just doesn’t want to commit to anything quite yet, which is fine. There is still plenty of spring remaining.
There are obviously plenty of benefits to having a lefty in the bullpen. It adds variety. Opposing managers need to take him into consideration in all facets of the game. Is he rested? Is he ready to enter? Can we stack our left-handed swingers or pinch-hit? Jayson Stark recently went through a lot of these potential scenarios with the three-batter minimum in mind with other big league managers.
Furthermore, it’s just about impossible to go an entire season without help from lefty relievers. Even if a team was constructed on using the best eight players available, regardless of what hand they throw with, as the season progresses, they will eventually rotate through some southpaws.
And, as previously mentioned, the Pirates have bullpen options in camp already. Derek Holland looks like a lock for the roster, if not the opening day rotation. Whenever Brault returns from his shoulder strain, one of them will likely go to the bullpen.
Robbie Erlin also has a good chance at making the team. He’s had good FIPs as a reliever the past two seasons and his curveball got a nice boost in spin rate and movement last year. However, these three guys all started last year, too. With Clay Holmes hurt, is it better to use them as longer-relief options rather than having them focus on lefties?
The other southpaw options in camp at least have some level of intrigue. Nik Turley gets an insane amount of spin on his fastball. Howard was once considered one of the Rockies’ top pitching prospects. The previous regime really like Williams Jerez‘s changeup. Miguel Del Pozo gets decent movement on his fastball. Blake Weiman is young and could make his MLB debut later this season.
So the Pirates will have a lefty for most of the season, if not all of it. Whether or not they have one for that first series against the Rays may be a bit up in the air.
Will the rule change impact roster construction, and do you need to have a lefty to be successful? Right now, the best I can offer is repeating what Shelton said: I don’t know how to answer that. But when researching those topic, I found two nuggets that I think offered some insight.
The first is the Pirates and Twins, Shelton’s old stomping grounds, will barely have to alter how their lefties were used a year ago.
Do you know how many times last year the Pirates used a lefty reliever for fewer than three batters faced and they didn’t finish the inning? Twice: Francisco Liriano on Apr. 1 and Jerez on Sep. 20. The Twins did it once: Adalberto Mejia failed to get a batter out on Apr. 23 and was pulled.
Perhaps there were other scenarios where they brought in a reliever with the mindset of he gets the out and finishes the inning or they’ll pull him, but we’ll never know. Do not cry for the LOOGY. He is already dead.
Don’t cry for the LOOGY. He’s already dead.
The rate of batters faced per relief appearance has been climbing steadily the last four seasons. pic.twitter.com/GccQViuXAr
— Matt Eddy (@MattEddyBA) March 14, 2019
The second is the Twins barely played left-on-left match-ups a year ago. They have a really good reliever in Taylor Rogers, who is basically to them what Watson was to the Pirates. He accounted for half (278) of the batters faced by Twins lefty relievers last year (557). That 557 batters faced total is close to the MLB median, but they didn’t play left-on-left often.
According to FanGraphs, there were only 153 times a Twins lefty pitcher faced a left-handed hitter. That was the third lowest total in baseball. Despite that, they were good at neutralizing lefties, holding them to a .307 wOBA, 14 points lower than the average MLB hitter had against relievers lsat season. However, whenever it was a left-left match-up, lefty batters did much better, posting a .363 wOBA.
The Twins had a great lefty in their bullpen, but they more or less proved that over the course of a season, right-handed pitchers can carry the load in the bullpen, even against lefty swingers.
So will the three-batter rule impact roster construction? Maybe a little. Is there any chance the Pirates open the season without a lefty? Maybe a little. Both are probably being blown out of proportion a bit. With that said, the role of the lefty reliever is changing across baseball. While there were outside forces in play to spark the Pirates’ change, this year will be telling for how southpaws might be managed going forward.
Stats courtesy of FanGraphs and Baseball Savant. Three-batter data pulled from the Baseball-Reference Play Index.
MORE MOUND VISIT
Mar. 2: Joe Musgrove’s new fastball mentality
Feb. 24: Chad Kuhl might have found his fix
Feb. 17: How Stratton became a spin doctor
Feb. 5: Getting most out of middle infield
