Morning Rundown: Angel Perdomo, elite reliever? World Series primer, 'best of' series finale
Can Angel Perdomo be an elite reliever? Plus a quick look at the World Series that begins on Friday
Angel Perdomo missed about the last month and a half due to an elbow injury, but up to that point he had put together a very strong season.
In 30 games, Perdomo posted a 3.72 ERA, striking out 37.6% of the batters he faced across 29 innings pitched. Despite being known for his lack of control of times, Perdomo had a walk rate under 10% as well, and his sub-4 ERA was backed by an xFIP of 3.15.
Not a bad season from Perdomo, but does that scream ‘budding bullpen star’? Not exactly.
That’s what Bleacher Report threw out there on Twitter yesterday, in talking about some potential offseason trades that could happen.
The Texas Rangers would receive Perdomo in this hypothetical trade, with Pittsburgh getting back first base prospect Abimelec Ortiz in return.
Ortiz, 21, hit 33 home runs in 109 games across both A-ball levels, finishing in Hickory. He actually picked up three hits, including a home run, in one of the games I was at in Greensboro.
What really stands out in all of this is B/R using ‘budding bullpen star’ in their tweet, but diving deeper into some of Perdomo’s metrics, they may not be too far off.
Perdomo’s fastball, thanks to his size and extension plays really well and was actually one of the best four-seamers in baseball this year among relievers.
Of the 102 relief pitchers who threw at least 300 four-seam fastballs, Perdomo ranked 11th in whiff rate, and had the 17th lowest contact rate. When just looking at pitches in the strike zone, he had the 10th best whiff rate, and was sandwiched in between notable relievers Alexis Diaz and Jhoan Duran.
Not a bad find for the Pirates, it will just be a case of if he can bounce back from whatever injury caused him to miss the rest of the season.
The World Series kicks off today, with first pitch scheduled for about 8:03 pm ET. Zac Gallen (2-2, 5.24 ERA) and Nathan Evoladi (4-0, 2.42 ERA) is the predicted starting pitcher matchup.
Sunday will be the off day as the series will transition to Arizona for games 3-5.
Of course what makes this series so interesting from the Pirates prospective is the fact that they both finished with a worst record just two years ago in 2021.
Arizona finished with 52 wins, Texas 60, both worst than Pittsburgh’s 61.
The other team to round out the bottom four? The Baltimore Orioles, who led the AL in wins this past season, second most overall.
Yesterday was the second to last of our ‘best of’ series, taking a look at some of the best breaking pitches in the Pirates system.
Today will be the final part, looking at off-speed pitches. This weekend I have another breakdown article coming out, as well as a feature on Jack Brannigan. Both will go live around noon on Saturday and Sunday.
Last bit of personal news, which if you follow me on Twitter you probably already know, but I’ve joined Yardbarker as a baseball contributor. You can follow the link below to my page where you will find all my work.
Nothing changes here, was just looking for something additional to continue to get my name out there.
I love the work you all do on this site. Great insight and analysis! And I recognize I'll sound like a curmudgeon (or maybe just a dick) for saying this....but I'll say it anyway. Can you run your articles through something like Grammarly? It should catch a lot of the little mistakes that, well, bug the shit out of me.
Again, I really appreciate how quickly you've made this such a robust site for incredible analysis. Thanks again for your work!
So four terrible teams two years ago and three bounced back hugely. Meanwhile, Cherington punted a fourth straight year, and in his postseason presser he was downplaying talk of contending, and referring to “competing” rather than winning.