Pirates Rumors

Pittsburgh’s Promising Middle Infield

By Connor Byrne | May 8, 2020 at 10:03pm CDT

If you hear the names Frazier and Newman, you might think of a couple shows from the 1990s NBC television schedule (yes, I know the great sitcom’s spelled “Frasier”). In this case, though, we’re talking about the Pirates’ modern-day middle infield. Although the team looks as if it’s a ways away from returning to contention, it does seem to have a promising second base-shortstop combination in Adam Frazier and Kevin Newman. They’re two of the reasons why all hope isn’t lost for a franchise that has cratered in recent years after it went to the playoffs in each season from 2013-15.

Looking back to 2013, Frazier was a sixth-round pick (that means he wouldn’t have been selected this year) who topped out as Baseball America’s 27th-ranked Pirates prospect after the 2015 campaign. As BA noted then, Frazier somehow went three seasons at Mississippi State without hitting a home run, but he has since shown more pop in the majors. Last season was his second straight 10-HR showing, which isn’t saying much in such a power-happy era, but he has still been a roughly average offensive performer since debuting in 2016. He’s the owner of a respectable lifetime .279/.342/.420 line and a 103 wRC+ across 1,574 plate appearances, and he managed a decent fWAR of 2.2 in 608 PA last year. And while Frazier’s penciled in as the Pirates’ second baseman, he’s versatile enough to move around the diamond if they find a better option there. The 28-year-old has logged a substantial amount of time in the outfield, where he has played all three spots, and has seen a bit of action at shortstop and third base.

Newman, 26, has also shown off a good amount of versatility, having lined up at both middle infield positions, third and in left since he got to the majors in 2018. The majority of Newman’s work has come at short, though, and that’s a position he has on lockdown – at least, until rising prospect Oneil Cruz gets to MLB.

Even if Cruz does reach the league sometime soon and bump Newman off short, the club may still have a keeper in the latter. A first-round pick in 2015 and a former top 100 prospect, Newman impressed in his first full season in 2019 with 2.4 fWAR and a .308/.353/.446 line with 12 homers and 16 steals in 531 PA. Newman doesn’t hit the ball that hard or bring a lot of power to the table, but he’s a fast runner who consistently makes contact. Those factors make him a good candidate to continue posting high averages. Just four hitters outdid Newman’s strikeout percentage of 11.7 last season, and only three bettered his 87 percent contact rate.

Frazier and Newman aren’t exactly exciting players, but they could make for a nice, inexpensive duo for the Pirates going forward. They’ll combine for less than $3.5MM this year, which is important for a low-budget Pirates team that will put a dirt-cheap roster on the field if a season does happen. Of the two, though, Newman seems more likely to stick around for longer, considering he has five years of control left to Frazier’s three. The Pirates haven’t been shy about selling off players with dwindling team control, but perhaps that will change with new general manager Ben Cherington at the helm. In the meantime, the hope for Pittsburgh is that Frazier and Newman will continue as the effective, low-cost performers they’ve been so far.

A Nice Bargain Pickup In Pittsburgh

By Steve Adams | May 5, 2020 at 10:56pm CDT

The past two trips through free agency haven’t exactly been all that kind to Jarrod Dyson. The 35-year-old speedster waited until mid-February to find a one-year, $2MM deal with the Pirates this winter. That contract was penned two years (nearly to the date) after he signed a two-year, $7.5MM deal with the D-backs. Dyson has been able to find big league deals, but the lengthy waits and relatively small guarantees make clear that he’s not a highly in-demand player. I’m not here to say that Dyson should’ve been commanding lucrative three- and four-year offers in either of those instances, but his deal with the Bucs could still pan out as a nice bargain.

Dyson would be miscast as an everyday player — he’s a career .247/.319/.388 hitter — but he’s a legitimately elite defender and baserunner who is at least a passable option against right-handed pitching (.250/.320/.351). The lack of power is glaring, of course, but Dyson’s batting average and on-base percentage against righties are right in line with the league averages for the decade he’s been in the Majors.

Beyond his shortcomings at the plate, though, Dyson is excellent. Since 2012, his first full season in the Majors, Dyson ranks sixth among all big league outfielders in both Defensive Runs Saved (81) and Ultimate Zone Rating (55.6). Those rankings come in spite of the fact that everyone ahead of him (with the exception of Kevin Kiermaier) has logged 1200 or more innings than his 5543 innings. Jason Heyward and Alex Gordon are both over 9000 innings of defense in that time. On a per-game stat like UZR/150, Dyson ranks slightly ahead of both those two. Among outfielders with at least 1000 innings dating back to 2012, only Kiermaier, Mookie Betts, Harrison Bader and (perhaps surprisingly) Aaron Judge have posted marks higher than Dyson’s 12.6 UZR/150. Giving Dyson more reps in the field obviously means living with his sub-par offense on a more regular basis, but he’s one of the best defensive outfielders of the past decade.

It’s a similar tale on the basepaths. Dyson ranks third among the 3140 players who’ve had a big league at-bat since 2012 in terms of FanGraphs’ composite baserunning value (BsR). The only two players ahead of him are Billy Hamilton and Mike Trout — and Trout has had more than twice as many plate appearances. Dyson is sixth overall in stolen bases in that same group, and he has vastly fewer games played and plate appearances than the five ahead of him (Dee Gordon, Hamilton, Jose Altuve, Starling Marte, Rajai Davis). He’s been successful in an outstanding 85 percent of his career stolen base attempts.

The Pirates signed the right-handed-hitting Guillermo Heredia to team with Dyson in center field, Beyond that pairing there’s no immediate threat to step into the spot. Jason Martin, acquired in the trade that sent Gerrit Cole to Houston, had a big half-season in Double-A in 2018 but has hit just .242/.297/.383 in 640 plate appearances in Triple-A. JT Riddle was signed to fill a utility role but has only logged 235 innings in center and figures to fill more of a bench role.

Dyson isn’t going to provide much with the bat, barring a huge BABIP spike, but there’s also a bit of room for him to rebound a bit from a rough two years in Arizona, where he hit just .216/.302/.299. The Pirates may want to try batting Dyson lower in the order than the D-backs did in 2019, when he hit leadoff for 376 of his career-high 452 plate appearances; Dyson, for comparison, walked 18 times in 101 plate appearances hitting eighth in front of the pitcher over the past two seasons in Arizona. Any extra bases on balls are a welcome addition for a player with his wheels.

Beyond that, Dyson began hitting the ball in the air considerably more once he left the Royals in 2016. Perhaps it’s simply attributable to the increasing focus on launching the ball, but the drop from a 57.7 percent grounder rate to a 47.7 percent mark doesn’t seem ideal for Dyson’s skill set. His fly-ball rate, conversely, rose from 23.7 percent to 32.6 percent.

Even if Dyson keeps hitting the ball in the air more than he did in his Royals days, his glove and baserunning will prove plenty valuable. But from 2013-16, Dyson was worth an average of 2.5 bWAR per season and never saw a single season south of 2.1 — despite only playing on a part-time basis. His lone replacement-level season in his career came in 2018, when he was plagued by a .216 average on balls in play. A move down the order and/or a change in his approach at the plate could make Dyson a pretty tidy bargain.

Latest On MLB Teams’ Cost-Cutting Efforts

By Jeff Todd | April 29, 2020 at 9:21am CDT

There’s a spreading optimism — or, at least, a spread of reporting about optimism — regarding the return of baseball in 2020. But the pandemic shutdown has already stung MLB teams and the near-term revenue prospects remain poor, even if a television-only campaign is launched.

Unsurprisingly, even as teams prepare to refund fans for games that won’t be played as expected, we’re seeing enhanced efforts on the part of MLB organizations to cut costs. As Pirates GM Ben Cherington put it (via Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette), “revenues aren’t coming in” but “cash is still going out.”

The notoriously tight-fisted Bucs have enacted austerity policies. But sources tell Mackey that the team isn’t among those in the roughest shape financially around the game. The Pirates have stopped 401(k) contributions and suspended fellowship/internship programs while top-level leaders take reductions in pay. Cherington says “the full expectation is that [401(k)] contribution will go back into effect as soon as possible,” and emphasized that the hope was to “find some savings without too much impact on people and their everyday lives.”

None of these sorts of measures are pleasant, but Pirates employees seem to be in better stead than those of the Rays. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports that the low-budget Tampa Bay outfit has become the first MLB organization “to implement aggressive expense cutting moves” — in particular, furloughing some full-time employees and cutting the pay of others that earn above a certain threshold.

The Rays are covering health insurance for furloughed staff and the hope remains to bring many jobs back online. But the move reflects the stark realities of the sport in the era of COVID-19. Per Topkin, the top organizational leadership advised employees of concern that the revenue drag could continue for years to come.

Like the Rays, the Athletics have been scrimping and saving while working through difficult new-ballpark negotiations and planning. With those efforts now confronted by an entirely new sort of hurdle, and the near-term revenue outlook plummeting, the Oakland club is considering cuts of its own, according to Ken Rosenthal and Alex Coffey of The Athletic (subscription link). The A’s may actually be contemplating something rather more aggressive than what the Rays just enacted. The Athletic reports that the Oakland org is “discussing extensive layoffs” and could ultimately carry a “significantly smaller staff on both the business and baseball sides.”

Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle also examines the A’s situation. Employees say they have no idea what to expect and the team hasn’t responded to requests for comment. It remains to be seen how the situation will be handled, but with every other team in the league having already charted a path, the silence is ominous. Slusser doesn’t offer a definitive prediction, but does warn: “don’t be surprised” if major cuts occur.

These three teams may be pressed into action sooner than some peers, but the issues aren’t limited to lower-budget organizations. As Mackey writes in the above-linked post, and as we have covered in recent weeks, several other clubs have also pursued cost-reduction strategies that impact employees. And The Athletic reports that multiple teams around the league have had some level of internal discussion of major changes to their operations. At the moment, every team in baseball aside from the A’s and Rays has promised to retain full-time employees through the end of May. Hopefully, there’ll be sufficient clarity and optimism in the outlook at that point to avoid broader cuts.

Pirates Provide Updates On Injured Pitchers

By Steve Adams | April 22, 2020 at 6:16pm CDT

Pirates director of sports medicine Todd Tomczyk provided reporters with an update on a trio of injured pitchers Wednesday, giving generally positive news on lefty Steven Brault and righties Jameson Taillon and Clay Holmes (Twitter link via The Athletic’s Rob Biertempfel).

Brault, who’ll turn 28 next week, is in the “advanced” stages of his rehab from a shoulder strain and should begin throwing in the next three to five days. The southpaw was shut down in Spring Training and was initially slated to be reevaluated two weeks after that date, but at last check he was three-plus weeks removed from the stoppage of his throwing program without much of an update. By the time he resumes throwing, Brault will have been sidelined for nearly two months. He’s functioned as both a starter and reliever for the Bucs over the past four seasons and should be an oft-used piece in both roles again if the 2020 season is able to get underway.

Taillon, meanwhile, resumed throwing after a “scheduled” break in his rehab process. The former No. 2 overall draft pick made good on his longstanding top prospect billing with a brilliant 2018 season (191 innings, 3.20 ERA, 3.46 FIP, 8.4 K/9, 2.2 BB/9) but struggled in 2019 before landing on the shelf and ultimately undergoing his second career Tommy John surgery. Taillon, who won’t pitch in 2020 regardless of the season’s structure, remains under Pirates control through the 2022 season.

As for Holmes, the fractured foot he sustained in Spring Training has now healed in full. He’s in the process of ramping his throwing program back up and is slated to throw on a slope before week’s end. The 27-year-old had a miserable season both in the big leagues and the minors in 2019, but his 2018 campaign in Triple-A featured 95 1/3 innings of 3.40 ERA ball with 9.4 K/9, 3.8 BB/9 and a whopping 60 percent ground-ball rate. Holmes is out of minor league options, so he’ll likely be a part of the roster whenever play picks back up, giving the club an option at the back of the rotation or perhaps in a long relief capacity.

Derek Holland Had Been Likely To Make Pirates' Roster

By Anthony Franco | April 19, 2020 at 11:24am CDT

Derek Holland was on track to crack the Pirates’ season-opening rotation prior to the shutdown, reports Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. He’d likely have slotted in behind Chris Archer, Joe Musgrove, Trevor Williams and Mitch Keller for first-year manager Derek Shelton. If the 2020 season is indeed played, Holland would presumably still figure to grab a roster spot, particularly since any playing scenario is likely to involve significant roster expansion. Holland’s minor-league deal originally called for a $1.25MM base salary if he were to make the club, reported ESPN. As MLBTR’s Jeff Todd explained this week, though, player salaries would be paid on a prorated basis in the event of a shortened season.

Quick Hits: Phillies, Employee Pay, Cardinals, Goldschmidt, Pirates, Shelton, Kela

By Connor Byrne and TC Zencka | April 18, 2020 at 9:07am CDT

Phillies owner John Middleton informed the team’s employees Friday that no one will be laid off or forced to take a pay cut through at least the end of May, Jim Salisbury of NBC Sports Philadelphia reports. “I am neither an epidemiologist nor a public policy maker, but I do know our industry, and it is my sincere belief that baseball will be played this year,” Middleton wrote in a letter, adding that there’s no reason to reduce the club’s budget when he’s under the impression that “a meaningful number of games” will take place in 2020. The Phillies are just the second team to commit to no cuts through May, joining the division-rival Braves. More teams are expected to follow, however, with the Giants the latest team to make the commitment, per USA Today’s Bob Nightengale.

The Cardinals’ Paul Goldschmidt has set up camp in his Jupiter-area home during the quarantine, but he’s finding new ways to keep his head in the game. Thanks to a virtual reality product from WIN Reality, Goldschmidt can simulate at-bats against any pitcher in the game, writes Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Goldschmidt got enough exposure to live pitching in spring training to fully test his new virtual reality gear, and he came away impressed with its accuracy. Goldy is working out in more traditional ways as well, but the VR gear is giving him an opportunity to rest his elbow while still simulating game experience.
The Pirates under Clint Hurdle became known for contentious run-ins with other teams due to their proclivity for throwing up and in. The bad rap was furthered by pitchers Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow developing into aces once having left Pittsburgh. But Derek Shelton runs the dugout in Pittsburgh now, and it remains to be seen how the culture will change under new leadership. Shelton spoke to some of his tendencies, however, including how he will let statistics and the extenuating circumstances determine how often he lets his starters go through a lineup a third time (as much as how the pitcher is performing on any given day), per Mike Persak of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Shelton also spoke about the closer role, where he expects Keone Kela to serve as a traditional closer.

The Battle Of Pennsylvania First Basemen

By Connor Byrne | April 15, 2020 at 7:35pm CDT

It’s no secret that the majors’ two Pennsylvania-based teams possess a couple of the most powerful first basemen in the game. In the Phillies’ corner, there’s Rhys Hoskins. Meanwhile, the Pirates are fortunate enough to have Josh Bell manning the position. Both players are 27 years old and under club control for the next few seasons. But which of the two would you prefer on your team?

Let’s start with Hoskins, a 2014 fifth-round pick who burst on the scene as a rookie in 2017, when he only played in 50 games but still managed to wallop 18 home runs. Although Hoskins has come back to earth since then, he has still been more productive than your typical hitter. The right-handed slugger mashed 29 homers last year, and though his batting average was alarmingly low, his overall slash line (.226/.364/.454) placed him 10 percent above the average hitter by measure of OPS+ and 13 percent above by wRC+. Furthermore, Hoskins has been rather durable – he played in 153 games two years ago and 160 in 2019. He’s also under control for four more years, including one final pre-arb campaign (that’s if a season even happens in 2020).

Bell still has three years left before becoming a free agent – he’ll make a reasonable $4.8MM this season – and has been a similarly productive batter to Hoskins throughout his career. But the switch-hitting Bell, a 2011 second-rounder, truly came into his own last year – he slashed .277/.367/.569 (143 OPS+, 135 wRC+) and racked up 37 HRs over 613 trips to the plate. Also, it was the third straight year of at least 140-some games played for Bell, so he joins Hoskins as someone you can regularly count on to pencil into your lineup.

While Bell was undoubtedly the superior offensive producer a season ago, Hoskins has doubled his lifetime fWAR output over almost 400 fewer plate appearances (Hoskins is at 7.1 in 1,577 PA; Bell has put up 3.8 in 1,968 attempts). Notably, Hoskins has performed far better at first base, having accounted for minus-1 Defensive Runs Saved and a 3.9 Ultimate Zone rating to Bell’s minus-31 DRS and minus-17 UZR. However, despite Bell’s defensive issues, many teams would gladly plug his big bat into their lineup. The same goes for Hoskins. For the sake of this exercise, though, you can only choose one (and remember to consider team control for the two Scott Boras clients). Who’s your pick?

(Poll link for app users)

Why The Gerrit Cole Trade Wasn’t A Total Bust For The Pirates

By Connor Byrne | April 15, 2020 at 9:00am CDT

We’re past the two-year anniversary of a trade that has made a significant impact on the Pirates, the Astros and perhaps Major League Baseball as a whole. In January 2018, the Pirates sent right-hander Gerrit Cole to the Astros for a package consisting of righties Joe Musgrove and Michael Feliz, third baseman Colin Moran and outfielder Jason Martin.

Was the blockbuster worth it for Houston? Sure. Cole absolutely dominated in their uniform for two years and helped them to an American League pennant last season. But he’s now a member of the Yankees, who signed him to a record contract worth $324MM over nine years last winter. Has it been worth it for Pittsburgh? Debatable. Feliz and Moran haven’t amounted to much more than replacement-level players in the majors, while Martin has failed to register solid numbers at the Triple-A level. There’s at least one silver lining in Musgrove, who has emerged as a quality starter for the Pirates.

Let’s start by acknowledging that now-former Pirates general manager Neal Huntington was hamstrung by the team’s low budget. As a result of owner Bob Nutting’s unwillingness to commit a relatively enormous amount to any player (to this day, the biggest contract the Pirates have given out belongs to Jason Kendall, who signed a six-year, $60MM deal 20 years ago) there was no way the Pirates were going to be able to extend Cole – a Scott Boras client. And Cole, although a former No. 1 overall pick who logged ace-like numbers at times in a Pirates uniform, was not the Cy Young-level hurler he is now. Cole ate up 203 innings in his final year in Pittsburgh, but he also recorded a 4.26 ERA/4.08 FIP. No question that’s a useful output, but the run prevention was nowhere close to elite.

Whether or not you want to rail against the overall return the Pirates got for Cole, it’s clear they received at least one valuable player in Musgrove. Now 27 years old, Musgrove showed well in Houston from 2016-17 and has held his own in Pittsburgh during his two seasons there. He registered a 4.06 ERA/3.59 FIP in 115 1/3 innings in 2018 and put up similar numbers last year. Musgrove’s 4.44 ERA across 170 1/3 frames doesn’t look amazing, but he was near the top of the league in other important categories. He ranked 22nd in the majors in K/BB ratio (4.03), 24th in FIP (3,82), 30th in fWAR (3.3) and 34th in xFIP (4.31; that tied Madison Bumgarner, whom the Diamondbacks signed to a five-year, $85MM contract in free agency).

None of this is to say that the Pirates emerged from the Cole trade in great shape. They won 69 games last season and haven’t been a playoff team since 2015, after all, but their recent struggles certainly haven’t been the fault of Musgrove. Going forward, he’ll make a rather affordable $2.8MM this season – his third-last arbitration-eligible campaign – and could continue to improve his stock before his team control expires. Just how long Musgrove will stay a Pirate is in question, though; depending in part on whether they return to contention and if he’s amenable to an extension, the Bucs could decide Musgrove’s expendable if they’re not willing to make a long-term commitment to him.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Steve Pearce Announces Retirement

By Jeff Todd | April 14, 2020 at 7:47am CDT

Veteran infielder Steve Pearce is officially hanging up his spikes, he tells WEEI’s Mike Mutnansky (writeup via Rob Bradford). He was not currently under contract with any MLB organization.

Pearce, who turned 37 yesterday, had already indicated he was unlikely to resume his playing career. Though he kept the door open late last year, he has now put to rest any possibility of a surprise return.

Last year turned out to be an injury-ruined disappointment — hardly the only time that Pearce’s body has betrayed him over the years. He managed to appear in 13 campaigns and achieve a full decade of MLB service in spite of his many health woes, but was limited to 2,555 plate appearances over that span.

Now that he has formally wrapped up his playing career, we can put a final wrap on it. Pearce owns a cumulative .254/.332/.440 batting line with 91 home runs. He appeared with seven organizations at the game’s highest level: the Pirates, Orioles, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Rays, Yankees, and Astros.

Pearce will be remembered most for his surprising breakout years in Baltimore and his brief but notable late run in Boston. He entered his age-30 season with a completely unremarkable record in the majors. He ended up making virtually his entire contribution at the game’s highest level over the ensuing six-year stretch (2013-18), over which he recorded a .266/.347/.479 slash (123 OPS+).

After moving to the Red Sox at the 2018 deadline, Pearce delivered a monster effort down the stretch before a three-homer showing in the 2018 World Series that earned him the MVP award for the series. In his recent comments, Pearce rejected the notion that the 2018 Red Sox benefited from illicit sign-stealing efforts — a matter that still remains unresolved by league investigation, at least publicly.

NL Central Notes: Yelich, Burdi, Moore

By Jeff Todd | April 10, 2020 at 11:06pm CDT

Brewers star Christian Yelich is drawing plaudits for his charitable efforts during the coronavirus pause, as Tom Haudricourt of the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel writes. He’s playing an active role in both Milwaukee and his native California, with the latter effort an extension of prior work in his home state. “We’re in a fortunate position,” Yelich says of he and his partners in the California Strong foundation (including teammate Ryan Braun). “Not everybody has the ability to have the same reach. We understand that. In tough times, people understand if they can help, they should and they will.”

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