Breaking down the Carmen Mlodzinski saga
Mlodzinski discussed move to the bullpen
There are a few problem areas that the Pittsburgh Pirates currently have with the current construction of their roster.
One problem they don’t have is in the rotation. Led by Paul Skenes and the emergence of Braxton Ashcraft, the Pirates have one of the best rotations in all of baseball and are set to get Jared Jones back.
After missing the entire 2025 season, Jones is set to return to the mound on Friday against the Minnesota Twins.
That’s where the ‘good’ problem begins. They already have one of the best rotations in baseball, owning the fourth-best fWAR as well as sitting in the top 10 when it comes to ERA and xFIP.
Somehow, without making an external move, the Pirates are seemingly getting better now with Jones back.
Will there be an adjustment period?
It’s a possibility. Jones finished the 2024 season with a solid outing against the Yankees, allowing two runs on five hits and two walks while striking out seven over 4.1 innings pitched.
That being said, he posted an overall ERA of 5.06 in September. When you add the one start in August he made, it’s even higher, sitting at a 5.87 ERA mark.
He made five starts in the minors, tuning up for this moment, and has looked good, but this is someone with technically less than a full season of major league playing time.
Still, the upside is far too high, and the addition of Jones spills over to help out one of the ‘bad’ problems that the team has—the bullpen.
Enter Carmen Mlodzinski.
The starter, turned reliever, turned starter, then reliever, who then began this season as a starter but will make the transition back to the bullpen with the return of Jones.
Ouch.
“I’m just still communicating with the organization, and people in my corner, whether that’s my family or my agency, about what’s next.”
I’ll give it to Mlodzinski; it hasn’t always been pretty, but he’s gotten the job done as a starter to date. He’s completed five innings in each of his five outings in May while posting a 3.38 ERA. His ‘worst’ outing, where he allowed five earned runs, he still struck out 10 over 5.2 innings pitched.
Among the 105 pitchers with at least 50 innings pitched this year, Mlodzinski is 37th in fWAR and 49th in ERA. So, not competing for a Cy Young, but more than holding his own.
On worse teams, he’s a surefire fifth starter. Heck, on some of the earlier Ben Cherington Pirates’ teams, he’s more than that.
There’s another side to his performance that makes a little more sense in this move.
The underlying data scream regression. His xFIP is 64th out of 105 (it’s still around what Mitch Keller has put up the last three years), and his xERA ranks 82nd.
He doesn’t miss many bats, which won’t play well in most advanced metrics.
Still, there’s an argument to be made that if you are trying to win now, and with the best offense you’ve had under Cherington, I don’t know why you wouldn’t be, that Mlodzinski was one of your best five starters.
Of course, that doesn’t factor in the complete mess that the bullpen has been, especially from some of the right-handed relievers.
They need a jolt, and that’s something Mlodzinski can certainly give. Dennis Santana has regressed. Isaac Mattson, one of their breakout relievers from a year ago, is in Triple-A, while Justin Lawrence has struggled. Yohan Ramirez, who had a strong start to the year, has regressed.
They need a right-handed reliever.
I get Mlodzinski’s frustration. I really do. Advanced analytics aside, he performed and has a winning record with a solid ERA.
There’s another player in the rotation that you could make a case doesn’t give the team as much of a chance to win as Mlodzinski does, right now. Obviously, the upside favors Bubba Chandler much more than it does Mlodzinski, but based on performance alone, it’s a completely legitimate argument to be had.
So, I get being upset. I even get the wanting to evaluate his future with the organization at this point.
Is he a better reliever? Absolutely. But he’s making a strong case that he could hang as a back-of-the-rotation arm.
The difference is that the Pirates’ rotation is good enough that it doesn’t need your typical back-of-the-rotation arm.
Long term, by the end of the season, perhaps that’s where the analytics take over, but one could argue he’s earned the opportunity to let that play out.
His reaction kind of leads to the question of how all of this has been communicated by the organization.
There seemed to be some general shock/disappointment with the decision, but if you wind things back to the beginning of the season, this move kind of seemed inevitable when looking at the timeframe of Jones’ potential return.
What was he told heading into the season?
Was he told that you were always just holding the spot until Jones was ready? Was he told that he had a chance to hold on to a rotation spot depending on how he played?
Was he told nothing?
If it were one of the last two, I could even more see a route into being disappointed with the decision.
If it were the first one, I guess you can still be frustrated to an extent, but in the end, it couldn’t have been too much of a surprise.
It will be interesting to see what kind of role Mlodzinski takes on immediately.
A late-inning role may not be taking full advantage of what he could offer, at least at the moment.
Chandler isn’t exactly pitching well. Braxton Ashcraft is on pace to blow past his career-high workload. Jones is obviously going to have some restrictions.
Taking advantage of Mlodzinski being stretched out right now makes the most sense.
But that doesn’t really do anything to help the late-game situations that seem to be haunting the team right now.
Plenty of questions await a Pirates team that is hanging on to its .500 record by a thread.
Ultimately, this is the right call for the Pirates. Mlodzinski has proven to be very upfront with how he is feeling, so the reaction probably shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.
I’m all for more emotion compared to the cookie-cutter answer that I’m sure everyone was expecting.
Mlodzinski was having a good start to the season, and regardless of what the expected numbers are saying, he is outpitching what the expectations were for him going into the season.
This creates an interesting opportunity for the Pirates once the season is over, as starting pitching is always of high value. They could move Mlodzinski to a team that needs pitching and get something back in return.
The whole thing is a tempest in a teapot. Chandler will face a reckoning at some point if he doesn’t find the plate more often. And Mlod will be back in the rotation soon enough because baseball happens. Tantrum not called for.
No need for a tantrum, but I'd be pissed if I'm him. We view it about team. He and his people view it about him, because it's his career and his PAY. He has more value as a starter. A move to the pen potentially hurts his value and his earning power, and he is outperforming Chandler.