Phillies: Will Nick Pivetta take the next step forward in 2018?
By John Town
Nick Pivetta showed some flashes of success in 2017 with the Phillies but still has plenty of work to do. Will he be able to take a step forward in 2018?
Last year, Nick Pivetta made his major-league debut with the Phillies just under two years after being acquired from the Nationals for Jonathan Papelbon. He started off the year in Triple-A with a 1.41 ERA in five starts.
As injuries started to decimate the major-league rotation, the team started going through all their Triple-A pitchers. Pivetta was one of the first to come up, making his debut April 30 against the Dodgers. He allowed nine hits but was able to limit the damage to two runs in five innings to the eventual NL champs.
Pivetta’s first six starts in the majors didn’t last beyond five innings. He was running into the same problem that Vince Velasquez has had the last two years: trying to strike out to many batters and racking up high pitch counts, leading to early exits.
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Pivetta’s best start of the year came June 15 against the Red Sox and AL Cy Young finalist Chris Sale. Pivetta matched Sale inning-for-inning posting zeroes on the scoreboard, throwing seven before the night was over. He allowed four hits and two walks, striking out nine.
From then, Pivetta racked up plenty of okay starts, a few good ones, and a few duds.
At the end of the year, he had a 6.02 ERA, 24 percent strikeout rate, 9.8 percent walk rate, and 1.51 WHIP. He made 26 starts altogether, the second-most of any starter on the team.
As mentioned earlier, Pivetta had his flashes, but he also had a major issue in his game: command. He walked 3.86 batters per nine innings, which is far too high, even though he struck out 9.47 per nine. This led to his high pitch counts and low innings totals in many of his starts.
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Pivetta also struggled with the long ball, giving up 25 by year’s end. His 18.2 percent home run to fly ball ratio was well beyond awful according to Fangraphs and was a large contributor to his high ERA.
Even though Pivetta had his struggles in 2017, he will likely still get a chance to redeem himself in 2018. The club has yet to acquire any help in the rotation, so as of now the team’s starting five will consist of Aaron Nola and some collection of last year’s starters. Pivetta will likely be in that group.
To take a step forward this year, Pivetta will have to correct many of the issues listed above. He might have to change up how he uses his arsenal; Pivetta used his fastball 65.1 percent of the time last year, while his slider and curveball were only used about 15 percent of the time each. His slider was his best pitch, so increasing its usage could help him.
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2018 will still be a developmental year for many of the young pitchers on Philadelphia’s staff, Pivetta included. Hopefully, at least one or two of them can take a step forward and become consistent major-league starters.