The Pirates Finally Figured Out How to Use Carmen Mlodzinski

The odds are the Pirates were playing for Pride on Sunday.

They don't have much of a path to the postseason outside of pretty much winning out and hoping for two teams to collapse.

It's not a great path.

They're playing for Pride and to finish 500 or above.

But you know what? Pride is still something and Carmen Mlodzinski won him that ball game on Sunday.

Came in a very tight spot.

Bases loaded. You don't normally see him come in inheriting runners anymore.

Did a great job.

Only one of those inherited runners came in on a very weak ground out.

Pitched another inning on top.

I would argue he was the player who was most consequential to the Pirates winning that game on Sunday.

And I can't help but wonder if maybe the Pirates could have been playing for more than Pride if that version of Carmen Mlodzinski would have been available in June and July.

Good morning and 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.

Again, I'm starting off by giving flowers to Carmen Mlodzinski here.

That was a really tough spot that he came into.

Bases loaded.

A lot of lefties.

And he just attacked.

There's a lot of valid criticism of how Don Kelly used his bullpen on Saturday.

And if you want to just play the percentages, Sunday, putting Mlodzinski in whenever there are that many lefties in the lineup, not a great spot.

But you know what?

He went with, he is my best reliever.

And I am going to put him in the biggest spot in the game.

And Mlodzinski delivered.

And not only did he deliver, that was the third time in eight days that he had delivered.

We've seen him transition to more one-inning outings.

That was an inning and two-thirds, but like shorter outings.

It's not the three or four innings like we had seen since he'd been demoted from the rotation at the end of May.

And would you believe he was far more impactful because of it?

Whenever Mlodzinski went to the bullpen, it was long relief.

It was mapping out what days he was available.

And he wasn't available a lot of days.

And we've talked about this before.

I wrote about it for Book Row Bucks.

It created that, like, smoke if you got him.

If he's available, well, you got to use him because it's going to take days to reset for him to go out there.

And he would go out there in low, in leverage spots that didn't mean as much.

And he'd go and he'd give three good innings, but it's like, what impact did it really have on the game?

It didn't swing the win probability added.

On Sunday, according to Baseball Savant, his win probability added was 22.6%.

That is a huge swing.

And I'm going to concede here that there's a little bit of apples and oranges here with win probabilities between one source and another.

I get that.

But baseball reference is very credible.

And it's also very accessible.

So I decided to check.

From June 4th to September 2nd, this run where he would go multiple days off and then he'd pitch multiple innings.

He pitched in 20 games and had a win probability added of 0.177.

On average, he swung the chances of winning by less than 1% an outing.

Compare that to what he did on Sunday, 22.6%.

It's jarring.

He was more valuable, strictly talking from win probability added, on one day than he was over three months.

And I know I have been quite critical of how Mlodzinski has been used this year, of how he handled the bullpen.

And I get if people are tired of hearing the broken record, if I come off as that.

But I say it only because I think he has the ability to be brilliant.

This is a team that has Mason Montgomery, absolutely in stride right now.

He looks brilliant.

Luke Weaver, I know his Pirates tenure hasn't gotten off to the best start.

Jose Negrón's reporting about the Poison Ivy, I think, played a large impact to that.

The Poison Ivy, not the reporting, I guess I should clarify.

But he's really good, too.

And at the start of this podcast, I'm saying he is the bullpen's best reliever.

And I earnestly believe that.

Even back in spring training, whenever it's like, who's the number five starter?

It's like, give it to Karim Mlodzinski because I think this guy is a capital D dude.

And the way he was deployed for three months was disappointing.

I get in that stretch from June to September, there were three starts.

There were three starts.

But were they really starts?

They weren't telling him go five, six innings.

It was still the go three innings, go four innings if you can.

It was basically he was an opener.

And he wasn't making an impact.

And the Pirates weren't winning.

20 games pitched in three months and they went 12 and eight.

In games where he was, on average, swinging the win probability by less than 1% of time.

And for three months from May to the trade deadline, this bullpen was a capital P problem.

And I can't help but wonder what would have happened this year if Mlodzinski would have been deployed this way.

I'm not saying he has to go back to 2023, 2024, Karim Mlodzinski, where he's, got to be able to go back to back days or, three out of four or anything like that.

But there was a median here.

There was a median between having him start or be on a starter schedule for a while, have these long recoveries between outings, and what we're seeing in September.

I get some of this was building to that, but, like, this could have been a plan.

This could have been deployed a lot more before.

Imagine a year where Karim Mlodzinski is this team's closer.

It's one thing where it's like Mason Montgomery, and it's like, man, imagine if this guy was here in June or July.

But he was growing.

He was developing.

He was getting better as a player.

Okay, you get that.

Like, the guy we see now in August and September is not the same guy we saw in April and May because he's gotten better.

He's continued to grow and develop.

That's what young pitchers do.

We'd seen Karim Mlodzinski in this role before.

We had seen him make a huge impact in this role before, and now he's back in this role, and he's making a huge impact.

And it's just coming at a point in the year where it got the Pirates to 500, but their postseason odds aren't great.

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This series, or this road trip, we saw Braxton Ashcraft go on the injured list.

And, again, Ben Cherington saying on his radio show on 93.7 The Fan that nothing appears to be structural.

Okay, it's the best case scenario you can get in something like that.

But in a lot of cases, you would have thought, okay, he moves into the rotation.

Or, at the very least, he goes back to what we saw in August, whenever Mitch Keller went down.

And, no, they're pitching him this way.

And it's the right call.

It was the biggest moment in the game.

Throw in your best bullpen arm.

He delivered.

And I don't know what the future holds for Carmen Mijinsky in Pittsburgh.

I think you can make a very legitimate claim that he could be a starter next year.

That either you train Mitch Keller or you just go into next year with him being one of six or whatever.

Whatever the case may be.

If Carmen Mijinsky is planning to be a starting pitcher, I'm on board with it.

Because I think he could be a major league starting pitcher.

I think he could be a number four or five starter.

I also think he could be an absolute demon in the bullpen if he's in this role.

In this Andrew Miller type of role.

This is what he could be.

I think this is the best form of Carmen Mijinsky in that type of role.

Where he's going to go one up, maybe two sometimes.

And he's just going to seek out the biggest moment in the game.

And he is going to be...

Just unleash hell.

Just do that.

He did that in Wrigley on Sunday.

In a game where if the Pirates have any pulse, he is the reason why right now.

It is a huge outing.

It was a tease almost, though.

Of like, man, there were games in July and June.

Who knows what this season...

Or even August.

Who knows how this season would have gone if it would have been done the other way.

And I get that they wanted to have someone who was in that starter role in case they needed to go back to him.

But whenever they did lose a starter, they didn't try to stretch him back out.

So I...

It's disappointing.

Because he did more to help the Pirates' chances of winning in one day than he did in three months.

It's one of those stats that sounds almost made up.

And it wasn't just, on Sunday.

Like, what he did in that 1-0 win against the Angels the previous Sunday.

What he did in Chicago.

Coming in the fifth inning.

Delivering that inning.

Like, those are holds.

Those are big holds.

Those are games.

That he's helping them win right now.

We talked about, going 12-8 in that 20-game stretch.

They're 3-0 whenever he pitches now.

And in those three games, it was decided by four runs.

Here he is pitching meaningful innings in close games.

And the Pirates end up winning.

I truly believe, even with what Mason Montgomery, has been doing the last month and a half.

I do think Carmen Mijinsky could be the Pirates' best reliever if he is deployed this way.

And if they want to go into next year with this, I will be 100% on board.

I will champion it.

You are going to get an offbeat every other week on this topic next year if they go that way.

But I get his goal is to be a starting pitcher.

And it's a good goal to have.

It's a good goal to have.

And I think he can do it.

But whenever you could be the absolute best at something, man, I don't know if I've been the absolute best at anything in my life.

I don't know if I have, that type of thing.

That type of dog.

And you see it in him.

And it's.

I don't know.

There is a little bit of bittersweetness.

In that win on Sunday.

Because maybe they are playing for more than pride.

And they aren't going to get that E next to their name anytime soon.

They've been playing good ball of late.

that Friday notwithstanding.

But I can't help but feel like this could have been more.

And he could have been even greater and made a bigger impact.

You want your best players to make the biggest impact possible.

And for three months, I don't think he was in a position to do that.

And I think Sunday is a pretty good indicator of what the best version of himself is.

Thank you so much for listening to OffBeat here on North Shore Nine presented by FanDuel.

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Thank you so much for listening.

We'll talk again tomorrow.

All right.

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