Bubba Chandler’s arm still looks the part. His control does not.
The Pittsburgh Pirates rookie right-hander has walked 27 batters in eight starts this season, a 15.6% walk rate that ranks near the bottom of baseball. Chandler has had four or more walks in half of those outings, and he has twice issued six walks in a game, a problem that has followed him from the first week of the season into the middle of it.
Yet the raw stuff remains obvious. Chandler’s four-seam fastball has averaged 98.5 mph, which puts it in the 97th percentile, and opponents are hitting.206 against it. He has used that pitch for 16 of his 34 strikeouts this season, showing that when he gets ahead, he still has a weapon that can miss bats at the highest level.
That mix of promise and frustration was on display again around the mound after his latest work. Pirates manager Don Kelly said the answer is not caution, but conviction. “You can’t do that. When you play this game, you can’t play a game of don’ts,” Kelly said. “That’s not the mindset that leads to success, in my opinion.” He added that the goal is “staying aggressive, staying in the strike zone.”
Chandler said that is easier said than done. “I think I’m trying to do too much,” he said. “I’m pitching a little scared because I don’t want to walk people.” He added that he is “just not being as aggressive as I want because I don’t want to walk people,” and tied many of his mistakes to the free passes. “Walks do score most of the time, and most of my runs have come after a walk,” Chandler said. “I’m like, ‘Screw that. I’ve got to rip stuff.’”
The control issue has been there from the start. In his first Grapefruit League appearance on Feb. 23 against the New York Yankees, Chandler threw 100.6 mph, allowed four walks and four runs in 1 2/3 innings, and said he was trying to be too perfect. He later dialed the velocity back, but the search for command has continued. This season he has thrown 64.7% first-pitch strikes, up from 58.9% last season, but the gains have not been enough to keep his pitch counts from rising.
That early flash helped build the expectations around him. Chandler was regarded as one of the best right-handed pitching prospects in baseball, and MLB Pipeline ranked him No. 15 entering the season. He opened his major league career with a four-inning save against Colorado, then did not allow a run through the first eight innings of his first two appearances before allowing two home runs later in that stretch.
For the Pirates, the equation is plain. Chandler can overpower hitters, and his velocity and strikeout totals show it. But until he starts living in the strike zone more often, the runs will keep coming after the walks, and each outing will keep turning into a test of whether he can trust the stuff that made him such a prized arm in the first place.
