This will be an attempt at an all-positive Pirates newsletter
The Bucs swept the Brewers so let's see if we can maintain the good vibes for one (1) full edition
It’s only fair to make this an all-positive newsletter after the Pirates objectively impressive sweep of the Brewers this weekend. Friday they used excellent pitching and timely hitting to get the W; on Saturday it was an out-of-nowhere barrage of extra base hits; and Sunday it was some late-inning heroics by the maybe-resurrected Gregory Polanco to complete the sweep.
Do the Pirates still have the worst record in the majors? Yes. Did their main trade chip suffer a very foreboding forearm injury a week before the trade deadline? Yes. Did their best hitter this season leave Sunday’s game with a possible concussion, followed shortly by their starting shortstop leaving with what looked like an annoying side injury? Yes and yes. Wait, I said we’d keep it positive here. Focus.
The Pirates have the worst record in the league, so that means if you are a team such as the Brewers that gets swept by Pirates, by law you are more pathetic. It’s science fact. Just ask the guy from O.J.’s guest house.
And at 7-17 the Pirates are only a few percentage points away from the Red Sox and Angels, who are both 9-20. The Red Sox are one of the most valuable franchises in professional sports with an annual payroll that dwarfs that of the Pirates. The Angels have one of the greatest players in MLB history in his prime, plus they signed Anthony Rendon this winter. They are going to miss the playoffs in the season that everybody makes the playoffs. So what excuses do either of those teams have? None as far as I can tell. So there are three fanbases that, at least at this moment, have to feel worse than the Pirates. Do we need to make this a zero-sum situation where we can only experience joy if it directly correlates to the misery of others? Ummmm…. yes.
Damn it, getting back to the positives, okay.
Is Gregory Polanco back? What does “back” even mean?
When Big Greg connects it remains a very beautiful sight.
That long swing, that easy power. The infectious smile. He even stole two bases on Saturday without breaking his entire body! Nice form! (He did get picked off second by the catcher immediately after one of those steals; what can you do?)
Why can’t we have this version of Polanco all the time? Why can’t we stop asking this question after 7 years? But that long timespan also makes it easier to finally temper our expectations of what qualifies as “back” for Polanco. Before the Worst Slide Ever, Polanco was having his best season (by far) in 2018. He struck out more than ever (21.9%), but he also walked more than ever (11.4%) and hit for more power than ever (.245 ISO). That’s a fair tradeoff all around. His strikeout rate of 42.6% this year is comically bad and unsustainable but he’s crushing the ball on the rare occasions he does make contact.
There’s no real point in playing him against lefties anymore. We’ve seen what he can do and it’s put up a 217/280/352 line in 628 career PAs; not much mystery. (Which makes it even more baffling that Craig Counsell left David Phelps in to face him instead of going to Josh Hader on Sunday afternoon.) Maybe in a year in which the main goal is not getting hurt, it makes sense to keep him on the bench when a southpaw is on the mound and give the Jose Osuna Fan Club something to be excited about. Polanco is injury-prone, inconsistent and on the hook for $11 million next year, so he’s not going anywhere at this trade deadline or the offseason. So let’s just hope he stays healthy, stays smiling and crushes a few baseballs into the river.
We were too hard on Richard Rodriguez last year
After a thoroughly impressive, out-of-nowhere season in 2018 (2.47 ERA, 88/10 K/BB in 69 innings) he regressed in 2019 to the tune of 3.72 ERA, 63/23 K/BB in 65 innings and those 14 home runs allowed that always seemed to be ill-timed. (That’s how it will usually be when a trusted late-inning reliever gives up a home run.) Outside of the alarming HR rate, those numbers are certainly adequate for a bullpen arm. But when he opened the 2020 season by allowing a two-run home run in the 8th inning of a game the Pirates lost by one run, it was easy to think we were in for more of the frustrating same.
But a solo home run Friday is the only other one he’s allowed since then, and he’s racked up 12 Ks to just one walk in his 8.2 innings on the season for a 2.08 ERA and 0.46 WHIP. If I can read Baseball Savant correctly (about a 23% chance of that) he is throwing his slider at his highest rate ever and getting an absurd 69.6% whiff rate on it. Nice.
Keone Kela, Nick Burdi, Edgar Santana, Kyle Crick and Clay Holmes are all out of the picture right now. Rich-Rod is still there and as effective as ever. Even if Kela was healthy, many teams might see Rich-Rod as the Pirates most valuable reliever trade chip, given the combination of his effectiveness and extremely affordable salary. (He’s first-year arbitration eligible in 2021.) Since that’s the case, he shouldn’t come cheap; we’ll see what Ben Cherington does.
We all love Jacob Stallings
It’s funny that the guy whose dad has a rightful claim to be the most universally-loathed and straight-up-worst head coach in Pittsburgh sports history (the latter can’t really be questioned — there’s literally nothing worse than 0-18 in conference) has emerged as one of the few players on the Pirates that all fans seem to genuinely like and have positive feelings towards. I’m not quite ready yet to elevate him from Definitely Competent to Actually Good, but the defense continues to pass both the eye test and the analytics test, he’s a legit lefty-crusher at the plate and against righties… he can sometimes poke a grounder into the outfield.
The other ironic thing about Stallings’ emergence has been that we’ve heard how catcher was a position of weakness and hopelessness for the Pirates, with no realistic long-term options to be found anywhere in the minors. Now it turns out that Stallings is, arguably, the Pirates’ only above-average regular on the entire roster. I think we have to give the Huntington regime some a little bit of credit for this one; there were many times when roster crunches could have led to this seemingly depth-option being DFA’d in favor of a short-term need, but that never happened.
It’ll be KeBryan Hayes time soon enough
In a normal season the above configuration would never happen because those four players would likely all be at different levels of the minors. Martin, Gonzales and Peguero all seem to be at least a couple years away, but the calls for Hayes being in the majors were light rumblings as far back as original spring training and are now extremely loud as we’re well past Super-2 date and [gestures as the standings, the Pirates play in general, the state of the world].
I understand the desire to see Hayes at the hot corner for the Pirates but can’t get too worked up over the fact that it hasn’t happened yet. He contracted COVID-19 before the restart, so it tracks that he would need time to work himself back into shape. He didn’t exactly rake at AAA last year (265/336/415) so it’s not like he’s pounding down the door. The two main beneficiaries of Hayes not yet being in the majors have been Colin Moran and Erik Gonzalez. Moran has been the Pirates best hitter this year and may have developed some trade value and/or solidified a future role with team while Gonzalez is finally showing some potential to be a useful major leaguer.
If Kevin Newman’s injury sends him to the DL, though, there should be no question that Hayes comes up to play 3B regularly while Gonzalez (and maybe a little Cole Tucker) handle shortstop.
Okay I lied, allow me one bit of negativity
I swear to god this fuckin’ guy…