Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Team Preview: Pittsburgh Pirates
Baseball is almost here! With an eventful offseason in the books and spring training underway, it’s time to preview all 30 teams in Major League Baseball. With the help of RotoGrinders PlateIQ Premium, DFS ownership trends from Chris Gimino, and our resident Premium MLB guru Dave Potts (aka CheeseIsGood), we take a look at some information that is definitely interesting and possibly helpful for the upcoming 2019 MLB season.
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Pittsburgh Pirates Preseason Overview
— Vegas Win Total O/U: 77.5
— World Series Odds: 100/1
— Key Additions: Lonnie Chisenhall, Erik Gonzalez
Other Noteworthy Players for DFS: Jordan Lyles, Gregory Polanco, Melky Cabrera, Elias Diaz, Pablo Reyes, Jung Ho Kang
— Outlook: The Pirates enter the 2019 season with a similar look across the board. Their changes were limited, as low-end editions Chisenhall and Gonzalez are the only new faces in the lineup. They may see Jung Ho Kang return to the lineup at times, as he looks to regain his role from incumbent 3B Colin Moran. Until further notice, expecting a huge change in offensive ability doesn’t seem prudent.
The power potential in the lineup is modest, without a single hitter ranking in the top 100 in barrel % last season. Only Starling Marte produced above a .180 ISO. The good news is that they appear to be a low strikeout lineup (just one hitter above 21% K) and only Erik Gonzalez fell below 100 in wRC+. In DFS, this will be one of the lowest priced lineups and likely one of the least owned. It will be an opportunity for GPP leverage on occasions, but figures to fall behind some of the higher powered offenses in the league.
Pitching is the strength of this team, which is important in their pitcher friendly home park. Jameson Taillon and Chris Archer lead the way for the staff, grading out best in PlateIQ average scoring a year ago thanks in part to Archer’s strikeouts and Taillons ability to control batted balls. If you want to find a start in which Taillon allowed more than 3 earned, you are going to have to go all the way back to May 22 of last season. In DFS, he didn’t typically deliver the big strikeouts where his performance would have really popped on the radar. If he improves at all on his 10.3% swinging strike rate and 22.8% strikeout rate, he’ll be more of a DFS factor this season.
Archer finished strong in September, and should settle into something better than his last two seasons have shown. Musgrove finished the season with 6 of his last 7 starts above 13.8% swinging strikes, and could be in line for his best pro season. Trevor Williams, Ivan Nova, Nick Kingham, and Jordan Lyles are all back end starting options that qualify as serviceable. It remains to be seen if the Pirates pitching will be either popular or productive in DFS, but for real life purposes they have the credentials to avoid being steam rolled. They should be competitive, and perhaps there is a sliver of value on the over 77.5 win total.
— DFS Ownership Trends: The Pirates were the 23rd most popular lineup in 2018 and made relatively few changes. They won’t be more popular unless their pricing is similarly low this season, as they were often inexpensive. Chris Archer was the 15th most popular pitcher to target last year, and that far exceeds his performance. He could return to form, but he will need to in order to live up to that level of popularity.
Definitely Interesting, Possibly Helpful Notes
— Jameson Taillon introduced a slider into his repertoire last season, a fact that escaped no one. But while the strikeout upside is new, one skill Taillon has shown all along is the ability to limit hard hits. In 2018, he was one of only seven qualified pitchers to post a 3.20 ERA or better along with 30.1% hard hits or lower, joining Aaron Nola, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer, Justin Verlander, Charlie Morton, and his own teammate, Trevor Williams.
— Corey Dickerson made some huge strides at the plate in 2018. No pitcher decreased his strikeout rate from 2017 to 2018 as much as Dickerson (24.2% in 2017; 15.0% in 2018). Similarly, no player increased his contact rate on pitches in the strike zone more than Dickerson (75.3% in 2017; 85.8% in 2018).