Pirates Insider Podcast, Episode 30 (6/26 vs. Reds)

There have been concerns about Paul Skenes' velocity, and there shouldn't be. Let's break down those, as well as what went into the Pirates' 6-4 loss to the Reds on Friday night at PNC Park, gleaning what might be useful for the second half of their season.

Transcript

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All right, what's going on, everybody? This is the Pirates Insider Podcast. I am Jason Mackey coming to you from PNC Park. Uh a little admission. Uh I went home and got some sleep last night. I had Bucko talk this morning. Uh prep comes early, so a little bit later in the podcast today. I am sorry, but still some things to get into from last night's game. And it actually works out well because I want to talk a lot today about Paul Skeens and what we're seeing with him. I think there's some overreaction in the fan base, and I want to spew some thoughts and try to add some logic to this argument. Uh at this point, you've probably seen the outcome from last night. I would, I would hope, I would think. Skeens goes five in five innings, gives up four arm runs, uh, six hits, two walks, seven strikeouts. It's now been eight straight skins starts. Without a win, Noel V Marte hits a two-run homer off Mason Montgomery in the eighth. Connor Griffin, Marcelo Zuna as Marilyn Valdez. They all homer. Uh, and really what got Skeens was the second inning, throws 38 pitches in the process of last night. He did pick up his 500th strikeout. He became the fastest Pirates pitcher in terms of starts in the modern era since Bob Veal to do that. Um, and a weird start for Paul. Um, you know, had that second inning hiccup, throws 38 pitches, like I said, but also retired nine of the first 10 that he faced, was really good early on. Um let's just try to step back, though, and have a realistic conversation about schemes. A lot of what has been written, said, talked about, maybe not even written. This is more of an impression standpoint. It's it's a concern about his velocity. Last night his fastball averaged 96.8 miles per hour. That's down, of course. Is it down concerningly so? I don't think so. I'm not worried about it. Skeens has talked about this. It's a matter of self-preservation, it's a matter of making sure that he's available for the entire season, for the playoffs, that he's effective. All of that stuff, I think, is a very good thing. Hats off to Paul. I actually really like that approach. I think we've peaked. I think there are a couple things here at play. One, Paul is almost his worst enemy, and that he's established the expectation as greatness. So we see him with a 310 ERA, and we think, what's wrong? No, that's actually really good. We see him with a 97 mile an hour fastball, and we think, oh, where's 99? 97 plays. And here's what I mean by that. Raxton Ashcraft has had an excellent season, most would agree, right? He has. He's been great. He's been a pleasure to watch and cover. Raxton Ashcraft's four-seamer averages 97.1 miles per hour. It's not the velocity of the fastball. It's not even the performance of the fastball. That's one of the things that kills me about this argument. I've cited this number before. Baseball savant, it's an advanced stats page. Maybe you don't totally get on board with that, and that's fine. But I'm going to try to just put it in terms that people can completely understand. So they attach what's called a run value to pitches. And that takes into account quality of contact, frequency of contact, you know, whiff percentage, put away, hard hit, you know, all the things that you would sort of bake into that stew about how pitches perform. Last season, total year, of course, Paul Skeen's four-seam fastball accumulated a run value of 20. And that was very good. It was an elite pitch, as we've come to expect. Right now, we're at the midpoint of the season, Paul Skeen's four-seam fastball has a run value of nine. He's about halfway home. That's exactly what you would expect. There's not some sort of huge trail-off. There's not some sort of huge problem. There's not some sort of, oh my gosh, what's happening here? It's performing very well. I don't get it. If you also look at some other metrics attached to his four-seam fastball, they're very good. Here's what I'm talking about. Right now, this season, opponents are hitting 189 against it. That's a career low. Last season it was 205. His rookie year it was 230. Putaway percentage. It's a 26.2%. That's tied with last year for a career high. Very good. Whiff rate on his fastball, 29.5%. That's close to a career high last year of 29.6. His rookie year, it was 24.2. So what did we learn in all of that? That his fastball has suffered no discernible drop-off other than a couple miles per hour. Paul Skeens has still been very much at the top of the leaderboard. If you want to go a little bit more advanced, I like to look at fan graphs from time to time, look at wins above replacement, see which pitchers are performing the best. Guess what? Paul Skans has been right there. It's not been a bad season. If you want to make the argument he's having a bad season, then good luck trying to argue that Shohe Otani has had a bad season because they've been worth the same amount of F war. That's the abbreviated version for Fangraaff's calculation of wins above replacement. If you think Paul Skeens is having a bad season, congratulations. You probably also think that Braxton Ashcraft is having a bad season. Paul's been worth 2.8 F war. Braxton's been worth 3.0 F war. He's not having a bad season. He might be having a slight dip in performance. You can sit here and objectively say should he execute pitches more consistently? Sure. A valid argument. I think it was a valid argument last night against the Reds. He got the two strikes, he wasn't able to put guys away. There are little nuanced things that he can do better. Maybe it's the location of a pitch, maybe it's the type of a pitch, maybe it's the shape of a pitch. That's stuff that drives these guys' performance and desire and coaching and getting better. Totally normal stuff. I have no problem saying that stuff needs to be better. It does. Paul said that. You can also look at a little bit of his pitch mix, what he's throwing, the effectiveness of these pitches. I think that's a fair conversation. Look at his changeup right now. I cited that run value stat from fangrafts. Right now, his changeup has a minus three run value, yet it's his second most used pitch. You can make the argument that, say, a pitch that has a negative value shouldn't be your second most used pitch. Sure. We could talk about the splinker. His rookie year that had a run value of 17. That's insane. He threw it 28% of the time. Right now it has a run value of one. He's thrown it just about 11% of the time. So that's part of Skeens arsenal that's been missing. Sure. I think it's also a fair argument or critique to say that Skeens needs to go deeper in games and be more efficient with his pitches. I also think that's something that if Paul was standing right next to me, he would probably speak into the microphone. I don't think that's a controversial take. You want to see your ace go six, seven, eight innings. Sure. And it's hard to do that when you throw 38 pitches in an inning. And you throw 38 pitches because you're not able to put it put guys away with two strikes. That's just a reality. And has this been the best recent stretch of Paul's career? No. Over his past eight, the Pirates have not got a win. He has a 440 ERA during that time. Can he be better? Yes. Is this guy falling? No. He's been a very, very good all-star caliber pitcher. I think we all need to just take a couple steps back off the ledge. It's going to be okay. Yesterday was the midpoint of the Pirates season prior to the game, so it forced a lot of reflection, understandably so. And they certainly have areas to clean up, consistency, bullpen performance, hitting with runners in scoring position. Some of those came to the surface and game one against the Reds. Somebody I'm thinking about right now, at least by name, Mason Montgomery. Mason Montgomery was in a key situation in the eighth inning. He goes full count on two guys, gives up a single, and then the two-run home run to Marte. It was an okay pitch, but it's probably one Montgomery would like to execute a little bit better. And it's a bit of a problem. Right now he has a 727 ERA in June. That's up from 338 in the first month and 466 in May. Need that to be better. They need more depth in the bullpen. That group needs to figure it out. There might be some external additions coming, but more likely it's the guys who are in those roles need to pitch better. I do think that Dennis Santana had a strong outing. I think he's somebody who is knock on some wood, maybe rounding back into form. Dennis Santana over his last 12 games, he's actually been pretty good as a 375 ERA in that span, 12 innings, seven walks, one homer, 14 strikeouts. If that happens, that's obviously going to be big for the Pirates, right? You have Matson, you have Santana, you have a bridge to the back end. I'd like to see them add another back end reliever. Gregory Soto's been solid. But the bullpen has to be improved. As I'm looking at the Pirates in the second half, Paul Schiens is not a legitimate concern for me. The bullpen is. Occasional situational hitting is very odd offensive year for the Pirates. They've put up a lot of runs, but sometimes, I mean, generally when they've lost, they've had a really tough time getting that big hit. It's kind of been strange. I hope that balances out. One thing that I took out of yesterday's game as well was Marcelo Zuna. Homered continued to have a strong June. He's actually hitting 333 this month, has two home runs. I'd like to see the Pirates keep playing him. I want to give him an opportunity to gain some traction. I think he's reciprocating. And if he keeps hitting, it's going to help the lineup, should help situationally, should help against left-handers, a whole bunch of stuff. So we will see if that continues. Jared Jones on the hill today. Looking forward to breaking that down with you. Thanks so much for adjusting to the Little Later podcast. Hopefully you enjoyed it. This is the Pirates Insider podcast. Make sure you download this and check it out every day. Always breaking down the games 10 to 15 minutes at a time. And sometimes we're trying to dispel or calm people down about Paul Skeen's velocity. It's Jason Mackey. Talk to you tomorrow.