Nick Pivetta is Living in a Land of Contradictions

It's possible that any of the following words came to mind upon hearing the San Diego Padres signed Nick Pivetta to a four-year contract shortly before spring training: sure, okay, fine, neat, or the good, old-fashioned absence of words altogether in favor of a mild shrug of the shoulders. 

A muted reaction was likely appropriate. The Padres were getting a starting pitcher to help fill out their rotation. That was the important thing. But, he'd also never posted an ERA below four over a full season and, while the strikeout numbers were decent enough, you weren't trading off punchouts for run prevention. Pivetta was merely a serviceable starter to plug into the latter portion of the rotation. Solid, but unspectacular. 

In a stroke of irony, that solid, but unspectacular starter has gone on to be the Padres' most important arm out of the starting gate this season. Alongside Dylan Cease, he's the only starting pitcher to remain healthy to date (26 starts), and his ERA (2.82) & FIP (3.32) trail only Michael King. His 6.8 percent walk rate trails only Kyle Hart among Padres with multiple starts this year. Factoring in the context that Cease has had efficiency issues, King has made just 11 starts, and Hart was permanently banished to El Paso in July, it's an easy call as to who has demonstrated the most value to this starting group. 

What's strange, though, is Pivetta's absence of regression. Since July 25th (six starts), his ERA sits at 2.91 and his FIP is at 3.76. That's reasonably in-line with the production he's turned in all year, with the latter figure suggesting that he's not getting lucky even at this late juncture. He's just as effective now as he was in April... which doesn't add up when you consider many of the underlying metrics against the actual outcomes. 

On percentiles alone, Pivetta lives in multiple layers of contradiction. He doesn't generate many chases or whiffs, but still sits quite high in terms of his strikeout rate. He doesn't generate soft contact or groundballs but has maintained a favorable expected batting average against. There just isn't much stuff to speak of—his only plus pitch by Stuff+ is a seldom-used slider—yet he's still consistently stifling hitters this late into the year. We call that a paradox. 

Taking the contradiction concept a step further, few pitchers live in the zone more than Pivetta has this year. His 46.6 Zone% ranks eighth among 55 qualifying starting pitchers. You're also not going to find him lingering around the top of the leaderboard in contact rate (27th) or even swing rate (34th). If we're painting with broad strokes, you'd almost expect a healthy dose of swings with an aggressive pitcher, with his ability to locate serving to avoid quality contact even if the contact itself comes at a high volume. Such is the archetype. But, almost none of that is present. Instead, Pivetta's a pitcher without elite stuff, absolutely living in the zone, and somehow always managing to get away with it.

It's so confounding that FanGraphs' Ben Clemens questioned whether Pivetta was some kind of sorcerer in a piece last week. Therein, Clemens noted a combination of confidence and sequencing in allowing Pivetta to thrive in the way he's approaching hitters in 2025. His closing thought was especially enlightening:

Quote

This season, 329 different pitchers have thrown 200 or more pitches in two-strike counts. Nick Pivetta is the eighth most effective, and most of the guys ahead of him are relievers pumping 100-mph fastballs for an inning at a time. (Trevor Rogers is great: Noted.). Pivetta’s strategy isn’t some novelty. It’s one of the most effective in the major leagues. And it’s “throw pitches in the easiest place to hit them in the counts where there’s the least reason to throw them there.” Pretty delightful.

Indeed, Pivetta is simply working with more confidence in his arsenal than almost any of his contemporaries. This speaks to a couple of different ideas. One is the outcome-based fact that Pivetta is thriving in two-strike counts. He's in the zone 47.1 percent of the time in two-strike counts, but opposing hitters are going for an average of just .111 in those counts (xBA of .129). Even beyond the "caught looking on grooved pitches" metric that Clemens describes in the FanGraphs' piece, Pivetta is finding an extraordinary level of fortune in operating with two-strike counts.

The other idea presented here is the entirely unquantifiable confidence. The following is the pitch type with which Pivetta is working in two-strike counts: 

Working with a fastball in two-strike counts speaks to confidence in itself, but the fact that Pivetta is hitting the zone with the curveball 53.1 percent of the time and the sweeper at a 47.8 percent clip in those situations represents some next -level faith in your stuff. Pivetta isn't even trying to get hitters to chase. He's simply going with whatever works in a given moment in the most obvious possible portion of the zone. How does one even account for something like that? 

That really is the remarkable thing about what Nick Pivetta is doing at this point in the year. If we were to believe what's on paper in terms of stuff and contact trends, he should be worse. But, the expected metrics say he shouldn't. And it's almost completely courtesy of his aggression, which is either freezing hitters into not swinging or offering up a swing that is five percent below their typical hard hit rate. 

You can't quantify confidence. Nick Pivetta may just continue to defy whatever the numbers have to say.