Pittsburgh Pirates: Can Chris Archer Be Saved?

Pittsburgh Pirates RHP Chris Archer has had a rough go of it since arriving from Tampa Bay. Archer, though, might just have a second act in him with a few changes.

Chris Archer has struggled since coming to the Pittsburgh Pirates at the trade deadline in 2018. Those struggles only compounded in 2019 as Archer turned in the worst year of his career. Archer threw a disappointing 119.2 innings with a career high 5.19 ERA and a measly 0.7 fWAR.

Archer had a number of other problems across the board posting career lows in a number of important areas. For the first time ever, Archer’s 36% ground ball rate was the lowest mark of his career and the first time he has been below 42%. Another struggle was Archer running a double-digit walk rate for the first time since his rookie cameo in 2012. Lastly, even in the juiced ball era, Archer’s HR/FB rate ballooned to 20.2% which was the ninth worst mark among starting pitchers with at least 110 innings.

The good news is Archer has a number of positives that could help him bounce back in 2020. Archer maintained a healthy 94.1 average velocity on his fastball. He also posted the lowest exit velocity of his career at 88 MPH. Archer’s curve and slider also remained above average pitches by spin rate.

One of the reasons that Archer struggled was his pitch mix. Archer threw his highest rate of fastballs in 2019 following the Pirates mantra of pounding pitches inside. Archer was actually fortunate his ERA wasn’t worse as his expected statistics on fastballs were worse than his actual results (.339 wOBA vs .378 expected wOBA). If Archer throws 50% fastballs again in 2020, he’ll likely face the same underwhelming results.

What Archer should do is go back to throwing his slider at the 45% rate he did when he was in Tampa Bay. As mentioned, the pitch has above average spin which is more likely to create swings and misses. His actual and expected statistics on his slider were much better. Compare the fastball to a slider that posted a .230 expected batting average and a .295 expected wOBA.

For comparison, Archer’s .378 fastball xwOBA was the same as Justin Turner or trash can aided Alex Bregman. Meanwhile, hitters could only be managed to be Kevin Pillar against his slider.  Sometimes all it takes is a slight change in pitching philosophy to completely change a guy and Archer seems to be an example of that going awry.

Archer will remain an attractive trade candidate for teams who think they can right the ship. He can be controlled for this season and next via team options that total $20M. The Pirates can’t undo the miscalculation of trading for Archer, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be able to recoup some of that value.

Chris Archer has been down for the last 18 months but with new voices in the Pittsburgh Pirates organization, he might just be able to turn it around.