Is There Value In Potential 2023 Breakout For Red Sox’s Nick Pivetta?

There has been plenty of discussion this spring about the Red Sox starting rotation, especially as it pertains to veterans like Chris Sale and Corey Kluber.

On top of that, everyone wants to know whether Brayan Bello — who dealt with an arm-injury scare to open camp — can take the vaunted “next step” in his first full big league season.

Those storylines are well and good, and all of them must break Boston’s way to truly contend in 2023, but let’s not forget about Nick Pivetta, either.

The Canadian right-hander has had a slow start to his spring. He was slightly delayed early on after recovering from a bout with COVID-19, but he’s trending in the right direction now. He tossed five innings in blustery Clearwater on Sunday while hitting 96 mph on the radar gun as he ramps up for 2023.

For whatever reason, it’s easy to forget Pivetta was the most dependable Red Sox pitcher last season. He tied for the league lead with 33 starts, taking the ball every time he was asked. He did so with mixed results, as evidenced by a 4.42 FIP and 4.56 ERA while going 10-12.

As has been the case for his career, he flashed brilliance at times, like his two-hitter against Houston on May 18 and his 10-strikeout performance in June against St. Louis. The ongoing search for consistency reared its ugly head a little too often, though, and once again kept Pivetta from reaching his true potential.

Pivetta will be interesting to watch early in 2023 because he clearly has made adjustments. As The Athletic pointed out last week, Pivetta tweaked his breaking balls entering this season. He’s throwing his curveball harder — a 4 mph jump, per The Athletic — and his slider has more downward bite.

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“I don’t know why he hasn’t had better results. Our stuff numbers love him,” The Athletic’s Eno Sarris recalls an analyst once telling him about Pivetta.

Pitching success at the big league level requires more than making a radar gun pop and having a spin rate through the roof. The inconsistency has dogged Pivetta pretty much forever. If he were to put it together, though, he could be the closest thing to a 30-year-old breakout in a while.

We’re just a year removed from Pivetta striking out more than 10 batters per nine innings in 30 starts in 2021, a regular-season performance that paved the way for some unforgettable playoff moments. The swing-and-miss has been there for Pivetta’s entire career, really. He struck out a career-high 10.3 batters per nine innings with the Phillies in 2018 and had 175 punchouts last season.

If the adjustments to the breaking pitches — plus improvement with a relatively new splitter — make a difference, Pivetta could be in line for a tremendous season. If he just replicated that strikeout rate from 2021 and found a way to hang around games a little longer, he might be among the league leaders in strikeouts. Maybe those are big ifs, but that sort of improvement would put him over 200 strikeouts.

It might even give Pivetta some long-shot betting value for baseball bettors.

Nick Pivetta 2023 futures
MLB strikeout leader: 80-1 (DraftKings)
Cy Young winner: 200-1 (FanDuel)

The strikeout leader has the shorter odds so it seemingly would be more likely to happen. It’s still hard to imagine Pivetta leading both leagues in strikeouts. And he’s almost certainly not going to win the Cy Young Award.

However, it might be worth revisiting a month or two into the season. If Pivetta wins four of his first five starts and the stuff continues to play up, it might be worth a little sprinkle on some shorter Cy Young odds, especially if the Red Sox are more competitive than maybe some expect.

One thing that bodes well for Pivetta either way this season is MLB’s new balanced schedule. That change kind of has been lost in the excitement of the new on-field rules, but the balanced schedule means fewer looks at the American League East for Pivetta and the Red Sox. That’s good news, at least if last year is any indication. Pivetta went 1-8 vs. divisional opponents with a 6.72 ERA. He went 9-4 with a 2.86 ERA against everyone else.

Pivetta has a long way to go before he gets into the Cy Young conversation, but don’t be surprised to see marked improvement in 2023.