Much like every other team, the Pirates are striving to adjust to a pitcher friendly era, writes Travis Sawchik of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Pitchers have benefited greatly from the inflow of data. They’ve learned about specific hitters tendencies, strengths, and weakness in ways that weren’t available in the past. Now hitters are beginning to get more of that same information about pitchers. Per Pirates GM Neal Huntington, “So much of the advance work gave an advantage to pitchers in identifying hitters’ weaknesses…We…have worked hard to try to capitalize on how to give our hitters some advantage back.”
Here’s more from the Pirates as they gear up for free agency:
- Pittsburgh hopes to improve their offense over the offseason, writes Sawchik in a separate article. Sawchik suggests that power could be a priority. Interestingly, the club has tough decisions to make on Pedro Alvarez and Neil Walker. Both players are non-tender candidates – Alvarez is projected to earn $8.1MM via arbitration while Walker is pegged for a $10.7MM payday. However, they’ve also accounted for 84 of the club’s 296 home runs in the last two seasons (28%). If power is truly a priority, then it will be hard to replace their production for less money. It’s trendy to look to the Royals as an example, but they’re probably a great model for the Pirates. Pittsburgh has focused on pure hitters in the draft rather than power, and their cavernous ball park plays similarly to Kauffman Stadium. Perhaps aggression and athleticism are better traits to target.
- Byung-ho Park of the Nexen Heroes will be posted tomorrow, but he’s unlikely to join the Pirates, writes John Perrotto of Today’s Knuckleball. Obviously, the Pirates have already received great value from fellow KBO import Jung-ho Kang. That’s part of the reason Pittsburgh won’t win the bidding for his services. Kang provided a successful use case for transition from the KBO to the majors. Teams should be willing to bet more upon Park’s success. With Michael Morse under contract for 2016 and top prospect Josh Bell lurking at Triple-A, the club also has some solid in-house first basemen.
You’re crazy if you seriously believe that Walker is a non-tender candidate
No chance he’s non-tendered.
Yeah, very unlikey move to non-tender him, same with Mark. So unlikely that it shouldn’t really be mentioned.
All of those guys will probably be traded. Chance of non-tender is slim to none
Look at a few key players that are probably leaving. Happ, Soria, Blanton and AJ. All pitchers all who provided a good amount of quality innings.
The only key position player possibly moving is Pedro and Possibly Walker both of whom have acceptable replacements in Harrison, Hanson, Morse and Bell. 2nd base defense might be a little worse and Harrison doesn’t have the consistency or power that walker has. Morse hasn’t been anywhere long enough since being suspended and multiple injuries to show what he can do. But has shown good power in the past (roids?) and decent fielding and in a limited sample hit well for the pirates in ’15.
If they move Walker or Pedro they should be looking for mid/bottom rotation guys
If they can sign Soria again, or pick up another quality setup/closer then they have a little more wiggle room to move Mark, but as it stands now they need to keep him as they only have Watson to take his place and no setup guy.
The wild card (other than Hanson and Bell who are ‘just’ prospects) is Kang whose injury may cause problems and will likely be ‘stuck at’ third, which is fine he has done well there.. and his recovery time.
Didn’t the Pirates have depth at all the positions Kang played when they signed him too? I don’t think one guy is going to drive the KBO market way up out of the Pirates range.
Some yeah but not much really, which is why when Harrison and Mercer both went down they traded for Aramis to play 3rd. Next season Hanson should be available if a similar situation creeps up.
With Aramis retiring, Sean Rodriguez leaving as a free agent, and Jung ho Kang probably not being ready for the start of the season, I think the Pirates should sign Kelly Johnson. Having Johnson and Harrison sharing the Utility role, really gives the Pirates alot of options. The LH hitting Johnson would make a good platoon partner for Morse a first, and fill in at 3rd while Kang recovers.
Good suggestion. He’d be able to spell those guys perfectly and when Kang comes back he slides into more of a bench role with a quality bat that plays every third day. He’s the perfect compromise with all the impending IF free agents.
Alvarez will be non-tendered if the Pirates can’t work out a trade for him. But no way will Walker be non-tendered.
Am I the only one who thinks trading walker Alvarez is the best thing to do with them. I would even trade Melancon his trade value is through the roof and Watson and Hughes look like they are ready to make the jump to setup and closer rules.
Walker will be tendered for sure. It’s great that they used the analytics for the pitchers but perhaps the hitters need some of the same?