March 5: Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk provided an update on Oviedo to the team’s beat this morning (link via Andrew Destin of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). The right-hander is currently shut down from throwing, and it seems he won’t pick up a ball anytime soon. The Pirates and Dr. Keith Meister (who performed Oviedo’s Tommy John surgery) will reconvene for a fresh round of imaging on Oviedo’s lat and elbow in one month. After that MRI, they’ll establish a timetable for him to resume throwing.
That strongly implies that Oviedo will be shut down from throwing for a good bit more than a month, shedding further light on the team’s decision to place him on the 60-day IL.
March 3: The Pirates placed right-hander Johan Oviedo on the 60-day injured list. That opens a 40-man roster spot for fellow righty Justin Lawrence, whose previously-reported waiver claim from the Rockies is now official.
The news comes as something of a surprise. Oviedo had undergone Tommy John surgery in November of 2023. He missed the entire 2024 season but it seemed fair to expect him to be healthy coming into 2025 and there hadn’t been any reporting to suggest otherwise. Manager Derek Shelton tells Noah Hiles of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that a “lat issue” has surfaced during a recent bullpen session.
This move now means Oviedo will be on the injured list for at least the first two months of the season. IL placements can be backdated to three days before Opening Day but the 60-day count doesn’t start until then, meaning Oviedo can’t be reinstated until late May at the earliest.
Prior to this IL placement, Oviedo projected to be in the mix for a back-end rotation spot, though that will no longer be the case. The Bucs have a front three in their rotation consisting of Paul Skenes, Jared Jones and Mitch Keller. They recently signed Andrew Heaney to take a spot. Oviedo and Bailey Falter were perhaps the most logical candidates for the final spot.
Perhaps this news on Oviedo will give Falter a smooth path to a season-opening rotation gig, though the Bucs have some intention of stretching out relievers Carmen Mlodzinski and Caleb Ferguson to see how they handle longer outings. The Pirates also have Braxton Ashcraft and Mike Burrows on the 40-man roster while prospects like Bubba Chandler and Thomas Harrington are in camp as non-roster invitees.
All the more reason to have signed Heaney.
Spencer Horowitz II
Quintana would have been a good choice. Bad timing for sure.
Heaney just as good maybe better. They preferred Quintana but he wasn’t that interested.
The Bucs offered more to Quintana before signng Heaney but Quintana turned them down. Must have thought he could have gotten either more for the year or a 2 year year deal and did not get it. I believe it was planned for Oviedo to go on the 60 ev4ntuslly anyway to work him back slowly from TJ just like all teams do.
There’s a reason why Quintana hasn’t signed. I’d imagine he’s asking for a lot of money. I assume he would have just went right back to the Mets.
He signed earlier today 4 to 5 million. Mets are so over the tax 5m becomes 10m to them. Not sure if Cohen can still write off most of that still or not. But if it hasn’t ran out ye it’s coming soon.
unless one is our top prospect pitchers makes the opening day roster, looks like more bullpen games for the season
Agreed, TheMan3. Maybe they can bring back VanMeter to throw some innings in blowouts
It’s gonna be an awful season
it would have been an awful season just with the likes of signing Pham, Frazier and trading for an injured first baseman who can’t hit lefties
Soencer Horwitz had a higher OPS last season than all but four MLB first baseman who had at least 300 plate appearances.
His injury arose after the Pirates traded for him and he’s only out for 6 to 8 weeks. He’ll be starting for the Pirates before the end of April..
Starting staff is set. Someone gets hurt soon they simply sign Gibson Lynn or someone. Someone gets hurt in April Ferguson Majinski. May June Burrows Ashcraft Harrington Bubba. Maybe Oviedo comes back.
But with Skenes Keller Heaney you could do bullpen games.
Hahahahaha.
The starting staff is set. (You forgot Jones)
The rebuild is over
What a pathetic joke this team is
It’s a good starting rotation that will get even better when Chandler and Harrington arrive.
Keller is a league average starter (meaning a #3) with a FIP- around the league average of 100.
He has struggled in the second half of the last two seasons, with his groundball percentage dropping and his HR rate greatly increasing. He might benefit from stricter innings and pitch limits in the first half.
bullpen games wears out the relievers.
it will be another Indy shuffle season
Falter gets lit up far too often for a starter and should be the long reliever.
On a side note, if Cruz doesn’t soon either fix his swing or learn the strike zone , it will be another 180+ strikeouts for 2025
Careful, TheMan3, throwing cold water on all the faithful here will get the analytics crowd telling you that what you actually see isn’t real
Falter is a spot starter anywhere else
I said previously that I expect Cruz to come down a couple pegs this season. Why? Well, for one, he’s lazy. You could have predicted he did nothing to address his hitting holes this winter. Secondly, MLB pitching coaches and scouts write the book on hitters. They either adjust or flounder
There’s nothing mysterious about Cruz. He’s not Gwynn or Ichiro. He’s not even Reggie
Mix pitches. Fastballs off the strike zone. Breaking pitches in the dirt. He won’t adjust. He’ll wave the white flag as always
Shame. Kid has a great deal of talent and ability. He just won’t refine it and apparently has no one to push him. Certainly not “Uncle Sheltie”
K/9: Ortiz (as a starter) 7.0; Heaney 8.9; Falter 6.1
BB/9 Ortiz 2.5; Heaney 2.3; Falter 2.9
HR/9 Ortiz 1.4; Heaney 1.3; Falter 1.1
FIP, which is based entirely upon the very basic statistics of K, BB, HR, and Hit by Pitch shows that Heaney and Falter were both better than Ortiz was 5
as a starter.
Heaney 4.05
Falter 4.30
Ortiz 4.57
In 2023, Johan Oviedo had a 4.49 FIP with 8.0 K/9, 4.2 BB/9, and 1.0 HR/9.
Walks. Strikeouts, and Home Runs are the best statistics for evaluating a pitcher’s performance because they focus entirely on his individual performance, are not at all affected by fielding, and are least affected by luck.
Richard- You seem to know your stats.
And FIP seems to be the simplest one for this category.
For some of us these stats do not show nearly the complete picture.
The many different ones may as well be written in Swahili.
Seriously though,is there one that takes into account more data such as swing and miss,balls and strikes,weak contact,ground ball %,pop up %,etc,parameters that also affect how effective a pitcher is?
Also,are you aware as to whether at the end of the year parameters such as FIP are correlated with the total MLB quantities as ERA would be to insure accuracy of the FIP projections?
Not holding my breath for it, but I hope this opens the door for Bubba Chandler.
Or at least Braxton Ashcraft or Mike Burrows. Both are already on the 40-man, and Burrows even made his MLB debut last year.
Yeah brighteyes. They already lost a year of Skenes and a year of Jones. Lets just throw away a year Bubba. Eliminate a year of contention and start next rebuild a year sooner.
I would pitch one of them out of the pen. Ashcraft has built up such low innings, not sure if he could start, but maybe he could close eventually?
Give them the Skenes treatment. They don’t need to pitch 5 6 innings in minors to begin with. Keep innings down in April so you can have some in August September if needed.
I think Ashcraft has a pretty safe floor as a good reliever even setup closer sure. Let him start though until he proves he can’t. Can always move him to the pen for wait for it… Playoffs!!!!!
Trade Falter before he gets hurt, that would leave the door open for Caleb Ferguson or bubba Chandler. Looking at Fergusons minors stats he was a very good starter. Give him a shot. Keller still needs to step up or Chandler has his spot.
Keller has had his shot, it’s been uninspiring.
I’m not a big Keller fan. I mean, he’s a back end starter, nothing more These streaks he has where he can’t keep his fastball off of Main Street and loses the touch on his spin pitches is disturbing for a guy that’s been here for awhile
But there’s no way Chandler “takes his place” this season. Or Ferguson. Or Ashcraft. Or Harrington
Keller’s not the problem here
Lack of baseball talent playing for a scumbag owner is problem #1
Keller backend starter lol.
On a good staff, he’s 3 or 4
Why trade anything for Falter? You could have just signed Perez Heaney Quintana for 5m. Or traded a platoon 1b with a trashed wrist for Ortiz.
Why are so called Pirate fans wanting to throw away a year of Bubba? If you wait until mid April you get the extra year unless he wins ROY. Wait until June and he won’t be able to win ROY and no super two. Bubba missing 2 to 10 starts and you get an entire additional year as him as a Pirate. You are worried about only 2025 when 2030 31 32 are just as important. Actually more important. Skenes Jones Keller will be long gone likely. KG can’t do it all alone so gotta give him so pitching.
There’s the cold water toss
Let’s think about the financials and not building a winning team.
It’s a never ending circle in this town. Always two years away from being two years away
Heaney cost 4 million more than Ortiz
Losing Oviedo for 60 days is not the crisis that the Nutting-haters want to make it out to be.
Skenes, Keller, Heaney, Jones, and Falter is a pretty good starting rotation.
Luis Ortiz had a 104 FIP- last year, meaning he was 4% worse than the average major league pitcher. Spencer Horwitz had a 127 wRC+, He was 27% *Better*than the league average hitter.
*
But some will insist that any move the Pirates make is a bad move for no other reason than that it was made by the Pirates. They’re the ones who complained bitterly about trading Andrew McCutchen for Bryan Reynolds, and Tony Watson for Oneil Cruz..
I’m thankful that this is the last of your inane postings I have to wade through. Your continued love of stats—like that of “bright eyes”—makes it clear you never played, coached or managed the game and that really, it’s doubtful you even watch the games
You’re here to defend scumbag owner and blow a lot of smoke up skirts
Where are the skirts, Mr. Aikman?
Fans of every team every sport are stupid. They are to invested to think clearly. Only 1 or 2 percent of population are capable of critical thinking anyways. I celebrated the Cutch Watson trades. Oviedo is almost irrelevant. Even if healthy he was starting in minors to rehab or bullpen. They likely will trade him if he is ever healthy and good. They have better options.
Bednar Santana should be traded this July or in the off season. Probably will. I will celebrate it because they have to be traded. There’s no choice unless you want to extend them and it’s a option if they are cheap enough.
Reynolds Keller may need to be traded as well. They will be making real $. If you bring Cutch back for 5m payroll next year will be the same as it is now without signing a single free agent. And that’s with Bednar Santana being traded. They could keep them because they won’t need to sign any significant free agents. But if they want to extend a Skenes Cruz one of those will likely need to go unless the new hitting coach is a guru and Pirates win and attendance takes a big jump. Other wise another losing season and new gm will make fans think rebuild well that’s not good for season ticket sales and negotiating new tv deal.
Bednar should be traded. Most closers are overvalued.
If they trade Reynolds or Keller, they need to get very good, major-league-ready players in return.
Or prospects. If you traded Reynolds for nothing but prospects and took the $ you were paying Reynolds and signed Santander Profar etc you wouldn’t be a significantly worse mlb team. Be pretty much the same and you would have prospects.
You already ruined the FOB&D blog with your boring stats, attacks on anyone who posts a negative comment about the Pirates and self self righteousness. Trying for another?
Pirates fans have lost their minds. You got Skenes enjoy it. Looks like another 76 win team but just need a few surprises. If Jack is Back you got a 500 team. If Davis reaches realistic potential you make run at division. Doesn’t have to be those 2. Could be Yorke Cook Endy. Likely not happening but at least give it a month. What won’t make a difference is 2 or 3 more starts of Bubba. And it won’t even be more. He isn’t throwing 200 innings so any starts he gets in April will be starts he won’t get in August September and get ready to lol Buctober!!!!!
Complete nonsense
In fact, it’s less than that.
The same “ifs” we saw in November
Yes, if I hit the power ball I may put an offer in for the team
70-72 wins
Write it down
yeah we have one player to enjoy, but if this happens or if that happens, maybe they make the playoffs.
As a team thus far this spring, runs are still hard to come by, but let’s just enjoy one player and not be concerned with anything else
74 wins is my prediction though I wouldn’t mind another 100 loss season, especially with Shelton writing a different lineup every game
It’s hard to believe this franchise has decision makers who are this incompetent. Seriously. Are they trying to kill the fan base in Pittsburgh? Is that the goal? Because there are American Legion managers better than Shelton and fantasy baseball owners who could put together a financially reasonable roster that could compete
Nutting is Nutting. He’s a scumbag
We have Reynolds here. A good player, not great. Consistent.
We have Cutch’s continuing farewell tour
I like watching Skenes and Jones
Cruz could be Mr Excitement Has the tools, ability. Too bad he doesn’t have Greg Polanco’s attitude. Kid tried hard to refine his play but couldn’t. Respect for his efforts
I still think 74 is optimistic
There are Pirate “fans” who HOPE the team will lose because they want to keep moaning and whining..
Proving once again how out of touch you really are. Love Pride night. Get your tickets Richard. We know you are a Bigot against that.
I declare, in the Name of Christ Jesus and according to the Word of God, that Homosexual behavior is Sin.
“There women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their persons the due penalty for their error.” (Romans 1: 26b-27; The Word of God)
“Likewise, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding cities, which, in the same manner as they, indulged in sexual immorality and unnatural lust, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire.” (Jude 1:7; The Word of God)
Their “Pride” is in their Shame.
By the time Oviedo is ready it’ll be about the time the Pirates trade Heaney to the Padres…