37.3 F
Pittsburgh

Neal Huntington Discusses Managing Workloads for Young Pitchers

Published:

PITTSBURGH — Pirates’ General Manager Neal Huntington answered a few questions about how the Pirates will distribute innings and manage workloads among their young pitchers, including relative incumbent starters Jameson Taillon and Chad Kuhl, as well as newer additions like Tyler Glasnow, Drew Hutchison, and Trevor Williams.

With rosters expanding, Huntington made it clear that much like last September, when the Pirates went with a fluctuating six man rotation, there will not be a “normal” sequence of starting pitchers through the end of the season.

“As we said at the outset, we’re going to continue to mix and match this rotation,” Huntington said. “We anticipate Chad [Kuhl] and Jameson [Taillon] getting back on the mound, but we’re going to continue to monitor them going forward. At the same time, [Ivan] Nova’s continued to pitch well.”

For the younger pitchers — particularly Taillon, given his injury history — this comes with concerns about managing their innings while still finding them opportunities to pitch now that the Triple-A season has ended. Kuhl (134.1 IP) is comfortably below his innings total from the last two years, but Taillon has thrown 149.2 combined innings after not pitching competitively since 2013.

“With [Taillon] it aligned very well with Gerrit [Cole] and became a natural way to skip him,” said Huntington. “In Chad’s case, we just felt like it was the right opportunity. There were some things out of whack in his last outing so it gave us the chance to take a deep breath and get mechanically aligned again.”

Huntington stressed that the process of managing workloads and knowing when to rest a pitcher is a challenging judgement call. “How do you help a young pitcher grow? What is too much? What isn’t enough? What’s coddled as well as what’s protected? We’re working through that,” he said.

“The No. 1 indicator is the pitcher and how he’s feeling and able to compete, and how he’s recovering. We also want to be cognizant of those that come before us. From Jameson’s perspective, he’s been much more efficient than he has in the past, so from the pitch count standpoint, he’s well below where he was in a similar innings count a couple years ago. It is much more art than science, but we’re trying to apply to some science to it.”

While he declined to share details of what the “red line” is for pitchers in terms of workload, he confirmed that there are different territories for each pitcher into which they will not go.

“We’ve got some feel,” Huntington said, “but a big part of it is going to be that the science has shown us the areas of concern. A big part of it is how the pitcher feels, what kind of effort they have and what is he showing us in how efficient and effective he is: the life to his breaking ball, the life to his fastball.

“There is absolutely an area that we won’t take a pitcher to for any circumstance, but it varies with each pitcher. We’re going to put them in a position to maximize what they can do and then maximize it on a team scale.”

Prior to losing 11 of 13 games and falling out of the Wild Card race, concerns of managing workloads had to be carefully balanced against the desire to compete for a fourth consecutive playoff appearance. Huntington was asked how well the Pirates have managed these possibly competing interests in this important period of the season.

“Everybody in that clubhouse wants to put out the best lineup that gives us the best chance to win every game we play,” Huntington said. “That’s an interesting balance to walk. When you’re playing for your playoff life in September, it’s hard to take a player out of the lineup. It’s hard to skip a start, but we are all in this thing with a bigger picture in mind.

“We don’t ever take for granted that we have a playoff chance this year. At the same time, our jobs are to put this organization in a position to have a playoff chance this year, to have a playoff chance next year and as frequently and consistently moving forward.”

As we’ve seen this past week, Drew Hutchison, Tyler Glasnow, and Trevor Williams will be used intermittently either out of the bullpen, or taking a spot start, as Hutchison did last night. Huntington addressed Glasnow’s progress in particular, and how his usage in September can aid his development moving forward.

“When you look at Triple-A numbers, it’s easy to say he should be in our rotation,” Huntington said. “We have to look at where we were and why we brought him to the big leagues. This is the way they used to break starting guys in years ago: you put him the bullpen, let him get out of his own way, and he’s got to get up and get into a game. He doesn’t think too much, he just relies on stuff.

“If there’s an opportunity or need for Tyler to start, we certainly have the confidence in him to be able to do that, but for right now, for him to go through this is a good part of his growth.”

Glasnow made his first professional relief appearance today, coming on in the fifth inning and allowing two runs on five hits and a walk. He was replaced by Jared Hughes in the eighth inning after loading the bases without recording an out. Hughes gave up a ground ball single to charge Glasnow with his second run before he escaped the jam with a strikeout and a 4-6-3 double play.

Related Articles

Article Drop

Latest Articles