Morning Rundown: Johan Oviedo to have Tommy John surgery
Morning Rundown: Johan Oviedo to have Tommy John surgery
Oviedo won nine games for the Pirates last year
The Pittsburgh Pirates were hit with a blow before the season even started, as right-handed pitcher Johan Oviedo will have Tommy John surgery, forcing him to miss all of 2024.
Earlier in the offseason, it was reported that Oviedo was dealing with elbow issues and that Tommy John was being discussed.
We found out that would be the case on Saturday, and the procedure is expected to take place next week.
In his first full season as a starting pitcher in the majors, Oviedo posted a 9-14 with a 4.31 ERA across 177.2 innings pitched.
The innings pitched were key, as the Pirates struggled with injuries to their rotation, with Oviedo being one of their few reliable starters down the stretch.
Many of the numbers still point to a back-end starting pitcher (4.87 xFIP), but we have seen this offseason how much teams value innings pitched (the Lance Lynn and Kyle Gibson contracts).
Oviedo, along with Mitch Keller, seemed to be one of two pitchers with a rotation spot locked in going into 2024.
Now, the Pirates will need to figure out upwards of 80% of their rotation going into the season. Mike Burrows and JT Brubaker are returning from Tommy John this year as options, as well as prospect/former prospects Quinn Priester, Roansy Contreras, and Luis Ortiz.
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Everything goes towards making the site as good as possible, with eyes on a few trips out to see games live, like Greensboro at the end of this past season.
The system is going to have to produce players to fill some of these gaps: especially 2B and SP. The cannot cover all these positions with free agents, and IMO, it would be foolish to try. They will end up dispersing money to 4 or 5 washed up veterans who produce little or no tangible results... i.e. a repeat of last year.
That we are in year 5 of the Cherington administration and still have so many holes to fill and no prospects obviously ready to step up and fill these holes is an unhappy situation. How is it that after 5 years, we still do not have a competent firstbaseman? It really is not that hard to get a couple competent players. The Pirates just make it look like mission impossible every year.
Compare Cherington year 5 with that of Elias, hired exactly 1 year before. Can anyone see the Pirates winning 101 games next year? It is not as though Elias broke the bank to buy his way out of the cellar. The Orioles' payroll is unlikely to be that much higher than that of the Pirates next year.
seems as though two of Ortiz, Falter, Jackson, Kranick, Contreras and/or Priester are locks to open the year in the rotation
i suppose I would rather see one of them knocked around than a discount veteran