Pittsburgh Pirates: Chris Archer ready for full season in NL

Chris Archer is ready to show the National League and the Pittsburgh Pirates what he can do over a full year

After being traded by the Tampa Bay Rays to the Pittsburgh Pirates last July for Austin Meadows, Tyler Glasnow and a player to be named later who would become pitching prospect Shane Baz, Chris Archer started 10 games for Pittsburgh over the last two months of the season, posting a 3-3 record and 4.30 ERA in 52.1 innings of work. That line was similar to the one Archer put up earlier in the 2018 season with the Rays prior to being dealt. In 17 starts through July, he went 3-5 with a 4.31 ERA in 96.0 innings.

Omitting Archer’s six appearances in his rookie season, those 2018 ERAs of 4.31 and 4.30 were the highest of his career. For context, in his second All-Star season of 2017, Archer posted his then-highest ERA total as a Major League starter at 4.07. In his first All-Star season of 2015, Archer only averaged 3.23 earned runs per nine innings.

Granted, a 4.30 ERA isn’t horrific, and Archer has never really played on an offensive juggernaut in Tampa Bay. For the majority of his time there, the Rays ranked near the bottom of the league in terms of offense. Their best season in recent years came in 2013, when they were 11th in MLB in that category. That team (of which Archer was a member) ultimately made the playoffs as a Wild Card team, beat the Indians on the road in the Wild Card Game and advanced to the ALDS, where they were eliminated by the eventual World Series Champion Boston Red Sox.

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After that, Tampa Bay’s hitting got worse, although by 2018, Archer’s final season there, it appeared to be improving. The Rays ended up finishing 16th in the league in offense last year, despite the fact that they played in an AL East dominated by two 100-win teams in the Yankees and Red Sox.

When Archer was traded to Pittsburgh at the deadline in hopes of perhaps helping them make a stretch run towards a playoff berth, the supposed “contender” trading for him was actually slightly worse on the offensive side of the ball than the team allegedly “rebuilding” that had traded him away.

After having made three straight trips to the playoffs in 2013, 2014 and 2015, the Pirates saw two disappointing years in 2016 and 2017. The window to win with that core group of talent had all-but closed, and in the 2017-18 offseason, Pittsburgh began trading away franchise players. The first to go was front-of-the-rotation pitcher Gerrit Cole, who was sent to the Astros. A few days later, star outfielder Andrew McCutchen, the face of the Pirates for nearly a decade, was shipped to San Francisco.

By all accounts, it appeared the Pirates weren’t interested in competing in 2018.

But then an interesting phenomenon occurred, a peculiar event known as “winning on accident.”

In a year that was supposed to be a wash for Pittsburgh, they put up a fight, finding themselves in third place with a winning record as the trade deadline neared. As one of multiple deals the team made on July 31, the Pirates brought in Archer from a fellow third place team, albeit a third place team in a slightly different situation. On a team that didn’t have a bonafide ace, Archer would fill that role nicely for Pittsburgh.

Unfortunately though, the Pirates weren’t able to make the next step to becoming a legitimate postseason threat in the National League, and ended up with a 82-79 record, fourth in the NL Central. Meanwhile, Archer’s former club, Tampa Bay, finished eight games better at 90-72.

Still though, Archer’s new club seems poised to make a bit more noise this season, with plans for the 30 year-old ace to be a focal point of that success. According to Scott White of CBS, even as the Pirates stumbled into a mediocre ending to the 2018 season, Chris Archer picked up a couple new tricks that he can expand upon and fully implement in 2019:

Throwing out of the stretch all the time is something starting pitchers around the league are doing more and more these days, and if Archer feels this can improve his game, the Pirates should have no problem with the decision. And by combining that with his usage of two more pitches this year, provided he’s able to master all four to an acceptable degree, Archer will be giving batters a very different look coming from the mound.

Only time can tell if these changes will be the difference in returning Archer to his All-Star form for Pittsburgh. A large chunk of the National League still hasn’t seen much of Archer, but that’s not stopping him from altering his approach in a way that he believes could possibly turn him into an even better pitcher than he was with Tampa Bay. And that’s noble of him. Anyone can be persuaded to switch up their entire delivery and arsenal of pitchers when they hit rock bottom; it takes someone with a bold and daring personality to try it when they’re still a decently effective and reliable starter.

There are many question marks surrounding the Pittsburgh Pirates heading into the 2019 season, a few of which involve Archer and his ability to produce the kind of numbers that would prove the front office right to have traded the farm to grab this guy last summer.

And whether or not Pittsburgh receives the answers they’re looking for, one thing is clear: Chris Archer is the exact kind of player every team would love to have, and the Pirates should be ecstatic he’s on their roster.