Less than 10 months ago, Kyle Crick was a former top prospect optioned to the Giants' minor league camp after spending three consecutive seasons at Double-A. After a number of mechanical adjustments, he continued to struggle with fastball command and with young starters nearing the major leagues, the club decided to move him to the bullpen.
The right-hander found his niche, beginning the season at Triple-A before emerging as a reliable reliever for the Giants. The 25-year-old showed enough potential for the Pirates to covet him in the trade that sent Andrew McCutchen to the Giants on Monday.
He’ll likely join the Pirates’ bullpen in 2018, however, he still has issues with command.
"Kyle Crick is a power arm, former premium prospect, major league-ready player that’s ready to step in and help this team win games," Neal Huntington told reporters at a news conference Monday night. "It’s a power fastball. It’s a good breaking ball. It’s an ability to get swing and miss, induce soft contact."
After making his major league debut last June, Crick quickly became one of the few bright spots for a struggling team. He recorded a 3.06 ERA and 1.20 WHIP with 7.8 strikeouts per nine innings in 32 1/3 innings for the Giants.
Only 14 percent of his inherited runners scored and opponents batted only .191 against him with a .301 on-base percentage. His four-seam fastball reached 100 mph, complementing a sweeping slider and changeup. He also produced an above-average swing-and-miss rate.
However, Crick averaged 4.7 walks per nine innings and benefited from a .233 BABIP. He has the tools to handle high-leverage situations, but he lacks experience in such a role. Although he mostly pitched in the seventh or eighth inning, he was only asked to protect a lead or a tie in six of his 30 appearances.
Ray Searage's challenge will be similar to what he was asked to do with Felipe Rivero when the Pirates acquired the hard-throwing lefty from the Nationals at the trade deadline in 2016.
Rivero, 25 at the time of the trade, needed to further develop his breaking pitches and also had issues with command, posting a below-average ERA+ for the Nationals in 2016. He then averaged 5.9 walks per nine innings in 27 1/3 innings with the Pirates that season.
But he also had far more major league experience than Crick, having thrown 98 career innings for the Nationals at the time of the trade. Rivero's four-seam fastball was also enough to often bail him out of bad counts, helping him average 9.6 strikeouts per nine innings. Crick, though, has yet to throw his slider and changeup with enough consistency for him to be a major league closer.
The Pirates will likely have Searage, bullpen coach Euclides Rojas and assistant pitching coach Justin Meccage continue to focus on Crick's mechanics. Last March, Mike Krukow, a former major league pitcher who is now a television color commentator for the Giants, explained to San Francisco radio station KNBR 680 why Crick had been demoted from the club's major league camp.
"He has push in his delivery, and push and shove in delivery is inconsistency of release point," Krukow said. "And that's gonna cause you to struggle in the strike zone. When he misses, he usually misses up because of the shove. And he's got to fix that. He's gotta get a better set of mechanics that allows him to crack the whip when you get to that release point and not push when you get to that release point.
"And the other thing, too, about a guy who shoves or pushes, is he shows you the ball early. So even if he's throwing hard, you're gonna see it. They're trying to be patient with him and he just hasn't responded."
It was only four years earlier Crick told Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle he wanted to reach the major leagues at 20 years old. That did not happen, but it didn't seem unreasonable at the time.
A first-round pick of the Giants in 2011, Crick averaged 12.5 strikeouts per nine innings in 14 starts at High-A in 2013 and was ranked by Baseball America as the No. 33 prospect in baseball entering 2014. Then he stayed at Double-A for three seasons, averaging 6.1, 9.4 and 5.5 walks per nine innings.
His command became such a problem that he was moved to the bullpen in 2015, only to be returned to the rotation in 2016.
Crick allowed 9.1 hits per nine innings in 23 starts at Double-A in 2016, but he still received an invite to major league camp. When it seemed his career was headed in the wrong direction, he rediscovered some of what made him one of the top prospects in baseball.
Now, he'll likely be used in the backend of the Pirates' bullpen, possibly competing for the setup role in front of Rivero. In addition, the club has Michael Feliz — a 25-year-old reliever acquired from the Astros in the Gerrit Cole trade — Daniel Hudson, George Kontos, Edgar Santana and Dovydas Neverauskas.
Rather than spending on a reliever in free agency, the Pirates used perhaps their two most valuable assets — Cole and McCutchen — to acquire bullpen help. They're banking on both in their effort to retool to the roster.
“His improvement has been as dramatic as any of our minor leaguers,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Crick in July. “It showed in major-league camp. You know, the arm, it plays once you can get it under control. He’s throwing strikes with his slider and changeup. He’s matured not only as a pitcher but as a person, I think.”
Analyzing all six additions:
Monday: Joe Musgrove, starting pitcher
Wednesday: Colin Moran, third baseman
Friday: Michael Feliz, relief pitcher
Saturday: Bryan Reynolds, outfielder
Sunday: Jason Martin, outfielder
