One look at the back of Nick Pivetta’s baseball card would tell you he wasn’t a terribly effective pitcher in 2018.
In 164 innings pitched (32 starts), he put up a 4.77 ERA and lost 14 games for the Phillies, winning only seven. And in his brief two-year career thus far, Pivetta is 15-24 with a 5.33 ERA in 58 starts. Those are not numbers to celebrate.
Of course, modern baseball doesn’t look at won-loss records and, to a degree, doesn’t value ERA as highly as it once did. If one looks at virtually all of Pivetta’s other numbers, they tell the tale of a pitcher who should have been one of the 20-25 best starters in Major League Baseball last season.