During my seven years running this site, you’ve probably noticed a tendency to lean towards the optimistic side of things with the Pirates. I’d concede that I’m an optimist, but I generally hate black and white labels, and am not always optimistic about everything. That, too, has been seen on the site over the years.
But there definitely has been a tendency for more positivity and optimism than negativity. In terms of prospect coverage, that is to be expected. Prospects, in general, are all about optimism. You look at a prospect and look at his tools and dream about what he could become. It’s hard to not sound optimistic about prospects, and it’s not a bad thing as long as you aren’t shooting too high with the expectations, and understand that the majority of prospects won’t reach those optimistic upsides.
We definitely are realistic with the evaluations. Take Josh Bell as an example. I love his upside and potential, but have pointed out countless times the last two years how his swing from the right side is ugly and leads to concerns. We’ve also pointed out that while his defense at first base improved in 2015, he still has a long way to go, and wouldn’t be an upgrade over Pedro Alvarez defensively right now. That’s an example of being optimistic on a player’s upside, but being realistic about the current faults that very well could limit that upside.
Then there’s the MLB side, where I generally give the Pirates the benefit of the doubt on the moves they make. I’ve definitely questioned some of their moves, with the biggest one that comes to mind being the addition of Russell Martin back in 2013. But as time goes on, I’ve had fewer questions, and more of a “wait and see” attitude, while trying to see what they could possibly see in the move.
When you think about it, at this point in time, how can you not be optimistic about the Pirates?
A few years ago, when the Pirates still had their losing streak going, and when they were collapsing each year in the second half, I got it. I was optimistic about their future, mostly because I got a unique look at what was coming in the farm system, and was also emotionally detached from the losing streak and collapses due to the nature of this job. At the same time, I totally understood how people could have questioned the Pirates at that time, and how people could have wanted Neal Huntington fired after the 2012 season. I even wrote that Huntington should be on the verge of being fired if he couldn’t lead the team to the next level in 2013, which is something he did end up doing.
But this isn’t the 2012 off-season anymore, and today’s big story showed that. The Pirates were named Baseball America’s Organization of the Year, and if you haven’t read Travis Sawchik’s excellent write-up that explains why, then I suggest you go take a look. This is a team that found some of the best values last off-season in Francisco Cervelli and Jung-ho Kang, then did it again at the trade deadline with J.A. Happ. They benefitted from the decision to draft Gerrit Cole, which as I wrote last week, wasn’t clear-cut at the time.
It wasn’t just the 2015 season. The Pirates have won the third most games in baseball during the regular season over the last three years, despite having a much smaller budget than the Dodgers and Cardinals. Their value moves aren’t just limited to last off-season, but seem to come every season. There was Edinson Volquez in 2014, Francisco Liriano, Russell Martin, and Mark Melancon in 2013, and A.J. Burnett in 2012. Previous examples included Jason Grilli, Joel Hanrahan, and the Nate McLouth trade — and for all the complaining about Charlie Morton and Jeff Locke, the Pirates have received a combined 8.8 fWAR from those two since the move.
The one thing the Pirates haven’t done yet is win big in the playoffs. They’ve made the playoffs in each of the last three seasons, but have only advanced once, making it to Game 5 of the NLDS in 2013. There’s really not a formula for success in the playoffs. You could point to big deadline moves, or a specific off-season approach, or the makeup of a team, but you’re more likely to find cases where those approaches didn’t lead to playoff success. That’s largely because a playoff series is impacted by the randomness that can exist in such a small sample of games.
The Pirates have a challenge this off-season. They have a team that just won 98 games, with pretty much all of the team returning. It would be difficult to afford the returning players while also replacing the few departed players and finding upgrades for last year’s team. They need to perform a juggling act which includes the following approach:
**Trading talented players who may be making too much for the current payroll, and finding replacements for them without seeing much of a dropoff. This specifically involves Mark Melancon and Neil Walker. While on the subject of optimism, I’m not optimistic they can improve over Walker, but I could see them improving over Melancon, since it’s a very similar situation to Joel Hanrahan in 2013.
**Finding overall team upgrades on a team where it’s hard to upgrade individual positions. Neil Walker is the perfect example here. It would be hard for the Pirates to upgrade over him when you look at his individual value. But when you look at the 2015 team, you’d see that a big problem was their defense. Walker’s infield defense leads to that problem. While it may be difficult to upgrade over Walker, adding a different player could be a team upgrade if that player can improve the defense. That said, I still think this would be difficult. I see the upgrade chance at first base, where the Pirates could improve over Pedro Alvarez’s poor defense.
**Adding talented players who can help in 2016, while not hurting the future budget or blocking prospects. The Pirates have a lot of talented prospects coming up in 2016. They also have a young team that they can keep together for several more years, which will only get more expensive. So they need to find the right guys who can help in 2016, but who won’t be blocking any key prospects beyond 2016, and who won’t risk keeping the core of the team together in the future.
I don’t think anything is guaranteed in baseball, so to say that the Pirates absolutely will find success this off-season and will find a way to accomplish the above would be incorrect. That’s a level of optimism that’s extreme, almost to the point where it goes beyond the definition of the word. But optimism is warranted here, in the scope that the Pirates have shown the tendency to have success in a situation like the above.
Time after time, the Pirates have faced difficult decisions, and have made the smart move to improve the team. When Rome was burning in 2012-13, they made some huge moves by adding Martin, Liriano, and Melancon. That off-season is somewhat similar to this one, in that they needed a starting pitcher, a key position player upgrade, and needed to deal their closer with one year remaining while finding a suitable replacement. The only difference now is that they have a better pitching staff, and the spot they need to upgrade over (second base) has a better player currently on the roster. They were able to do it in 2013, and that leads to optimism that they can do it again in 2016.
Then there was the A.J. Burnett/Edinson Volquez situation in 2014. Burnett left for the Phillies, leaving the Pirates looking for a starter. They landed on Volquez, who actually performed the same or better than Burnett, depending on whether you’re looking at advanced metrics or the actual results. A year later, Burnett returned in a buy low move, and worked out. And then when Burnett was injured this summer, they found another buy low replacement in J.A. Happ. Now, they need to find another replacement for that number three spot in the rotation.
They had a difficult decision last off-season when Russell Martin left. They replaced him with Francisco Cervelli, who surprisingly had a slightly higher overall value than Martin, especially when you factor in the pitch framing stats. This is similar to the situation with Neil Walker this off-season, mostly because there is no obvious upgrade to Walker, unless there’s a second base version of Cervelli hiding out somewhere on an MLB roster.
Every move and every challenge the Pirates are facing this off-season are similar to moves and challenges they’ve faced in the past. And they’ve had success in those situations in the past. This doesn’t mean the Pirates will be successful this off-season. But it’s hard to look at the past success, look at the current off-season challenges, and not be optimistic.
One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to sports writing (or any media these days) is that “objectivity” is seen as being synonymous with negativity. You’re more likely to be called objective if you’re critical, even if that criticism isn’t warranted. You’re more likely to have your motivations questioned if you’re positive, with the belief that you’re incapable of thinking on your own and just believe what any company tells you. Again, that kind of extends to all areas of media, and not just sports.
In this case, with all of the facts and previous success stories that we have, I don’t see how you can be anything but optimistic about the Pirates. Any other view simply isn’t giving an objective look at how successful this team has been the last few years, and how well they’ve done with every player personnel challenge laid before them. I’m optimistic this off-season will be a continuation of that success.
**Pre-Order the 2016 Prospect Guide. The book will be finished in about two weeks, which is a sentence that is terrifying to type as I work to finish up all the player reports. You can pre-order your copy today, with discounts and free copies for current subscribers. Click the article to learn more, or go to the products page of the site to order.
**Pirates Named Baseball America’s Organization of the Year. It’s not a World Series, but it’s also not a bad thing.
**Minor Moves: Pirates Re-Sign Clario Perez. Looks like I’ll be adding him back to the Prospect Guide this week.
**Winter Leagues: Boscan Shuts Down a Pair of Pirates, Heredia Struggles Again. John Dreker recaps the latest winter league news from the weekend.
**Trevor Cahill Considering Pirates According to Buster Olney. From the weekend, Cahill is connected to the Pirates, and fits all of the traditional reclamation project requirements.
