A new era of baseball has arrived. Following a disappointing 2019 season that saw the club go 69-93 and lose 48 of their final 73 games, the Pirates cleaned house. They have a new team president (Travis Williams), a new general manager (Ben Cherington), and a new manager (Derek Shelton). Four straight postseason-le s seasons meant it was time for a change. The turnaround is unlikely to be quick, of course. projected the Pirates as a 67-win team this year prior to the shutdown, Chris Wagner Men Jersey and the big-league roster is short on long-term building blocks. There's , , probably and , and that's about it. Top prospects and aren't too far away, so that's something. Right-hander , who was part of the incredibly one-sided trade, could be a long-term building block as well. He has been a solid innings guy the last two years, and at age 27 and with two years of control remaining as an arbitration-eligible player beyond 2020, you can see Musgrove as part of the next contending Pirates team. Just squint your eyes a bit. SD SP #44 2019 stats ERA4.44WHIP1.22IP170 1/3BB39K157 Musgrove has a 4.28 ERA in two years with the Pirates, which is e sentially league average once you adjust for ballpark, and hey, there's value in being league average. He's also shown flashes of being much, much better that. Not counting a start in which was ejected after two outs, Musgrove had seven starts with zero earned runs last year. Only 10 pitchers had more. For the Pirates, the key is helping Musgrove break out and take his game to the next level. Right now other clubs view him as a buy low opportunity. Get him for pennies on the dollar, make some tweaks, then reap the rewards. That's exactly what the did with Cole. Fortunately for Pittsburgh, there are reasons to believe Musgrove's breakout is imminent. Here are three. 1. He's adding velocity More accurately, he's getting velocity back. Musgrove's velocity was down noticeably early last season, Derek Grant Women Jersey dipping from 94 mph on average in 2018 to 91-92 mph in the early months of 2019. By the end of the season, he was not only back up to 94 mph, he was sitting 95 mph on the regular. Not surprisingly, Musgrove's strikeout rate climbed as his velocity returned: There's a strong league-wide correlation between strikeout rate and velocity rate, which makes sense, intuitively. The harder you throw, the le s time the hitter has to react. Velocity helps everything play up, fastballs and secondary pitches. Musgrove threw harder and had better results late last year. Not much of a mystery here. The velocity returned after Musgrove made a slight change to his mechanics. Specifically, he shortened his arm action. On the left is Musgrove in July. He breaks his hands, brings his arm all the way down, then goes forward with his delivery. On the right is Musgrove in September. He keeps his arm bent after breaking his hands rather than bring it all the way down. The short arm action is a relatively new trend sweeping acro s baseball. adopted it last season and had a breakout year. and have adopted it as well, ditto when he returned from Tommy John surgery last year. Musgrove is the latest pitcher to go with the shorter arm action and see his velocity spike. "I think I was able to tap into a little bit more power that I have with the shorter arm action, just staying more connected, but the biggest change was getting my lower half to start to move normal again," . "Stride length increased a little bit, getting better extension. I think the short arm action was a contributing factor, but I would say mostly it was the legs getting back under me." Musgrove at 94-95 mph is a different animal than Musgrove at 91-92 mph. At the lower end velocity, he's an average-ish starter who is steady more than spectacular. At the higher end, Musgrove has a chance to dominate. Velocity is not everything, we know that, but it's not nothing either, and the arm action gives us a tangible reason to believe Musgrove's velocity spike is here to stay. 2. He has three swing and mi John Gibson Jersey s secondary pitches Moreso than the velocity, Musgrove's secondary pitches give him a chance to be one of the league's better starters, I think. His curveball is a hammer. It's a low-80s pitch he can throw for a strike or bury in the dirt. His slider is a mid-80s offering that snaps down and away from righties. The changeup sits mid-80s and tumbles down and away from lefties. The characteristics of each secondary pitch suggest Musgrove has three put-away secondary pitches. The curveball and slider are high spin pitches that mi s bats while the changeup fades down to get whiffs. Musgrove average Changeup swing-and-mi s rate 32.3 percent 30.7 percent Curveball swing-and-mi s rate 39.6 percent 31.6 percent Slider swing-and-mi s rate 39.3 percent 35.8 percent , only four other pitchers had three better than average swing-and-mi s pitches last season: (changeup, curveball, slider), Gerrit Cole Nick Ritchie Women Jersey (fastball, slider, changeup), (cutter, curveball, changeup), and (changeup, curveball, slider). Musgrove's in good company. Not only does Musgrove have an improved fastball and good secondary pitches, he also fills up the strike zone. He walked only 5.2 percent of batters faced the last two years, 11th lowest among the 128 pitches to throw at least 200 innings from 2018-19. That's on par with control artists like (4.9 percent) and (5.4 percent). All the tools are there for succe s. 3. He has a new pitching coach As part of their offseason overhaul the Pirates dismi sed longtime pitching coach Ray Searage and Jackson Lacombe Men Jersey replaced him with the more analytically inclined Oscar Marin. Searage helped the Pirates get to the postseason three straight years from 2013-15 by getting the best out of veteran hurlers like A.J. Burnett, J.A. Happ, , and . He was a career-saver. The more recent results have not been favorable, however. Cole left Pittsburgh and became an instant ace. broke out once he left the Pirates. went to the and immediately started living up to his potential. Even turned things around after being traded away last year. Fair or not, that all reflects poorly on Searage, and a change was made. At risk of oversimplifying it, Searage preached pounding the fastball down and getting quick outs via ground balls. It worked great from 2013-15. As the game shifted toward launch angle though, the high fastball and high spin breaking balls became the weapons of choice, and the Pirates never really adjusted. At least not in a way that had a meaningful impact on the field. The Pirates began incorporating more technology last season, but having the technology and knowing how to interpret and use the data are two very different things. The club hopes Marin, who had been with the as their bullpen coach, will help make their pitching operation more state of the art than it was under Searage. "Last year, it seemed like we were trying to go in an analytica