North Shore Tavern Mound Visit: Why Bednar's a deserving All-Star

LOS ANGELES -- Mitch Keller deserves to be an All-Star. He's been the Pirates' best and most consistent starter this year and has posted All-Star quality numbers (a 9-3 record, 3.34 ERA, 2.3 WAR). He's on pace to flirt with a 20-win, 5 WAR season. Whether you want to look at it old school or new school, that is definitely All-Star worthy.

With that said, he shouldn't be going to Seattle alone. 

There are always a couple of snubs for every All-Star team, mainly because there are only a handful of spots for each position and every team has to send at least one representative. It's why players like Wander Franco or reigning Most Valuable Player Paul Goldschmidt didn't make the initial cut. Plus, the league and the players tend to gravitate towards the best teams for their selections. The Pirates have improved this year, but they are still below .500. Getting a second player in the game is far from guaranteed when that happens.

But, in this reporter's opinion, David Bednar should be an All-Star, too.

Why? He was an All-Star in 2022, and he's better this year.

"Last year, being one of the first times I was fully in that high-leverage-ish role has prepared me to be in all the different spots I've been in this year," Bednar was telling me recently. "I feel like that's the best way to learn: Just going through it. There's no substitute for that. Knowing what it feels like to pitch in the backend of the game. It just builds confidence."

Bednar probably would have skirted the line of All-Star status a year ago if every team wasn't represented, but was an easy choice when that rule comes into play. He was most likely overused, which led to some crankiness in his back that dinged his results and kept him out for most of the second-half of the season, but he showed that he had the potential to be in the upper-tier of relievers in this game.

Bednar had a few hiccups in 2022 that inflated his stats, but results wise, he's been even better this year:

First half 2022: 43 2/3 IP, 2.89 ERA, 32.4 K%, 7.4 BB%, 1,08 WHIP, 16/20 save opp.

First half 2023: 31 /13 IP, 1.44 ERA, 30.3 K%, 3.3 BB%, 0.89 WHIP, 16/17 save opp.

Bednar's thrown fewer innings (that's partly because the Pirates are limiting his multi-inning outings and partly because he went a month without a save opportunity from late April to late May) and the strikeouts are a hair lower, but his ERA and walk rates have been more than halved. That's not a coincidence. Over the last two years, Bednar's ERA has a strong correlation to how often he's throwing the ball in the zone:

"That's been my mindset: Fill it up, compete in the zone," Bednar said. "When that happens, good things happen."

But Bednar doesn't throw an overwhelming pitches in the zone. In fact, only 49.1% of his pitches are considered in the strike zone, which is exactly league average by Baseball Savant's data.

He makes those pitches count, though. Hitters whiff on 30.9% of his pitches that would be called strikes. Of the 386 pitchers who have faced at least 100 batters this year, that's the fourth-best, or the top 1%. It's an elite trait.

"I don't think it's one thing," Bednar said. "I still think it's that intent-driven [mindset] throughout my whole career. That's the constant thing whenever I have success. Just having that trust in what Hedgy [Austin Hedges] or Jason [Delay] put down."

It sure helps when it's a fastball, though. There have been 57 times this year he threw a fastball in the upper-third of the zone and the hitter swung. Of those 57 swings, 26 were whiffs (45.6%). I took a sampling of the 165 pitchers who induce the most swings against fastballs up and that whiff rate was the second best.

It's a pitch that comes in at the upper-90s with high spin. He's killed some of the horizontal cut on it too this year, helping to improve the illusion that the fastball is rising:

That high spin perfectly complements the rest of his arsenal. The splitter barely spins, but it's right in line with the same direction the fastball spins, making the drop look more profound. The curveball, on the other hand, perfectly mirrors the spin of the fastball, leading to tunneling:

BASEBALL SAVANT

That leads to a lot of chases. In fact, Bednar's 37.1% chase rate (mainly due to those breaking pitches) ranks in the top 2% of pitchers.

So what you have is a pitcher who is elite at beating hitters in the zone and getting hitters to chase out of the zone. Of course that's going to lead to results.

But not an All-Star nod.

Of the 12 National League pitchers selected to the roster this year, only four were relievers: Alexis Díaz of the Reds, Camilo Doval of the Giants, Josh Hader of the Padres and Devin Williams of the Brewers. Díaz, Doval and Williams are their teams' only representative.

Would Bednar get the nod if teams weren't guaranteed a player? Here's a blind test to see:

I made this chart with traditional and analytical stats in mind. Of course you want someone who posts zeroes (ERA), but the leverage of the runs allowed should also matter (Win Probability Added, WPA). How did you get those outs? Strikeouts and weak contact? That should matter when determining who the best relievers are.

And when looking through those figures, Bednar is first or second in the league in the stats he can control, third in WPA (third in the National League, too), and then falls back a bit in the stat that most relievers are measured by: Saves. That's the fault of the team for falling apart in May and then this recent stretch of 12 losses in 13 games in June. If the Pirates could have given him just a few more save opportunities, he would have been first or second in the league in just about any stat that you can measure a reliever.

Not to keep you in suspense any longer, player A was Doval, B was Hader, C was Díaz and D was Williams. This isn't a reflection on any of them, who all have strong All-Star cases as well. It's the way the system is.

And the door isn't necessarily closed to get Bednar to Seattle. Clayton Kershaw likely won't pitch because of a sore shoulder, so he will need replaced. Starting pitchers who pitch on the Sunday before the game are ineligible to play in the game and are replaced. There's still a chance Bednar is a late addition.

If he does get that call, it will be because he has earned it.