One of my favorite parts about the Pirates making themselves relevant these last two years is that my favorite writers and analysts pay MUCH more attention to the Bucs than they used to. There were two good FanGraphs pieces about the Bucs earlier this week and I’d like to link them here in case you missed them. First, Jeff Sullivan on Vance Worley, his deceptiveness, and how he manages to succeed without overwhelming velocity:
Vance Worley was once a fascinating pitcher, and after a year of absolute misery, he’s back to being himself. As far as the rest of this year is concerned, it’s unclear how the Pirates intend to use him, and it’s unclear where Worley’s career will take him from here. The most important thing, though, that Worley’s back on track as one of the more unusual starters in the game.
I love this piece because, as you probably realize if you’re a regular reader of this site, Worley is a guy that I don’t understand. He clearly has something that makes him different from most righties with an 89 mph fastball, but it’s hard to put a finger on it if you don’t know what you’re looking for.
The second piece is also by Sullivan and it’s about some of baseball’s most distinctive team-specific traits, listing the Pirates’ insistence on working the inside corner as one of them. This is something that NEVER gets talked about in Pittsburgh, but the Pirates hit a ton of batters, and I suspect that a certain amount of what happens with Andrew McCutchen being thrown at in a lot of series is actually retaliation for a perceived slight that the Pirates’ fans/broadcasters have forgotten all about. Sullivan doesn’t draw any firm conclusions about how much the Pirates’ work on the inside corner helps them (and that’s the correct approach, because it’s awfully difficult to really understand how these things work), but consider that Worley article directly above. I’ve got a feeling that that slight fading action on his fastball to righties is particularly effective if he’s already established the inside corner earlier in the at-bat.
