I do not know if it was a good signing or not but when I dug into the stats I think it was pretty clear just what the Pirates saw in him at least based on their recent history. So let's do a blind taste test (for reference FIP and xFIP attempt to give you an ERA if you assume balls in play and timing of hits are league average, and GB% is their ground ball percentage we have all become so familiar with):
- Player A:
- Season 1 - FIP - 4.54, xFIP - 4.52, GB% 48.6
- Season 2 - FIP - 4.34, xFIP - 4.14, GB% 43.8
- Player B:
- Season 1 - FIP - 4.06, xFIP - 4.20, GB% 50.6
- Season 2 - FIP - 4.24, xFIP - 2.07, GB% 47.6
- Player C:
- Season 1 - FIP - 4.83, xFIP - 4.49, GB% 44.9
- Season 2 - FIP - 4.77, xFIP - 3.86, GB% 49.2
So what are the other common factors here? In five of the six seasons listed the pitcher's ERA was over 5.00. My guess is each person reading will know the three players but I doubt, without cheating or having looked at these stats recently, you would be able to match them all without some level of guessing.
Player A is Francisco Liriano the two seasons prior to coming to Pittsburgh.
Player B is Edison Volquez the last two seasons.
Player C is A.J. Burnett's last two years with the Yankees.
Volquez is the only one in that group to put up a season with an ERA under 5.00 in the seasons listed. His metrics are actually much better than Liriano and Burnett were putting up prior to their move to Pittsburgh. The one thing I think Volquez is missing is his success prior to that was pretty limited while the other two had shown a few more flashes of success early in their careers.
So I don't know if Volquez will spend part of the year as a Cy Young candidate like A.J. and Francisco did at times with the Bucs but his stats point to a rebound, especially with the Pirates shift heavy defense behind him.
I'm sure we will have updates later today but make sure to check out JAL's Links as I put this up pretty early this morning.