The Pirates Upcoming Roster Crunch

The Pirates return to action Friday against the Washington Nationals. After having virtually no days off in the two month run-up to the All-Star game, the Pirates will have three days off leading up to the August 1st non-waiver trade deadline and they will be off that day as well. The schedule and the impending roster crunch provide Neal Huntington opportunities and challenges in dealing with the 25- and 40-man rosters. 

Let's take a look at the current roster and speculate on how things may play out over the next 16 days. Here is the Pirates current active roster, players on the disabled list and some others who have been active this year as of Thursday:

Catchers (2): Eric Fryer, Erik Kratz

Infielders (7): John Jaso, Josh Harrison, Jordy Mercer, Jung Ho Kang, David Freese, Sean Rodriguez, Josh Bell

Outfielders (5): Gregory Polanco, Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, Matt Joyce, Adam Frazier

Starting Pitchers (4): Francisco Liriano, Jeff Locke, Jon Niese, Chad Kuhl

Relief Pitchers (7): Mark Melancon, Tony Watson, Neftali Feliz, Juan Nicasio, Arquimedes Caminero, A.J. Schugel, Jared Hughes

Disabled List (6):
Catchers:
Francisco Cervelli (15-day DL, currently eligible to be activated), Chris Stewart (15-day DL, eligible to come off July 18), Elias Diaz (60-day DL, currently eligible to be activated)

Pitchers: Gerrit Cole (15-day DL, currently eligible to be activated), Jameson Taillon (15-day DL, eligible to come off July 16), Ryan Vogelsong (60-day DL, eligible to come off July 23)

In Indy, Been Up This Year and on 40-man (5): Alen Hanson, Jason Rogers, Steven Brault, Wilfredo Boscan, Kyle Lobstein

That's 36 players in total and means there are hundreds of different scenarios as to how things can play out going into the trade deadline. Let's take a shot. This is not necessarily exactly how I would do things, this is what I expect Neal Huntington and the Pirates to do.

Thursday the Pirates announced their starting rotation for the weekend series. Francisco Liriano will start Friday, Gerrit Cole will be activated from the disabled list and start Saturday and, in a bit of a surprise, Chad Kuhl will start on Sunday. Kuhl is a complete head-scratcher. He has not been impressive in his first three career starts. The only rationale behind the Pirates decision that I can come up with is they want to start a RHP versus the Nationals who have a team OPS of .835 vs. lefties and .732 vs. righties. Okay, so that rules out Locke/Niese, but why choose Kuhl over Taillon who is eligible to come off the disabled list Friday? I'm guessing the Pirates don't want Cole and Taillon pitching back-to-back in the rotation. I'll come back to that in a second.

The Pirates will have one important decision to make before playing any games against the Nats. They'll have to determine if Gregory Polanco is able to play or if he needs to go on the 15-day DL retroactive to Saturday, July 9. I'll guess Polanco is refreshed by the week off and remains active and starts in right field over the weekend.

When the Pirates activate Cole Saturday it will get them back to their preferred 12-man pitching staff, meaning a position player will be sent down (If Polanco goes on the DL, Cole will take his spot and the following discussion is moot). There are only two choices here, Bell or Adam Frazier. Bell's weekend debut was the stuff of lore, but my guess is he is sent out Saturday. Frazier has been solid in his time up with the club. Remember it was his 8-pitch walk off of Jake Arrieta that preceded Bell's first career hit that ignited the Pirates winning rally last Friday against the Cubs. Frazier provides more versatility than Bell (although he is an outfielder in name only, probably no better than Bell, but for obvious reasons the Pirates aren't going to use Bell in the outfield after two years away from the position) and can be used as a pinch-runner. I know this will disappoint Pirates fans, but I think that's the likely move.

The next move comes after the Pirates day off on Monday. As mentioned Jameson Taillon is eligible to come off the disabled list Friday, July 15. Taillon, along with Liriano and Cole are the only three starters guaranteed to be in the Pirates rotation on August 2. I expect the Pirates to activate Taillon Tuesday for the start of the series against Milwaukee. This will then situate Liriano between Taillon and Cole in the rotation, which is the desired alignment, the lefty between two hard-throwing righties. With Taillon active another pitcher has to go and Chad Kuhl is the obvious answer. Reports suggest the Pirates are actively trying to move both Jeff Locke and Jon Niese, but I don't expect other teams to bite this early for such marginal guys, so Kuhl's gone. Taillon-Liriano-Cole start versus the Brewers.

Now let's look at the position players. Next week is going to be the week of the catcher, with there likely to be a complete shuffling of the depth chart at the top of the organization. Francisco Cervelli started a rehab stint at Triple-A Indianapolis Thursday night going 2-for-4 with a walk and catching seven innings. I would imagine Cervelli will get today off and then catch seven-nine innings on Saturday and then see if he can come back and catch again Sunday. If things go smoothly, expect Cervelli to be activated on or around Tuesday for the Brewers series.

That leads to the easiest of the various roster moves, DFA'ing Erik Kratz. Kratz has had a few good moments during his second stint with the Bucs, but his -27 OPS+ in 50 plate appearances (and at bats, since he has no walks) means he's gone, which also opens up a spot on the 40-man roster. With the open spot, the Pirates can activate Elias Diaz, rehabbing with Class-A Bradenton, from the 60-day DL and send him to Indianapolis.

Catcher Chris Stewart will also be eligible to come of the DL by the time the Brewers come to town. Stewart's season goes one of two ways: his knee is good enough that he can play through the pain the rest of the season or he has season-ending knee surgery. Let's assume Stewart is good-to-go. That leads to a tough decision. My best guess is the Pirates will send Stewart to Indy for his own rehab stint when Cervelli is activated. If Cervelli proves he is healthy and can be the everyday catcher, then the Pirates activate Stewart sometime between now and the trade deadline. This will lead to the swapping out of the other catcher recently acquired, Eric Fryer. While I'm sure the Pirates would love to somehow keep Fryer in the organization until the rosters expand on September 1, I don't think they will be able to do it. And with Diaz now back, Fryer becomes expendable. I also don't think the Bucs will entertain the idea of carrying three catchers when Stewart comes back. So Fryer is the next to go, creating another 40-man roster spot, and the Pirates have their top three catcher back and active for the first time since early April.

Back to the pitchers. Now the most difficult decision. Tyler Glasnow is scheduled to start in Indianapolis on Monday. I expect him to make that start. At the major league level the Pirates need a starter not named Taillon, Liriano or Cole for the first two games against the Phillies next Friday and Saturday. If he's on the roster I think Jeff Locke gets the ball Friday night. Saturday is the big decision. If no trades or other roster moves have been made to that point the Pirates will have the option of starting Jon Niese or recalling Tyler Glasnow and making a corresponding roster move. The complicating factor here is the Pirates will only play six games in the following nine days, with days off Monday, Thursday and the following Monday. After the Saturday start they could comfortably operate with a 4-man rotation until Saturday, August 6th against the Reds, but they may prefer to give the starters as much rest as possible.

So that becomes the big question. Do the Pirates bring up Tyler Glasnow, essentially for good, a week before the deadline and make a corresponding roster move, (DFA'ing Jon Niese would appear to be the most obvious although they could option Jared Hughes to the minors and put Niese in the pen), or do they give Jon Niese the ball one more time and hope for the best? I'd prefer Glasnow, but I'm guessing it will be Niese as Huntington tries to manage his assets as aggressively as possible until the deadline without having to give anything away.

If the Pirates were to DFA Niese and he did clear waivers they could outright him to Indianapolis and look to recall him September 1 when rosters expand, or earlier if needed. As a six-year veteran Niese would have the right to refuse the assignment and become a free agent and the Pirates would still be obligated for the remainder of his salary.

After that decision it would appear to be relatively smooth-sailing until the deadline. Ryan Vogelsong will be eligible to come off the 60-day DL on July 23. If Fryer is DFA'd there will be an open 40-man spot for him, but there wouldn't appear to be a spot on the 25-man unless someone goes down with an injury or a trade opens things up. Vogelsong pitched for Altoona on July 10. so the Pirates have 30 days from that date to activate him. I'd expect Neal to use almost all of that time to make a decision.

The last question is what to do with Josh Bell. If he is sent down on Saturday, he'll be eligible to come back up July 27th. I'll leave that one to you.

A recap of the Pirates first half

For the six months immediately following the 2015 season I talked continually about how assembling a team for 2016 would be the biggest challenge Neal Huntington faced to-date as the Pirates general manager. Coming off three straight wild card berths the Pirates were a team in transition. I'm sure to his regret, Huntington used the term "bridge year" in the offseason to describe the upcoming '16 season. While Huntington made it clear that "bridge" did not mean taking a step back, he had to deal with the continuing reality of a draconian, self-imposed budget by owner Bob Nutting and an organizational depth chart loaded with young talent, but talent not ready to immediately contribute. If things were to play out as Huntington envisioned, he'd have to continue his Rumpelstiltskin-esque run to get the Bucs to the All-Star break as a contender.

The Pirates entered the offseason with a roster that was mostly set with its starting eight, needed to add depth to the bench and bullpen and, most importantly, had serious questions about its starting rotation. The complicating matter was that the Pirates had two minor league starting pitchers viewed as two of the brightest prospects in the game in Jameson Taillon and Tyler Glasnow. In addition, prospects Josh Bell, Elias Diaz and Alen Hanson were all expected to be ready at some point in 2016. The problem was, and it was clear in December, none of those prospects would be ready to head north with the Pirates out of spring training. They all needed at least a couple more months of development in AAA and, of course, the Pirates were going to manage the service-time of Taillon, Glasnow and Bell. That made an early June call-up the earliest any of those three would contribute.

The young starters created the biggest challenge for Huntington. It was easy back in March to look forward to the '17 season and ink Gerrit Cole, Francisco Liriano, Taillon and Glasnow into the rotation. The problem was getting from here to there. How was Huntington going to cobble together a back-end rotation for 2016 and make sure not to block his star prospects and the other talented starters moving up through the system?

One obvious answer was to re-sign J.A. Happ. The 32-year old Happ was acquired from the Seattle Mariners at the 2015 trade deadline. After a rough first start with the Bucs, Happ was Kershaw-lite the rest of the way going 7-1 with a 1.37 ERA and 63 strikeouts against 11 walks in 59 innings with a .525 OPS-against. No one expected a repeat performance, but the rejuvenated Happ pitching in PNC Park seemed to be a perfect fit for the starter-starved Bucs. Happ instead signed a 3 year/$36 million deal with Toronto and is having an excellent season.

After Happ signed Huntington talked about the price for mid-rotation starting pitchers "blowing up." He was likely being a good employee. I'd be shocked if Huntington was taken aback by MLB's contract escalation. More likely Huntington didn't have the financial resources to shop at the mall, let alone the high-end boutiques. He was forced to go to again to the thrift stores. But even mid-level talent, understandably, wasn't going to sign with the Pirates on the one or two-year deals the Bucs were seeking in order to not block their young pitchers, so they likely never had a chance with Happ.

The Pirates ended the offseason with a smorgasbord of Jon Niese, Ryan Vogelsong, Juan Nicasio, Kyle Lobestein and Wilfredo Boscan to go with their established starters. After trading Charlie Morton and his $8 million salary in a straight salary dump the opening day starters were penciled in as Cole, Liriano, Niese, Nicasio and Jeff Locke. The results have been even worse than expected. The Bucs starters finished the first half 14th out of 15 in NL fWAR, 14th in HR/9, 13th in BB/9 and 12th in ERA, IP and K/9. Cole has been injured and Liriano has massively underperformed. Niese was acquired in a trade for Neil Walker in a virtual match of salaries. The logic behind the deal for the Bucs was they had a surplus of middle infielders and could replace Walker with Josh Harrison and hope that Niese would be the latest Liriano-to-Volquez-to-Happ baton-carrier in the rotation. Hasn't happened. Niese has been terrible with a 7.92 ERA and eight of his 20 home runs allowed in his last six starts. The Pirates are floating his name in the trade market, but he's more likely to be DFA'd then bring any return at this point. Of the rest, Vogelsong has been injured, Nicasio was miscast as a starter, but now should supplement the bullpen, and Lobstein is in AAA where he belongs. The Pirates have turned to their rookies over the last month, but the results have been lackluster so far:

#Pirates rookie starters haven’t really given team a big boost (neither have the vets). 10 starts, 50.2IP 4.62 ERA 1.362 WHIP 6.9K/9 2.5BB/9

— David Todd (@DTonPirates) July 11, 2016

Since Gerrit Cole went down on June 10 the Pirates have played 29 games. Their starters have gotten past the sixth inning only three times while failing to get to through five an astounding 12 times.

But as bad as the starters have been, the bullpen has stabilized and is coming off a dominant three week stretch. Aside from All-Star closer Mark Melancon everyone in the Pirates bullpen has had their ups-and-downs. After separating the wheat from the chaff (relievers who appeared for the Pirates this season and are not currently on the 25-man roster pitched 80.2 innings and gave up 52 runs), the roles appear set and the pen was the team's catalyst behind their strong first half close. Starting with an 8-6 win over the Dodgers on June 24 the bullpen went 35.2 scoreless innings and only gave up one run in 46.0 innings through a 7-5 July 6 win over the Cardinals. The Pirates went 10-2 and during that stretch the Pirates starters only got past the sixth inning one time. A.J. Schugel, Arquimedes Caminero and Juan Nicasio have stabilized the middle relief and the closing trio of Neftali Feliz-Tony Watson-Mark Melancon have locked down late Pirate leads.

The Bucs offense has intermittently been very good despite a tremendously disappointing first half from Andrew McCutchen. Young stars Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco, a solid second season from Jung Ho Kang and the best bench in baseball have fueled the run production. Marte earned his first All-Star berth this week and is putting up career-highs in all three triple slash lines and is second in the majors with 30 stolen bases. Polanco, a deserving All-Star, is having a massive breakout season. The contract he signed in April sets him up for life but may prove to be the biggest feather in Huntington's cap, exceeding the massively team-friendly deals signed by Andrew McCutchen and Marte. Kang has mostly continued to impress, although he slumped into the break and has serious allegations hanging over his head.

The most surprising offensive contributions have come from the bench. While Huntington's offseason foray into the starting pitching market was a disaster, his position-player signings were just the opposite. Holdover Sean Rodriguez, re-signed to a 1-year/$2.5M deal, has picked up where he left off the last two months of last season with a completely different approach at the plate. After earning five walks in 240 PAs last season, SRod already has 18 in 188 PAs this year. The 31-year old super-sub is blowing away his career numbers and is second on the team in OPS at .870 and playing excellent defense at five different positions. Matt Joyce, signed to a minor league deal in February and making $1M this season, leads the team in OBP and SLG slashing .295/.420/.558 and is tied for the NL lead (min 150 PA) in wRC+ with Anthony Rizzo. David Freese, signed midway through spring training to a 1-year/$3M deal, is replicating his 2012 All-Star season,

David Freese’s all-star 2012 yr:
501 AB, .293/.372/.467 .839 OPS 20 HRs, 79 RBI

Freese 2016:
254 AB, .291/.373/.472 .845 OPS 10 HRs, 38 RBI

— David Todd (@DTonPirates) July 12, 2016

At this point it probably isn't fair to call any of the of three bench guys as they are all deservedly (and often necessarily) starting 2-3 games/week. In fact, it might be time to ask whether Rodriguez should supplant Josh Harrison, who is proving to be more the 2011-2013 Harrison than the 2014 JHay All-Star, as the starting second baseman. Like Harrison, Francisco Cervelli was also having a very disappointing season offensively before going down with a broken hamate bone. Cervelli's OBP is actually slightly better than last's year .370, but he has been devoid of any power, slugging a hollow .293 with no homers in 201 PAs. Cervelli's various replacements have been adequate defensively but brought even less to the offense, although recent acquisition Eric Fryer has been a bright spot in limited duty. Shortstop Jordy Mercer and newly-signed first baseman John Jaso have provided league average offense at their positions while being sound defensively.

That leaves Andrew McCutchen.

Cutch has been, arguably, the most disappointing player in baseball this season. The fact that there are still questions as to why his performance has tailed off so dramatically reinforces the view that nobody actually has a good answer. Disappointment with his contract, his spot in the batting order, a lingering thumb injury that effected his swing plane are three of the many ideas that have been suggested with the last being the only one that would seem to have merit. Players of McCutchen's pedigree and skill-set rarely fall off the performance-precipice the way he has. After four straight seasons finishing in the top five of the NL MVP voting, Cutch wouldn't be in the top five on his own team to this point. The Pirates can only hope he has a Robinson Cano-like turnaround in the second half.

While it wasn't ideal, the Pirates managed to get to the ASB with a 46-43 record and currently sit just 1.5 behind in the wild card race. This, without significant contributions from Cole, Liriano, McCutchen and Cervelli four of their six or seven best players entering the season. Now the outlook for this team is completely different. Jameson Taillon is up to stay. Josh Bell and Tyler Glasnow figure to have significant impacts. Gerrit Cole and Francisco Cervelli, along with Taillon, will return from the disabled list shortly after the ASB and the Pirates will play 39 of their remaining 73 games against the Brewers (15), Reds (11), Phillies (7), Braves (3) and Padres (3) who have an aggregate winning percentage of .408. I think 89 wins will get them to the playoffs. That means 43 more wins, .589 baseball. It all starts Friday.

I'll be back at the end of the week with a look at the important personnel decisions and roster management issues confronting Neal Huntington with just over two weeks to go until the trade deadline.

*Photo courtesy of Getty Images. Josh Bell celebrating his first career home run, a grand slam in a win over the Chicago Cubs, July 9th. Certainly the highlight moment of the Pirates first half.

Free Passes: Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco

There is an old Dominican baseball adage that says "You can't walk off the island." Dominican baseball players are known as free swingers who rarely walk. The Pirates Starling Marte is the personification of the adage.

Last night in Oakland Starling Marte walked twice, once intentionally. It was the first time Marte has walked twice in one game since August 9th of last year against the Los Angeles Dodgers. Marte was also hit by a pitch in the game against LA. The Pirates other corner outfielder Gregory Polanco, like Marte, is also from the DR. In fact, both were born in Santo Domingo, Distrito Nacional, Marte three years the senior. Polanco also walked twice in that August 9th game against LA. But, unlike Marte, Polanco wasn't hit by a pitch. Apparently nobody was telling Polanco old Dominican adages while he was growing up.

Let's take a look at what's happened since then:

	PA	AB	UIBB	IBB	HBP
Starling Marte	509	473	13	4	16
Gregory Polanco	542	486	43	6	0

The career numbers are even more striking:

	PA	AB	UIBB	IBB	HBP
Starling Marte	2231	2035	96	8	73
Gregory Polanco	1284	1147	110	12	1

In about a thousand fewer plate appearances Polanco has now passed Marte in walks. But, in terms of free passes, Marte still has the lead because he's a human cowhide magnet. This ratio will never not amuse me:

BB:HBP Marte 1.3:1. Polanco 110:1.

Both are having outstanding seasons. Polanco leads the Pirates (min 200 PA) with an OPS of .872. Marte is second at .860. Marte has the slightly better OBP, .374/.370, while Polanco has the slightly higher SLG, .502/.486. Both are striking out at just over a 20% clip. But at 24, it's Polanco's plate discipline and increased walk rate that has contributed to his breakout 2016 season. His walk rate has increased from 8.8% to 11.5%.

In contrast Marte is swinging more than ever, sporting a career low walk rate of 3.6%. While Marte has shown that he has developed an HBP "skill," averaging 20/yr over the last three seasons and right on that pace with 10 at the midpoint of this season, one can only imagine the player he could be if he, at the mature age of 27, was as disciplined as his fellow Dominican.

With Andrew McCutchen struggling it's these two who have been focal point of the Pirates offense. It doesn't feel like either has reached his ceiling. It will be entertaining to watch how they progress in the second half.

*Image Courtesy of Charles LeClaire, USA Today

The Pirates Flip the Calendar. What it Will Take in the Second Half

June was not pretty for the Pirates. An 8-1 win in Seattle Wednesday closed out the Pirates worst month since the start of the 2013 season. The Bucs finished 9-19,  for a .321 winning percentage. It was only the team's second losing month since the start of 2013 and their worst month since the dramatic collapses of 2011 when they went 8-22, .267 in August and 2012 when they went 7-21, .250 in September.

Vegas certainly hasn't liked what they've seen from the Pirates of late. Bovada had the Pirates as 20:1 shots to win the World Series on May 3. By June 1 those odds had risen to 28:1. The disaster that was June has reset the number at 66:1. (Hey wasn't that Mario's number?) But all is not lost. Coming into today's action the Pirates still only find themselves 3.5 games out of a wild card spot with 83 games to play.

Looking back at history, only three World Series Champions in the last 16 years have gone the entire season without a losing month, so stretches of subpar play are not uncommon. However only three of those teams endured months below .400, the 2015 Royals (11-17, .393 in September), the 2014 Giants (10-16, .385 in June), and the 2006 Cardinals (9-16, .360 in June) and obviously none did as poorly as the Pirates did in June.

The Pirates have a big 10-game stretch starting tonight heading into the All-Star break. They open with three in Oakland against the A's, go to St. Louis for four with the Cards and close with three at home against the Cubs. Any result .500 or above would be a good start heading into the four-day break.

After the break the schedule turns a bit more favorable for the Bucs. My on-going mantra on the show is "Beat the bad teams, play .500 against the good teams and it will all work out." Of their remaining 73 games the Pirates will play 16 vs Milwaukee (.449), 11 vs Cincinnati (.363), 7 vs Philadelphia (.438), 3 vs Atlanta (.342) and 3 vs San Diego (.418). That's 40 games against teams with an average winning percentage of .412. If the Bucs are able to win two-thirds of those games that would be 26 wins. If they win half, 17 of the remaining 33, that would be 43 wins after the break. If they win six of their remaining ten before the break, that's 49 wins which would leave them with a record of 87-75.

My guess is that might leave them a game or two short of the wild card. I think 89 wins will get them into the wild card game for the fourth consecutive year. The rest of the season starts tonight. Enjoy the ride.

UPDATED POSTGAME--A Scouting Report on Jameson Taillon Going into his 5th Career Start

Jameson Taillon had a strong outing and notched his second major league victory in the Pirates 8-1 win over the Mariners Wednesday night. After admittedly having trouble commanding his curveball last time out, Taillon's curve was excellent this time around. Taillon struggled a bit in the first, but then settled in, retiring ten in a row before giving up a leadoff double to start the fifth. He used all four pitches effectively and finished with a line of 6IP, 6H, 1R, 0BB, 6K, 95-68.

Adding last night's outing to the chart provided below, here are his first five career starts (innings pitched/pitches/swings-and-misses/strikeouts):

6/8      6.0-91-5-3
6/14    8.0-91-6-5
6/19    4.0-85-5-5
6/24    4.0-70-4-2 (pitched to 3 batters in the 5th)
6/29    6.0-95-8-6

Last night he posted career-highs in pitches, swings-and-misses and strikeouts. Taillon was efficient through five throwing between 11 and 16 pitches in each inning, but a 28-pitch sixth, highlighted by a fantastic 13-pitch at bat by Seth Smith, meant the end of the night.

Taillon did get four of his eight swinging strikes in the sixth and showcased his best two-seam fastball, back-to-back, to K Nelson Cruz. After falling behind 3-1, Taillon got a swinging strike on a perfectly located 95-mph sinker that moved down and in, and then came right back with another 95-mph two seamer on the outside corner that Cruz waved at for strike three.

Here is how Taillon finished off his six punchouts on the night:

2nd: Seager, 80-mph curve, swinging 

3rd: Martin, 88-mph change, looking

4th: Smith, 81-mph curve, looking

4th: Cano, 80-mph curve, swinging

6th: Martin 78-mph curve, swinging

6th: Cruz, Down 3-1 two great 95 mph 2-seamers, both swinging

Here's some highlights of Taillon's night courtesy of MLB.com


If the video fails to load, here is a link.

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Jameson Taillon is about to make his fifth career start tonight against Wade Miley and the Seattle Mariners. Taillon was solid his debut and excellent in his second start both against the offensively-challenged New York Mets. That was followed by the Cubs welcoming the big righthander to Wrigley in his national television debut with three home runs in four innings and his first career loss. Last Friday the Pirates stalked Taillon to a four-run second inning lead, but he was unable to record an out in the fifth and left the game with his second consecutive 4IP, 8H, 4R stat line.

In watching Taillon's first starts I've been paying attention to his efficiency and his swings-and-misses. Taillon is known for his excellent command and he's carried that to the majors. After walking two of the first 13 batters he faced in his career, he's only walked three of the next 78, 3.8% vs a MLB average of 7.8%.

What he hasn't generated is a lot of swings-and-misses or strikeouts. Here are the numbers in his first 4 starts (innings pitched/pitches/swings-and-misses/strikeouts):

6/8      6.0-91-5-3
6/14    8.0-91-6-5
6/19    4.0-85-5-5
6/24    4.0-70-4-2 (pitched to 3 batters in the 5th)

In his second start, Taillon showed really good sinking arm-side run on his two-seamer and excellent command of his curveball. In going eight innings he never threw more than 15 pitches in an inning. It didn't carry over to his start in Wrigley. He threw 33 pitches in the first, 18 in the second and 23 in the third. After not reaching 100 pitches in any of his minor league starts this year, he was not brought out for the fifth even after an efficient 1-2-3, 2 strikeout, 11-pitch fourth.

His last effort was Taillon's worst. His fastball was flat and often up in the zone and he didn't command his curveball. The Dodgers had no trouble barreling him up, particularly early in counts, as four of their eight hits were on the first pitch and two more came on 1-0 counts.

I went back and took a quick look at Gerrit Cole's first four starts in 2013 for a comparison (innings/pitches/swing-and-misses/strikeouts):

6/11    6.1-81-8-2
6/16    5.2-80-4-1
6/21    6.1-88-10-5
6/28    6.0-94-6-3

Not all that dissimilar. The Pirates could really use a win tonight. We'll see what Jameson Taillon brings to the table.

Starling Marte, Defense and the Limitations of WAR

As we get ready for the opening of the 2016 baseball season, I thought I'd share some thoughts on advance metrics and what the sabermetric community knows and what it is still trying to figure out through the lens of Starling Marte’s statistics. This isn’t exactly breaking new ground, but I still think Marte’s numbers specifically are worth looking at.

For years the Holy Grail of sabermetrics has been to find a singular number that could neatly summarize a player’s season and provide context for that season versus other seasons from the same player, different players and different eras. The number is designed to take into account every aspect of a player's performance--offense, defense/fielding and base running. The term commonly used for this is WAR or Wins Above Replacement.

As this excellent primer on WAR states, 

Talking effectively about WAR requires considerable time and effort, given how much work goes into computing this number, how many factors / metrics it takes into account, and the fact that there are several permutations of it available to the public. 

Please keep that in mind as we gloss over many of the details. Currently there are three main forms of WAR, all of which calculate the metric differently. The thing is, when we talk about the value of position players, we probably know 95% of what we will ever be able to ascertain from a batter’s contribution in the batter’s box. There are various offensive numbers such as Weighted Runs Created (wRC), On-base Plus Slugging Plus (OPS+) and True Average (TAv) which all do a good job of telling us a player’s offensive contribution in a single statistic by analyzing the counting and rate stats and using a formula to distill them down to a single number.

The problem is when it comes to defense (and a lesser degree base running), it’s hard to tell exactly what we know and how accurate the data is. We can see this clearly when taking a look at Marte’s numbers during his three full season in the majors. The table below compares fWAR, the version supplied by Fangraphs, bWAR, the version found on Baseball-Reference and WARP, the version provided by Baseball Prospectus.

Starling Marte	fWAR	bWAR	WARP
2013	4.8	5.4	2.7
2014	4.4	5.1	3.3
2015	3.6	5.4	2.5

Almost the entire difference in these three numbers each year comes from the different defensive components used by the three methods. bWAR, which clearly views Marte most-favorably in all three seasons, shows Marte leading all left fielders by a large margin in defensive runs saved in 2015, leading a to strong positive defensive contribution to his overall bWAR figure. fWAR looks at Marte’s 2015 defensive season favorably, but has a handful of players ranked ahead of him. WARP calculates Marte as having a negative Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA) in 2015 (and in his other two seasons as well.). The reason for these discrepancies is they each use different methods to come up with their defensive valuations. They are all evaluating the same player, looking at the same plays, but coming up with surprisingly disparate results.

There are complex calculations that go into these numbers and this is probably an oversimplification even as clear as the differences are, but it illustrates how the different methods of evaluating defense can come up with dramatically different views on a player. And although it doesn't impact the analysis of Marte, there is a valid argument that the massive increase in the use of defensive shifting has actually made defensive metrics less reliable over the last five years. Hopefully the new data being recorded by Statcast and Trackman, which tracks exact player positioning and movement, will allow us to better analyze a player’s defensive capabilities going forward.

And there there is the question of the “eye test” and whether that is a reliable way to evaluate a player. The anecdote of watching a player play an entire season and knowing that if a .270 hitter gets one more hit every to weeks he becomes a .300 hitter is instructive. Could you tell the difference? Of course the answer for virtually all of us, unless you are recording the information, is no.

Having said that I believe evaluating a player’s defensive skill set is a bit different. I think that if you watch a player play 150 games in a season you will have a very good understanding of his defensive strengths and weakness. But translating that understanding into useful data and comparing it to players playing different positions is a whole different problem. Having watched Starling Marte throughout his career I can give you the scouting report: He has great range in left field. He tracks balls well but doesn’t catch everything he gets to. He occasionally misses the routine play (St. Louis Sept 2014 anyone?), but he has good instincts and a very strong accurate arm. #DontRunOnMarte. But can I give you a solid comparison between Marte and Alex Gordon or Christian Yelich? No. I do see Marte 150 times a year, but I only see the others maybe 10-15 times. That might be enough to provide a basic scouting report, but it isn’t enough of a sample size to have a deep understanding of the others’ strengths and weaknesses and thus I can’t come up with a valid quantitative comparison between the players. 

Back to WAR. In today’s world 1 WAR is valued at between $7-9 million. How do we put any kind of accurate value on Starling Marte’s worth when one method calculates his 2015 season at 2.5 WAR, one has him at 3.6 and the third has him at 5.4? Using $8M/WAR the range of value is $20-$43 million. Not very precise.

So remember as we go through the season analyzing players and situations, the data and on-going study of that data has revealed so much that has changed how we think about the game. Just looking at the numbers may tell us virtually everything about a player’s offensive performance. But we’ve got a ways to go to figure out the rest. And be careful when someone brings up WAR. It's a useful tool, but it's still pretty blunt.

Clint Hurdle, Sabermetrician

Back in December, on the day the Pirates announced the signing of John Jaso, I tweeted out a Pirates batting order that I thought would be optimal vs. right handed pitchers.

My #Pirates (needs more thought) lineup vs RHP
1) Jaso
2) Cutch
3) Marte
4) Kang
5) Polanco
6) Cervelli
7) Harrison
8) Mercer
I like it.

— David Todd (@DTonPirates) December 23, 2015

Now I figured this was something even the analytically-driven Pirates would never adopt. Jaso is not the prototypical speedy leadoff hitter, but his .361 career OBP and his excellent baserunning skills make him an ideal candidate to hit at the top of the order. It is also the lineup spot he has been penciled into most frequently when playing for analytically-astute teams like the Rays and the A's. But the Pirates had Josh Harrison and Gregory Polanco both hit at the top of the order last year and both were back this year. Habit is a strong force to overcome. Plugging McCutchen in the 2-hole was something that seemed even less likely than batting Jaso leadoff. McCutchen hadn't hit anywhere but third or fourth since 2011, but all of a sudden Cutch batting second has been the feature story out of Bradenton with Opening Day less than two weeks away.

It's been argued for years now that teams should bat their best hitter in the 2-hole, but very few teams have actually done it. The Reds did it last year with Joey Votto. We've seen the Angels do it with Mike Trout. Clint summed up why he had never done it when he presented the idea to McCutchen, "I told Andrew the challenge for me is for 47 years, the baddest dude hits third. If got to rearrange my thinking on it and what's best for our team. How do we maximize our run production?" Now it looks like the Pirates will follow the Reds lead. We can debate the impact of lineup optimization and whether it's worth all the time we spend discussing it, but for a team like the Pirates that has appeared in three straight wild card games, The Clint Hurdle Invitational as Joe Sheehan likes to call it, every extra run can make a difference.

All of which reminded me of a story, one of the very first times I interacted with Hurdle.

Coming off a 105-loss season the Pirates introduced Clint as their new manager in November 2010. Clint was not a favorite of the sabermetric community and his hiring certainly raised some eyebrows and "same old Pirates" reactions. Of course none of this bothered Hurdle. Before the season he was very visible promoting the organization and talking frequently about "rebranding a city with its baseball team," laying out his plan to once again make the Pirates a respected, winning franchise. "I'm proud to be a Pirate," he had boomed at his introductory presser, a phrase not often uttered during the team's 18-consecutive losing seasons.

That season, my second back in Pittsburgh, I was hired to be the Pirates pre- and post-game host, so I had some interaction with Clint early on. Listening to him talk about baseball in those first weeks, he would often answer a question about why he pursued this or that particular in-game strategy ending it with something like, "there is no Book. If there was a Book, we would all just go to the appropriate page and have all the answers." Clint said this frequently enough that I realized he didn't know there actually was "a Book," and ironically, it was called The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball, written by three well-respected baseball statisticians in 2007. It covered topics such as batter-pitcher matchups, platooning, sacrifice bunts, intentional walks, lineup optimization and a plethora of other situations and strategies that are regularly encountered in the game. The authors approached all these topics by analyzing reams of historical data and then presenting the optimal decisions for each situation based on that analysis. The underlying premise being that by optimizing process and decision making a manager/team will give itself a better chance of "winning" each decision and therefore winning more games.

One Sunday morning in May of that first season I brought my copy of The Book to the media's pregame meeting with Clint in his office. After the briefing, when everyone had cleared out, I approached Clint who was sitting behind his desk. For those who don't know him, here is what Pirates GM Neal Huntington said when he introduced Clint as manager, "He does have a great personality, he's got a big presence and he's very charismatic, which allows him to be a tremendous leader." If anything Neal undersold that aspect of him.

That Sunday morning Clint probably knew my name, but not much more. I walked over and re-introduced myself. He stood up and extended his hand. Clint is a big man. If his goal was ever to intimidate, just standing up would be a good start. So there I was about to hand a book about baseball to a man who had spent his entire life in the sport. More than that, I had printed out a couple of pages from The Book which discussed run expectancy and why sacrifice bunts were generally a bad idea and, by inference, why Clint using the sac bunt so much was a bad idea. I mean I'd been involved in the game as a broadcaster for a couple weeks now. Why shouldn't I tell the manager what I thought?

Clint had every right to tell me exactly where to stick my book and kick me out of his office. He did the opposite. He couldn't have been more gracious. He admitted he was unaware The Book existed. (How many would do even that?) And after I briefly described its contents he engaged me for five minutes, even discussing the run expectancy printouts and the theory behind it. Having overstayed my time, with him having a game to prepare for, I turned to walk out. Clint thanked me and said he looked forward to reading and discussing The Book.

Fast-forward to spring training 2016. Under the stewardship of Neal and Clint the Pirates are one of baseball's model-franchises. They are viewed as being on the cutting-edge of data analysis and are at the forefront of implementing change in the game, which is wonderfully-profiled by Travis Sawchick in his fantastic book Big Data Baseball. Each season the Pirates have tried to find advantages from pitching inside, to defensive shifting to player health management where they can find an edge on the competition.

This spring the Pirates have experimented with a more aggressive running game. Is that something that can be exploited now that the running game has been de-emphasized in today's lower run environment? The data have shown they need to have their outfielders playing shallower because fly balls from their primarily ground ball pitching staff have a shallower launch angle and too many balls were falling in for hits. And now they are looking to optimize their batting order.

The guy in charge of implementing these and all the other changes is a very different manager than the one the Pirates hired back in 2010. One that has committed himself to learning and adapting to changes in the game and then communicating that information to his coaches and players to get an organizational buy-in. The results have been staggering to many who think small-market teams can no longer compete. The Pirates have won 94, 88 and 98 games the past three seasons, one of only three teams to make the playoffs all three years. The guy in charge is still Clint Hurdle. But now it's Clint Hurdle, sabermetrician.