Braxton Ashcraft Was The Pirates’ Best Pitcher. How High Is His Ceiling?

On Tuesday, the local chapter of the Baseball Writers Association of America announced their yearly awards, and unsurprisingly, Brandon Lowe is the Roberto Clemente Award

recipient for Team MVP, and Braxton Ashcraft is the Steve Blass Award winner for the team's top pitcher.

Both were unanimous selections, including from yours truly.

We talked yesterday about Brandon Lowe and how important he was to this team and how they really need to find a way to bring him back.

Today, I want to focus on Braxton Ashcraft, who coming into the year, I projected was going to be the Pirates number two starter.

And instead, he exceeded those expectations and was recognized as the team's top pitcher this year.

Good morning.

Welcome to Offbeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

My name is Alex Stumpf and this is a daily look at your Pittsburgh Pirates.

I get there's a sense of it being bittersweet that Braxton Ashcraft is finishing this year on the injured list.

There's nothing structural in play.

There's nothing, real big to worry about.

It looks like he will have a normal offseason.

It's just after throwing a hundred sixty five innings and it being such a big inning jump.

Body just gave out a little bit.

Had they been, in position for the postseason, maybe he could have kept going.

But right now there is obviously no reason to keep pushing him.

This was a hell of a year.

This was a big step forward.

This should help, you would imagine, help him build up to throw even more innings in twenty seven.

He did just about everything the Pirates could have ever hoped for him to do.

And I think back to last year, whenever he was called up.

And he made clear like he was going into the bullpen for the first time.

It was a new role for him.

And he's like, what?

I'm taking it in stride.

I want to prove I'm a major league pitcher.

And he did.

And more.

And he showed he was a major league pitcher, but it's like, OK, can you be a major league starter over a whole year?

In twenty six, he showed not only could he be a major league starter for a full year, a fifteen game stint on the injured list notwithstanding to end it, he showed he can be really darn good.

He was an all star.

He was the team's top pitcher.

He led the team in pitching war.

Not only was he the Steve Blass Award winner, he was pretty unanimously, not quite unanimous, but very close to unanimously being second for team MVP this year.

I think if you ask people who followed the Pirates all year, who were the two or three people who were driving this team, they would have said Brandon Lowe won, and then Braxton Ashcraft would be either second or third.

And I get his ascent to the top this year also coincides with a very down year for Paul Skenes compared to the standards he set the two years prior.

But he's still on top.

And I still think there's more in the tank.

I don't think twenty six Braxton Ashcraft is.

the definitive career year for him, that he can't get better, that he can't achieve more.

I think he can.

I think there is more in the tank.

I think there are areas that we have seen him grow.

The way he would just attack hitters early in counts, the way he would use that curveball as a weapon more and more as the year progressed.

I think here's someone who could throw more innings, have a lower ERA, get over the hump and get that There's just a lot to like about this year.

And like I said, the previous two years, he came in with like a okay, prove it mindset.

So I asked him yesterday, like, how do you keep elevating?

What do you have like something that you want to prove in twenty seven?

He said, quote, I think there's always a level of prove it.

If you go in with the idea that you're good enough and everything is good enough, then you'll start seeing the regression.

At least that's my opinion on it.

That's how I look at it.

I work every day and look every day towards a new goal and try to set micro goals for myself and things that are achievable to work towards that ultimate goal, whether that's a World Series, Cy Young, whatever it may be.

It starts with being able to convince your sights and being able to achieve, to set achievable goals to get to that greater goal.

End quote.

And I know there's no definitive, like, oh, I want to get Cy Young votes.

I want to be an all-star again or anything like that.

Like, I get there's not, like, a real set goal in that.

And he even acknowledges, like, I hope that answers your question.

I'm like, yeah, it did.

Because while you didn't give, like, an X, you didn't give me a period full stop goal, you gave me the mindset.

You showed the drive.

You showed the way that you were able to Do this year.

I think we saw a lot of how he was able to get through this year and why he was able to take such a huge step this year just through that mindset, that approach.

Because back in May, there was the talk like, is he going to be able to go a whole year as a starting pitcher?

Do they have to move him to the bullpen?

And while that, could be, like, okay, a goal is to finish the year as a starting pitcher, to throw a hundred sixty, hundred seventy, whatever innings this year.

I say he achieved that.

I know the season got cut short by three starts, maybe four starts.

I don't care.

I'm calling this a full year.

If you came into the year saying Braxton Ashcraft is going to throw a hundred sixty five innings and come out without a serious injury.

You absolutely would have taken it.

And it's like, by the way, he's also going to average over a strikeout an inning and have a three sixty five ERA.

That, I think, is more.

That is whenever he establishes himself as someone who going into next year.

Maybe it's not so clear-cut a conversation that, yeah, he could be the number two starter.

Maybe he can be one of those guys who really challenges and pushes Skenes, and they could be more as a duo.

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So even though Braxton Ashcraft isn't giving like an X goal of what he wants to do next year, it does raise the question for me, like how high is this guy ceiling?

And the boring answer, I get it, I'm sorry, would probably be like, fifteen plus wins, five war.

That's not sexy to say, though.

But whenever he was deservably named an All-Star, what's the next one?

As high as I am on the guy, I'm not ready to start thinking Cy Young or anything like that, but I like that he could say that in passing.

whenever he's talking about what's driving him.

win a World Series, win a Cy Young, those goals that, whenever we're kids playing Little League that we all wish we could one day achieve.

He's on a path that I don't know if he'll ever get to that level.

But him saying it, I didn't scoff.

Because I do think there is another gear.

And I think we saw just how big a step he took this last year whenever he had a normal offseason, a luxury, something that he hadn't really had in his pro career.

He wasn't just rehabbing.

He was like, okay, I can focus on stuff.

I can tighten up that curveball.

I can work on the change-up splitter.

I can get the sinker at a better spot.

He has shown... He showed...

A huge step from twenty five to twenty six and I wouldn't be shocked if he has another step like that in him.

And if he does.

Somebody wins fourteen games.

Maybe that's all of a sudden seventeen eighteen.

Maybe that three point seven war four war season becomes five or six.

This is a stat or team that was supposed to be built on its young pitching staff.

And while I saw Bubba Chandler get better as the year progressed, we've seen Jared Jones become a monster down the stretch, just someone who has really gotten better as the year has gone on.

Now that he's back from his elbow surgery, his internal brace.

And yeah, it wasn't the year that Paul Skenes wanted, but it's also Paul Skenes.

We all know the type of monster that he could be.

There is reason to believe that, yeah, Even if they didn't do it this year, twenty seven could be a year where the young pitching takes over.

Where it looks a little more like the twenty five pirates that we saw for a little bit.

And what that could mean to this team and like.

I know it's a huge if, a huge if, but there is an outcome where twenty seven has, the twenty five starting rotation

and the twenty six offense.

And that team is a legitimate not only playoff team, but I think a World Series contender at that point.

Again, huge if.

But the way you achieve those huge ifs are you have guys like Braxton, Ashcraft, continuing to get better.

Continuing to drive.

Continuing to just quietly go about his work.

Earlier this year, the Pirates played a bad game in Miami.

And Don Kelly, who is a player's manager, channeled a little bit of Jim Leyland postgame.

to his team.

He tore him and he ripped him and then they won the next day.

what happened that next day?

Braxton Ashcraft pitched a complete game.

On Tuesday, Don Kelly was asked about it.

He's like, I learned from Leyland that if you're going to talk like that, you better have a good starting pitcher on the mound the next day.

And I love that.

And I love that he identified Braxton Ashcraft as that type of guy.

Like it was a bad game.

It was the game that necessitated why he felt he needed to address his team like that.

He didn't like the effort.

He didn't like the performance and it needed to be addressed.

But it was one of those, I'm sure it's a small part of the pie.

You'd be like, what?

If they're going to go out tomorrow and they're going to show they really are that okay we got chewed out yesterday this is the type of guy i want on the mound to set that pace i did vote

braxton ashcraft for the Steve Blass Award this year like i said everyone who submitted a ballad also had braxton ashcraft at the top i think he was pretty clearly the pirates best pitcher in twenty six

I think he is the type of guy who could also be the best pitcher again in twenty seven.

Even if like a Paul Skenes or Bubba Chandler or Jared Jones continues to get better alongside him.

Thank you so much for listening to Offbeat.

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