The Pirates didn't get swept and it feels like a minor miracle
Thoughts on the season-opening series in St. Louis: Mitch Keller got the W but didn't look great, Jose Osuna made his fans happy and a man named Phillip (?) Evans (?) bats 5th for this team.
It’s very possible that the 2020 Pittsburgh Pirates season will be the least important set of games played in Major League Baseball history.
It’s obviously insane and irresponsible (at best) for MLB to be going ahead with this season, and it will be hard to feel like anything that transpires is necessary or legitimate in any way. (We’re already seeing that with the developments in Miami.) In a non-pandemic timeline, the 2020 Pirates were already shaping up to be one of baseball’s least interesting teams in recent years -- no upside, no intrigue, no star power, nothing resembling an attempt to compete. Now with sports returning as the virus continues to upend every aspect of American life, it’s not much of a stretch to say that there is nothing the world needs less right now than to see this Pittsburgh Pirates team take the field every day for the next two months.
So with that in mind, why not devote a newsletter to the subject? I’m powerless in the grip of this franchise that has provided me with basically nothing but misery for my entire life. But even with this hopeless team during this hopeless time I will watch every game they play, especially since I am still unable to spend my evenings doing things I somewhat enjoy, like paying $11 for a halfway decent glass of pinot noir at a wine bar as “Listzomania” is piped in on overhead play.
I guess it’s merciful that this Pirates squad will play 100 fewer games than they would have under normal circumstances. This was always going to be a clear rebuilding year (as opposed to the dreaded “bridge” year of 2016 that turned out to lead right back to the misery of the previous decades) and a chance for the new regime of Ben Cherington and Derek Shelton to figure out what they were working with, and not much more.
The team’s best player and post-McCutchen cornerstone was traded to Arizona in a mostly-defensible deal for a couple of prospects a long, long way from MLB. The team’s most dynamic player of the last few years remains in jail on charges of being a child sex predator. It is rarely enjoyable to be a Pirates fan, but this is a particularly bleak time.
The offseason free agent signings by Cherington seemed to be a series of attempts to one-up himself in terms of bringing on a more pathetic hitter, adding the likes of Guillermo Heredia, Jarrod Dyson and Luke Maile and their respective OPS+ of 79, 66 and 18 (18!) last season. Chris Archer, centerpiece of what has a good chance of going down as one of the worst trades in MLB history, is out with a serious arm injury and will never throw another pitch for the Pirates. (Which honestly isn’t even all that upsetting.)
Even the little things bring forth disappointment. Edgar Santana, a potential late-inning reliever before going down with Tommy John surgery… popped for PED. Ke’bryan Hayes, a great glove/maybe okay bat 3B prospect who could spare us the cardboard cutout of Colin Moran standing in the vicinity of the hot corner… comes down with COVID right before the season, delaying his arrival. Gregory Polanco, seemingly on year 14 of “trying to put it all together” and still recovering from injuries sustained after the worst-executed slide in recent memory…
…well of course he comes down with COVID, that was a forgone conclusion. (Polanco’s return seems somewhat imminent, and hopefully we’ll see Hayes before long.)
So what is there to look forward to this season? I’d say there are only a few things that really matter, those being:
Is Mitch Keller any good or not?
Is Bryan Reynolds a cornerstone piece or just a nice enough 280/340/460 corner outfielder?
Is there anybody else on this roster who could be an above-average player at his position?
How is Derek Shelton as a manager?
The fact that anything can happen in 60 games + half the league makes the playoffs + the whole global pandemic thing might even the playing field and bring everyone down the Pirates level.
The rough plan for this newsletter will be to send one out after each series, with whatever seems to be worth talking about, The Good and The Bad.
The Good
The uniforms are spectacular
The black script/gold outline from the first two nights were beautiful. The road grays on Sunday were possibly better. Since they wear the classic P hats with the grays, instead of the chunky P hats like they do with the black, might go with the gray kit overall. I will put these unis up against any in the league, and they gave me the title for this newsletter.
Jacob Stallings
The Bucs could do worse than Stallings as their regular behind the plate, and in fact have done a lot worse by putting Elias Diaz back there the past few seasons. Stallings has a good rapport with the pitching staff, he gunned down a runner with a perfect throw on opening night and his framing skills look legit.
His approach at the plate is… an approach, which you couldn’t really ever say regarding Diaz. The minor league system is barren when it comes to catching options so we might be seeing Stallings as the main guy back there for a while, and while he’ll never be an all-star, for a team with no real goals of competing for another couple of seasons he’s at least a minimally frustrating and surprisingly competent option. (Feel the excitement.)
Jose Osuna
Osuna is similar to Stallings in that you can find enough to like if you look for it, but at the same time it’s all very relative because if we’re discussing the positive aspects of Jacob Stallings and Jose Osuna, then wow is there a lack of impact talent on this team. Osuna has always had a weirdly favorable reputation with the depraved folks who spend their lives watching Pirates games, one that’s hard to figure out based on his extremely underwhelming career stats that come with a sizable 600 PA sample.
The reason it’s easy to like Osuna on this particular Pirates team is simple -- he swings really, really hard and can hit the ball out of the park. Outside of Josh Bell and I guess Polanco if his shoulder is attached to his arm on a given day, Osuna is the only guy on the team with plus power. He cranked one on Sunday, a 429-foot shot that turned out to be the game-winning hit.
With the DH, Osuna should play at least 5 or 6 games a week and could put up something like 260/325/470 if things break right. In this Pirates lineup, that’s a welcome sight.
The bullpen
J.T. Brubaker and Nick Burdi were absolutely filthy on Sunday. Brubaker’s stuff likely played up since he was coming out of the bullpen, but watching him after watching Mitch Keller on Sunday, you’d think their prospect reputations were reversed. Brubaker has never been young for his level and has never put up dominant numbers in the minors, where he was exclusively a starter. But the reports were mostly positive and he worked his way up one level per year before being injured for most of 2019. He got 8 swings-and-misses in 2 scoreless innings against the Cardinals; that’s quite a big-league debut.
In terms of finding a new closer who will be easy to root for and make us forget everything about the old one… it’s hard to do better than Nick Burdi. To fight back from two potentially career-ending injuries and return to the mound is impressive. That he did it in the 9th inning in St. Louis and completely carved up Paul Goldschmidt, Paul De Jong and Matt Carpenter… straight-up nasty. If he’s not already a Pittsburgh fan favorite, it will only take a few more outings for that to be the case.
The Bad
Starting Pitching
I like Joe Musgrove a lot and am sorry that he’ll forever be known as the centerpiece of the disastrous Gerrit Cole trade. His opening day start was about what we’ve come to expect from him. Pretty good stuff, pretty good execution, one insanely-athletic play that maybe 2-3 other pitchers in MLB could make, his mistakes were taken advantage of. He’s a durable, slightly-better than league average SP with a hint of untapped potential still. That’s what you want out of your No. 3 starter; unfortunately that makes him the Bucs unquestioned ace.
Trevor Williams has a good Twitter, if you grade on the curve of being a professional athlete. He had one outstanding stretch in 2018 that was never backed up by any peripherals, and has otherwise been a back-of-the-rotation innings-eater with limited upside because of his inability to put batters away. He didn’t look terrible on Saturday, but he didn’t look all that good either. He looked like… Trevor Williams.
The positives on Mitch Keller: he pitched 5 innings of 1-run ball in St. Louis and helped make sure the Bucs were not the only team in the majors to get swept opening weekend. (How crazy is that -- no sweeps in the entire league!) His shutdown inning after Pirates took a 3-1 lead was very clutch. He battled. So that’s all good. But nobody watching that game could be impressed by his stuff. His fastball sat at 91-92 and I don’t think ever touched even 94. His curveball … well, he threw it a lot, so perhaps it kept batters guessing.
He deserves some luck after posting an ERA a full 4 runs higher than his FIP last year, but if he comes out with the same arsenal he showed Sunday in future starts, it will get ugly quickly. Hopefully it’s just a matter of ramping back into game shape (Musgrove was down a few ticks with his fastball, too) and he can show his dominant stuff again soon. But while the result was positive, it was hard to feel good about Keller’s outing.
The Bullpen
Richard Rodriguez was a great find by Neal Huntington for the 2018 season. Last year he gave up 14 home runs in 65 innings. There was not a single person who was surprised when he gave up a dinger on opening night. If he’s pitching in any game that’s within 3 runs, it seems like a bad decision. (Don’t worry, he should still be able to see plenty of work under those conditions.)
Kyle Crick was also a great contributor to the 2018 Pirates. Last year in 49 innings he allowed 10 home runs and walked 35. His slider can still be a wipeout pitch, but he’s topping out at 91 with his fastball and has very limited command of anything. His fielding on the mound Saturday was a mess. He’s done. It’s one thing for Clint Hurdle to have had trust in these guys since they served him very well in the past. There’s no reason for Derek Shelton to feel that way. Burdi, Clay Holmes, Brubaker, Chris Stratton and (shudder) Michael Feliz are all clearly better options than these two right now.
Guillermo Heredia
Yikes. Sure it was only two games but it was hard to look worse than Heredia did on Friday and Saturday. Completely overmatched at the plate, swinging early in the count to help kill a rally in the 9th inning on Friday. Just a terrible approach. This should not be a surprise. He’s 29, with 1,100 plate appearances and an 81 OPS+. He cannot hit major league pitching and if he starts more than twice a week, even with Polanco sidelined, it will be a major bummer.
Quick Hits
Phillip Evans is 1) an actual person and not a video game simulated player, 2) is hitting 5th by the third game of the season, 3) dear god might actually be the best option there.
Josh Bell looks like a mess in the batter’s box, which means he’ll probably have 5 extra base hits in the next series.
Cole Tucker just looks weak at the plate. Playing him in RF doesn’t make sense to me, but if that’s a way to get ABs and evaluate him against major league pitching, so be it. I know he’s still young but it’s hard to see a productive hitter emerging.
The social distance argument was entertaining.
It was hard to get much of a read on Shelton over the first few games. His bullpen moves on Friday seemed questionable at the time (Holmes mid-inning; Rich-Rod down 1), but Brubaker-Feliz-Burdi for the final four on Sunday was flawless.
He ran out an Extremely Sunday lineup -- a Phillip Evans/Erik Gonzalez left side of the infield, I mean come on -- but I’m fine with his plan to get everyone involved early. The hit-and-run call with Osuna was ridiculous on Sunday was ridiculous, but if it was my third game as an MLB manager after waiting an extra 4 months to get started I’d probably also be like, “You know what? Hit and fuckin’ run man, let’s do it!” just because I can. Congrats to him on his first win. If he can add 25 more before September’s over, it’ll mean he’s done a hell of a job.
Email me at uniformsarenice@gmail.com with whatever.