The Pirates One Month In

I had decided early on that I was not going to make any extensive commentary on the 2014 Pirates until a reasonable number of games had been played and a reasonable number of At Bats and Innings Pitched had been accumulated.  You know, don't want to be suckered in one way or another by the dreaded "small sample sizes".  Well, it has now been four weeks since Opening Day, twenty-six games have been played, the starting pitchers have 4-5 starts under their belts, and the everyday players are hovering around 100 AB's, so it's time to take stock.

Before I do, though, let's think back on that Opening Day game.  It was a beautiful day, excitement was in the air, and the Pirates won.  It was a ten inning 1-0 win with a walk-off home run by Neil Walker.  Euphoric!  What was not much commented upon was the fact that the Pirates that day were unable to scratch out any kind of offense, much less any runs, for the first nine innings.  We didn't know it then, but that was a portent of things to come.

As of this morning, the team is 10-16, in fourth place in the NL Central and 8.5 games out of first place.  Offensively, the Bucs rank 28th among MLB teams in batting, 26th in OPS, and 21st in runs scored.  Interestingly enough, they are 8th on home runs.  

As for individual players, MVP Andrew McCutchen is doing his part after a slow start with 4 HR, 14 RBI and a .908 OPS.  He has also drawn 21 walks.  Neil Walker has 6 HR and 12 RBI, but is only batting .235.  After that, there isn't much good news.

• Pedro Alvarez does have 6 HR and 14 RBI, but is currently mired in one of his monumental fallow periods and is batting .172 with an OPS of .667, and has struck out 25 times.  I like the guy, and I love his power, but it is getting harder and harder to defend him when he can't hit over .200, much less .250 or so.
• And speaking of strike outs, Starling Marte leads the team with 37 of them and has only 9 walks to go with them.  He is batting only .229 with an OBP barely over .300.  Not acceptable for a lead-off hitter.
• And the short stop position is a huge black hole.  After batting over .280 last year, Jordy Mercer was, justifiably, given the starting job at short where he is now batting only .167 (2 HR, 3 RBI) with a pathetic .404 OPS.  The alternative is Clint Barmes, and his numbers are even worse (albeit with only 26 at bats).

As for the pitching staff, three of the starters, Francisco Liriano, Charlie Morton, and Wandy Rodriguez sport a combined record of 0-8.  Gerrit Cole is 2-2 with a 3.18 ERA and has delivered pretty much as expected.  And perhaps it tells you all you need to know that a case can be made that in the first month, anyway, the team's best starter was the Whipping Boy of Spring Training, Edinson Volquez.  He is now 1-2 with a 3.21 ERA, and that ERA was below 2.00 until his outing against St. Louis yesterday, his only poor outing of the season.  The bullpen, with the exception of Jason Grilli and his three blown saves, has been more than adequate.  The staff ERA of 3.65 is twelfth in MLB, so you can't complain too much about the pitching, but you can't expect them to win when the offense is producing two runs or fewer in most games.

So what can we look forward to?  The Front Office showed that they will move to shore up holes when they traded for first baseman Ike Davis from the Mets, although, after hitting a grand slam in his second game as a Pirate, he has cooled off, and is now hitting only .206.  Will they continue to make such moves?  The biggest elephant in the room is, of course, outfielder Gregory Polanco, currently playing in Indianapolis and batting .400 with 4 HR, 24 RBI, and an other-worldly OPS of 1.104.  On a team that is producing nothing in the way of offense, do you think it might be worth a shot to bring him up NOW?

This gets into the whole Years-of-Control and Pirates-Pinching-Pennies issues that we have talked about endlessly over the years, and that I just don't want to rehash here.  I will however point out that two weeks ago, the awful Houston Astros, who, unlike the Pirates, have no hope for post-season play this year, brought up their hot-shot number one prospect, George Springer, to the big club.  It doesn't seem like that Astros are all that concerned about years-of-control issues with Springer if they feel he can help the team now.  I should note, though, that Springer, in only 47 AB's, is hitting .170 with no home runs and only 2 RBI, so maybe this would only serve to bolster the Pirates' case if they choose not to promote Polanco.

Interestingly enough, on Neal Huntington's weekly radio show yesterday, the subject of Gregory Polanco was not raised.  In fact, his name was not mentioned even once.  My guess is that the content of that show is controlled by Neal like Joe Stalin controlled what Pravda used to print back in the day.

Well, we can only hope that the bats start to come alive, and soon.  One month's worth of games are not a fluke, and Pirates fans can only hope that it is a trend that can be reversed.