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Should the Pirates Extend Ivan Nova?

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Right after the trade deadline, I made a joke that we were about five months away from Pirates fans complaining that the Pirates didn’t re-sign Ivan Nova.

Nova was coming to the Pirates with some horrible surface numbers, but not horrible advanced metrics. He had a 4.90 ERA, but a 4.11 xFIP. His HR/FB ratio was 21.3%, and if that came down to a normal level, it would be easy to see him becoming at least a league average starter. He had the strikeout numbers, and the walks were good. He had a high ground ball rate. And his velocity was still good, averaging 92.5 MPH.

It seemed very similar to last year’s J.A. Happ deal, where the Pirates added a guy with seemingly no value at the deadline, in order to upgrade their rotation, when that guy hardly seemed like he could help at all. As Pirates fans know, Happ did help in a big way, and then went on to sign a three-year deal with Toronto, which is looking really good right now.

So far, Nova has been a repeat of what Happ has shown. He has improved the HR/FB ratio, getting down to a 10% mark, which is a bit more normal. As a result, the HR/9 rate has dropped from 1.76 to 0.78, or one fewer home run per nine innings. His strikeouts have stayed about the same, going from 17.8% to 18.1%, and his walks have almost completely disappeared, going from 5.9% to 1.1%.

The ground ball rate has dipped a bit from 54% to 50%, but is still good. Nova is using his two-seamer as his primary pitch, and using it the same amount as in New York. But he has decreased his four-seam usage in favor of more off-speed pitches. He was throwing the four-seamer 14% of the time with the Yankees, but has dropped to 8.3% with the Pirates. That has led to an increase in his curve (27.3% to 30.2%) and his changeup (3.3% to 7.2%).

Looking at the numbers for each pitch, that’s a good change. His four-seam fastball has been his worst pitch in his career, with an .879 OPS, and a .988 OPS this year. His changeup has led to a .788 OPS, both this year and in his career, and his curve has been his best pitch, with a .544 OPS in his career, and a .659 OPS this year.

While the two-seam usage has stayed the same when comparing the overall results, it’s actually seeing an increase with the Pirates. Nova has been throwing his sinker 63-65% of the time in his last two starts. He’s gradually seen an increase, going from 39.5%, 43.9%, and 30.7% usage in his first three starts with the Pirates, to 52%, 57.3%, 62.9%, and 64.9% respectively in his last four starts. Meanwhile, the four-seamer usage has dropped to below 10% in each of the last four outings, including 2.9% and 6.4% the last two starts. You can see the usage of each pitch, and the batting average against, in the charts below (I dropped the slider because he barely uses it, and it made the charts easier to read).

novapitchusage

novapitchbaa

When I was going through the game logs, I noticed something interesting. Nova threw his four-seam 20.97% of the time in his August 17th start. He threw his two-seam 30.65% of the time. That marked the highest usage of his four-seam and the lowest-usage of his two-seam with the Pirates. It was also his worst start, leading to four earned runs on six hits in four innings.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the four-seamer gradually went away after that start, and the two-seamer started showing up 50% of the time or more, with the numbers increasing each outing. And since that start, with that change in approach being made, Nova has combined for a 1.50 ERA in 30 innings, with a 20:2 K/BB ratio, a 57.8% ground ball rate, and a 3.35 xFIP.

So now we get back to that original joke, which might not be a joke anymore. Ivan Nova is starting to look like a guy you’d want to extend. In fact, he might be a better extension candidate than Happ. Neal Huntington has talked about how Happ looks like a good signing this year, but years two and three in that deal might not work out. None of us know if that will be the case, but one thing has to be considered here: the age. Happ will be in his age 34 and 35 seasons in those final two years of his deal. A three-year deal for Nova would get his age 30-32 seasons, which obviously means he’d be younger when that deal expires than Happ was when he signed his deal. So if there were concerns with Happ over age, they wouldn’t exist with Nova, or they’d be greatly reduced.

The big question is whether this performance is sustainable. Looking at the charts above, the recent results make sense. Nova’s batting average against on the sinker has seen a steady decline since June. For some reason, the pitch usage declined from May-July, but has gradually increased since joining the Pirates, and it seems the Pirates are going all-in on the two-seamer, which makes sense based on the results.

Nova’s numbers with the Yankees looked unlucky, with a HR/FB correction needed to get him to league-average numbers. He’s seen that correction, but has also made additional changes to improve further. We don’t know if this will stick, but it all makes sense on the surface that Nova would be able to continue putting up good numbers without his unlucky HR/FB ratio, and with an approach that sees him using his better fastball much more often, at the expense of his worse fastball.

I think Nova is looking like a good extension candidate. But a big part of that joke above is that the Pirates didn’t sign J.A. Happ. I thought that was a mistake, simply because they needed a better rotation entering the year, with way too many question marks. They’re entering the 2017 season with the same situation. Gerrit Cole and Jameson Taillon give them a promising young duo at the top. They’ve got some potential in Tyler Glasnow, Chad Kuhl, Steven Brault, Trevor Williams, Drew Hutchison, plus mid-season guys like Nick Kingham, Clay Holmes, Tyler Eppler, and/or Brandon Waddell. So there’s some good talent and depth. But a lot of these starters are young, and I don’t know if you want to rely on a rotation full of young pitchers, even if they do have talent and could one day make up a solid rotation.

Adding one more starter is a must for the Pirates. The free agent market is slim. They’ve got the depth in their system to make a trade. But why do that when you’ve got money to spend, and you’ve got a pitcher who you already know, who is starting to look like a great fit for the future club? It would make a lot of sense to bring back Ivan Nova after the season, especially if this recent success continues.

Tim Williams
Tim Williams
Tim is the owner, producer, editor, and lead writer of PiratesProspects.com. He has been running Pirates Prospects since 2009, becoming the first new media reporter and outlet covering the Pirates at the MLB level in 2011 and 2012. His work can also be found in Baseball America, where he has been a contributor since 2014 and the Pirates' correspondent since 2019.

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