Pirates' Groundball Specialist Talks Ascension To Majors
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The FAN) - He's a ground ball machine that is an absolute monster at getting the Pirates out of jams.
In fact, he stranded an incredible 30 of the 37 runners that he inherited during the 2014 season.
As a result, Pirates' broadcaster Greg Brown has dubbed him, "Mister Fix It."
There's been a lot of talk about the Pirates' developmental success stories they've had over the last few years with numerous players. Reliever Jared Hughes probably isn't at the tips of everyone's tongues.
It's been an extremely unconventional path for Hughes. Originally drafted in the fourth round of the 2006 June amateur draft, the 6'7," 242-pound Hughes began his career as a starting pitcher in the minor leagues, and stayed a starter for a long time.
Hughes was just an average, solid pitcher on his teams throughout his career. He never headlined a rotation, never was a top prospect. Hughes never had eye-popping stuff, or lit up radar guns despite his large frame.
His minor league numbers weren't terrible, but also weren't overwhelming: 40-46 with a 4.14 ERA.
However, what Hughes did was never give up – paying his dues over parts of seven minor league seasons. Of the 195 games he appeared in the minor leagues, 115 of them were starts.
Then 2011 happened. Pirates pitching mechanics guru – at the time their former pitching coordinator who is now holds an Assistant GM title - Jim Benedict, saw something after Hughes hit bottom.
"Things weren't going great. Someone got called hurt and I got called up [from Double-to-Triple-A] and my first game I got shelled, gave up two, three runs in one third of an inning," Hughes said.
Hughes proceeded to sit on the bench for 10 days.
Then the break came. Along with Benedict, Indianapolis pitching coach Tom Filer, worked with and preached to the right-hander to "get the ball down. Just get the ball down, he'd tell me," said Hughes. The coaches wanted to see a commitment to the bottom of the strike zone to allow his two-seam fastball to take on a life of its own.
And it did.
Hughes also lowered his arm slot to more of a three-quarters delivery and was no longer an 'over the top' type of pitcher who was trying to flip in curve balls and changeups on a consistent basis. He now just, has a simple philosophy: "Let it burn."
The new Jared Hughes was then born that year. The year 2011 saw Hughes finishing the season in the big leagues, and in 2014, take his biggest leap forward as a major league pitcher.
Last year, Hughes threw his fastball about 86 percent of the time with an average velocity of 93 mph, according to Fangraphs.com. The natural run and sink his sinker has makes it extremely difficult for opposing hitters to square up. As a result, plenty of hitters "topped" the ball and Hughes had a 65 percent ground ball rate. That highly-valued rate was fourth-best in the big leagues, only behind Baltimore closer Zach Britton, the Dodgers' Brandon League and Giants' reliever Jeremy Affeldt.
One common theme is that those three aforementioned pitchers all pitched for championship-caliber teams in 2014, which is a clear indicator that Hughes' skill set is a vital part of the Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen and a must-have for a post-season contender.
