I decided to pick a random player from a random level from a random team. I wound up with the second Pittsburgh pitcher listed on their Double-A roster in 2021. Ergo, meet Osvaldo Bido.
- Born: October 18, 1995
- B/T: Right/Right
- 6’3″, 175-lbs
- Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2017 out of the Dominican Republic.
The Numbers
His raw numbers are listed above courtesy of baseball-reference.com. Let’s aggregate by year then focus on the important numbers for minor leaguers:
Bido has been climbing levels steadily, a year at a time. At his current age, 26, the lost 2020 was especially annoying since it now looks like he’s too old for his level, when in fact he’s been about average for each level. In any case, he’s making progress.
In 2019 he had a good season pitching between A and High-A, split up between 20 starts at Greensboro, and just 5 starts at High-A Bradenton. He kept the walks to a good level, and he didn’t strike out as many batters as we’d like to see, but the WHIP showed an effective approach. He held batters to a .224 average, so he was quite effective in 2019.
In 2021, mostly spent at Double-A Altoona, he continued to limit the walks, and the strikeouts inched up, but the WHIP was worse due to a .257 average against. Thus we see the vagaries of depending upon hit rate to keep your WHIP low — you’ll have good years, and you’ll have bad years. High strikeout guys control that WHIP better.
Yes, he struggled in his two starts at Triple-A Indianapolis, but at this point you congratulate him for reaching Triple-A and call it a year.
Lefties in Double-A hit him harder. Bido is a flyball pitcher, and you can see that lefties hit 9 HRs against him while righties only hit 4. He has a roughly 2-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio against lefties, and an almost 4-to-1 mark against righties.
I’m beginning to see a path to the majors…
Savant doesn’t have 2021 on there, but for his prior years we see a fairly balanced chart. Maybe lefties hitting opposite field power is hinted.
In 2018 he started slowly at Short-season ball, but then improved at Low-A the rest of the year. Nice to see a pitcher keep on working all the way to September and seeing better results.
In 2019 he spent most of his time at Greensboro (in blue) before a late-season promotion to High-A Bradenton (in purple). It was a good year, with a late swoon.
But let’s be realistic: his career mark is just over 10% for K-BB%, and 2021 was around 8%. This is an innings-eater, not a dominator.
The Scouts
- Baseball America: #26 prospect for the Pirates in 2020 with this report:
Well, he never did see Altoona in 2020 cuz nobody did. But he did, in fact, reach there in 2021, and then moved up to Triple-A.
Warnings
He doesn’t dominate batters, so his WHIP will rise and fall with his hit rate.
He’s better against righties than lefties.
He’s now 26.
Conclusion
He throws a mid-90s FB that has reached 97. He has a decent upper-80s cutter that could develop into a plus pitch. His slider and his changeup are not good enough to succeed as a starter in the majors.
However, given his effectiveness against RHB, and given his decent FB/Cutter combo that gets enough strikeouts as a starter, but the velocity and effectiveness might improve in the bullpen, I can definitely see a path to the majors for Bido. Middle innings to begin with, and if that works he could find his way toward the late innings.
Hardly a random outcome, huh?