In 2023, the Texas Rangers demoted Martin Perez to the bullpen and then won the world series. The 2024 Pittsburgh Pirates should do the same thing with him.
In 1972 the Philadelphia Phillies finished with a 59-97 record, good for last place in the National League East. However, the ace of their pitching staff, Steve Carlton, won 27 games that year and won the Cy Young Award. Carlton accounted for a mind boggling 46% of the Phillies’ victories that year. This led Phillies relief pitcher Mac Scarce to quip, “Every fourth game, we are the best team in baseball.”
The 2024 Pirates are the best team in baseball when Paul Skenes pitches. Skenes is 6-0 after 11 starts with a 1.90 E.R.A. The Pirates are 8 wins and 3 losses when Skenes starts. Conversely, the Pirates are 40 and 45, (5 games under .500) when Skenes doesn’t start.
Taking it one pitcher further, the Pirates are 13 wins and 6 losses when Mitch Keller starts. Combined with Skenes, the Pirates’ record when either Skenes or Keller starts is 21 wins and 9 losses. That’s a .700 winning record, meaning, like the 72 Phillies with Carlton, when Skenes or Keller pitch, the Pirates are transformed from a mediocre baseball team to the best team in baseball. Conversely, when someone other than Skenes or Keller starts, the Pirates are 27 wins and 39 losses.
Despite the poor winning record from starters not named Skenes or Keller, the Pirates starting pitchers have the third lowest E.R.A. in the MLB trailing only the Philadelphia Phillies and the Seattle Mariners. The latter two teams are in first place at the All-Star break. The Pirates are not.
And while many would point to the Pirates 21st ranked offense in the MLB as the main reason for their not having a better record at the break, the starting pitching also shares in that blame. Not Skenes and Keller mind you. Nor Jones, Falter, or Ortiz, who have, for the most part, been pretty good. But, two starting pitchers have not.
They are Quinn Priester and Martin Perez
When Perez starts, the Pirates are 4 wins and 10 losses.
When Quinn Priester starts, the Pirates are 0 wins and 6 losses.
Combined, the Pirates are 4 wins and 16 losses when either Perez or Priester starts. That’s a .200 winning percentage, a percentage that is far worse than even the Chicago WhiteSox.
Priester, for the time being, has taken over the middle relief position vacated by Luis Ortiz when Ortiz was moved into the starting rotation. In that role, Priester is 2-0 in 2 appearances with a 3.38 E.R.A. with 8 strikeouts and 2 walks in 8 innings of work. Priester is improving.
Perez, on the other hand, is trending in the wrong direction. In his last 7 games, Perez is 0-3 with a 7.56 e.r.a. His whip is 1.92. The league is hitting over .300 against him in that span.
This, unfortunately, is not uncharted territory for Perez.
Why Texas Removed Him From The Starting Rotation In 2023
About this time last year, the wheels started to fall off on Perez as a starter for the Texas Rangers. The Rangers found themselves in first place at the All-Star break last year, but they were trying to hold off a surging Houston Astros team. At the trade deadline, the Rangers acquired Jordan Montgomery and Max Scherzer. With Scherzer and Montgomery moving into the starting rotation, Perez was the odd man out, and was demoted to the bullpen.
But, saying Perez was the “odd man out,” is being kind. In his four starts prior to that 2023 demotion, Perez had pitched to an 8.50 E.R.A. and a 2.06 WHIP. His removal from the starting rotation was an easy decision for manager Bruce Bochy.
The Case To Remove Perez In 2024
As the starting rotation sits today, it is Keller, Skenes, Ortiz, Gonzalez and Perez. Jones and Falter are on the IL. Hopefully, both will return soon. When they do return, Perez will likely again be “the odd man out” of the rotation.
But, I do not believe that his removal from the starting rotation should wait until Jones and/or Falter return. I believe he should be moved to the bullpen immediately, and replaced either with Priester or with bullpen openers. Depending on how you wish to classify Luis Ortiz’s first start of the season, the Pirates are either 4-2 or 5-2 when using a bullpen opener. This is considerably better than the Pirate’s record when Perez starts.
Moving To Bullpen Does Not Equal Demotion
And I hasten to use the word demotion in prescribing Perez’s removal from the starting rotation. It has such a negative connotation. When he was moved to middle relief in 2023, Perez actually performed well. In the final two months of the 2023 season, Perez was 2-0 with a 3.03 E.R.A. all from the Ranger’s bullpen.
Middle relief pitcher is not a glamorous position, but every baseball team needs a few such relievers. Luis Ortiz, for instance, proved to be quite valuable to the Pirates in the middle relief role this year before ascending to the starting rotation. There is no reason to believe that Martin Perez could not be valuable in this position as well.
Moving Perez to the bullpen in 2023 was not the reason that the Rangers won the world series. However, it did play a small part in a bigger picture that was the Rangers’ championship season. Perez went 2-0 down the stretch from the bullpen. The Rangers finished 2 games ahead of Seattle in the final standings.
Now, I’m not suggesting that Perez’s two victories down the stretch was the deciding factor in Texas making the post season. However, Perez’s removal from the starting rotation, where he was performing poorly, may have been. His removal from the starting rotation probably saved Texas a loss or two or three had they kept Perez in the starting rotation. And those potential losses from the starting rotation could have doomed Texas’s chances of making the post season had he remained a starter.
If Perez Is Gone, Who is The Replacement?
Of course, it arguably was an easy decision to remove Perez from the starting rotation when the potential replacement was going to be Jordan Montgomery and/or Max Scherzer.
But, when it comes to the Pirates, it is perhaps a harder argument to make if the potential replacement is going to be Quinn Priester and/or a bullpen opener.
But, unlike those Texas Rangers of a year ago, the Pirates are not in first place at the All-Star break. Nor are they in a playoff position. They are 1 ½ games out of a playoff spot at the break, with seemingly every team in the National League not named the Rockies or the Marlins still in it.
The margin for error going forward will be shrinking as there becomes fewer and fewer games left to make up the deficit in the standings. The Pirates cannot afford to keep sending Perez out there as a starter hoping for better results. He is not having success and his early exits are taxing the bullpen. And his losses may potentially be the difference between the Pirates going to the post-season or once again watching the playoffs from home on their televisions.
National pundits are unanimous in their assertions that the Pirates could be a very dangerous team if they make the post-season. The theory goes that a rotation of Skenes, Keller and Jones could prove to be like the 2019 Washington Nationals starting rotation which featured Strausburg, Scherzer and Corbin and which paved the way for the Nationals World Series Victory.
The Pirates need to figure out how to win games when Keller and Skenes don’t start
In my opinion, one of those ways means removing Perez from the starting rotation. The sooner the better.
The Pirates are the best team in baseball when Paul Skenes and Mitch Keller start. It would be a shame if the rest of the baseball world were to be denied seeing the best team in baseball in the post season because the Pirates didn’t correct an obvious flaw in their starting rotation. The Rangers corrected that flaw in 2023 and won. The Pirates should repeat what history has taught.
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