Headed into the 2019 season, there was a growing narrative that Phillies righthander Nick Pivetta was an emerging ace. The then-25-year-old had come off a season in which he struck out a lot of batters, and the thought was that he was on the verge of putting it all together.
It really is remarkable: By basically every advanced pitching metric you can cite, Nick Pivetta should have been a top-20 pitcher last season.
He's either one of the most obvious breakouts in baseball for 2019, or an all-time outlier.— Chris Towers is @cptowers.