Pittsburgh Pirates Series Preview: Polanco, Kang, and Nicasio

Gregory Polanco has a new extension, and looks like a new hitter.
Photo Credit: Jonathan Satriale, WEBN-TV

After a pair of frustrating losses to split the series with the Brewers, the Pirates come to town on Monday for a three-game series.  The Pirates had an amazing run last season, despite the quick exit from the playoffs, and did only minor remodeling in the offseason.  The biggest loss was unquestionably A.J. Burnett out of their rotation, but they shored up that spot with Jon Niese, and replaced Pedro Alvarez at first base with one of my favorite low-key signings of the offseason in John Jaso.

Despite only a tepid early-season performance from Andrew McCutchen, the Pirate offense has been spectacular thus far, and their fielding (by UZR, anyway) has been top-drawer.  But their pitching has struggled, particularly in their bullpen, and it's kept them well shy of the ridiculous pace the Cubs have established in the NL Central.  They'll have a long road to climb over the rest of the season if they're going to avoid another wild card game.  Even as-is, they have a one in three chance of making the playoffs at all.  It's early, but this is a team that will have to improve on the run-prevention side of things if they want to repeat last year's success.

With the Reds thoroughly out of it, and given my fandom of their front office, I'll be cheering for the Pirates to win this year...anytime they don't play the Reds, of course.

Position Players

Brandon Phillips had himself a monstrous series against the Brewers, and launched himself from a 75 wRC+ mid-last week to the second-best tally on the team.  I question how many more times he can go down on his back knee to successfully jerk a ball over the fence, but it was fun to see him smashing the ball around.  Adam Duvall also got himself north of the average mark thanks to a series of home runs.  He doesn't walk much, strikes out a lot, and is the most pull-oriented Reds hitter right now, but he has nevertheless been a pleasant surprise.

The Reds demoted Scott Schebler today and replaced him with another lefty-hitting outfielder in Kyle Waldrop.  I'd guess a big part of the reason was to get Schebler some PA's.  The plan coming into the season was to platoon him with Duvall in left field, but that plan quickly faded as Duvall carried his hot spring over into a full-time role.  Waldrop, prior to a miserable showing at AAA Louisville last year, had been on the prospect radar.  His performance had usually exceeded scouts' assessments of his future, and so perhaps his struggles were foretold.  This year, while his hitting line isn't particularly inspiring (0.228/0.294/0.380), it's good for a 98 wRC+.  Offense must be hard to come by in the International League thus far. Waldrop offers power potential, but not much else.  I'd expect him to be used primarily as a pinch hitter against righties.  I certainly hope he won't play anywhere but a corner.

The Pirates' offense is off to one heck of a start to the season.  Remember all the hoopla about the Royals and their contact-oriented offense last year?  The Pirates don't strike out either.  Well, Andrew McCutchen does, but he's awesome so who cares?  They have some free swingers on the squad as well in Josh Harrison and Starling Marte, but both guys have power and defensive virtues (Harrison is versatile, Marte is a center fielder playing in the Pirates' deep corner).

Jung-Ho Kang just returned from the DL after his slide-induced injury last season, but even while he was away the Pirates got a nice performance from veteran David Freese.  Now, they've got Freese's bat playing off the bench, and platooning with John Jaso at first base against lefties.  Word is that Kang will be worked back slowly, so we may still see Freese start a game at third base this week.

The decision to sign Gregory Polanco to an extension is looking pretty good in the early-goings.  While his defense and baserunning allowed him to turn in a good first season in 2015, he's been smoking hot this year as their #3 hitter.  I haven't looked at his ground-ball splits, but he also looks like a prime candidate to shift against given his pull rates.  McCutchen has been moved up to the #2-slot in the Pirates' ongoing efforts to optimize their team at the margins using a data-driven approach.  Sigh.

Probable Starters

Jon Niese seemed like a revelation pitching out of the Mets bullpen last season, but thus far he hasn't looked particularly sharp back in a starting role.  He does get ground balls, per the Pirates' philosophy, but he hasn't been able to do a lot else so far.

Juan Nicasio really looks to have turned his career around (based on the early small sample).  Coming up in the Rockies system, Nicasio wasn't a top-tier prospect, but he boasted excellent strikeout numbers and good velocity.  I've always liked him, and was happy to hear he'd won a spot in the Pirates rotation out of spring training.  He's been pitching out of his mind thus far.

Two starts in, Tim Adleman certainly is showing some warning signs.  The .185 BABIP.  The 98% LOB%.  But despite all that, his xFIP is the second-best of any Reds starter this year.  Keep doing that weird delivery, Tim.  I'll be cheering for it to keep working.

Bullpen

J.C. Ramirez is now the only Reds releiver to have a better-than-average xFIP.  xFIP doesn't know he gave up that homer, of course, but it's been good to see him striking guys out and pumping in the heat.  Looks to me like a keeper, as far as middle relievers go anyway.

The Pirates usually have an outstanding pen, but they've struggled in the early season.  Tony Watson and Arquimedes Caminero just haven't been anything like their typical selves, and Jared Hughes has barely pitched.  Neftali Feliz is another one of their reclamation projects, and looks like a smart signing thus far.  He's been dealing, and I was shocked to see that he's still just 28 years old.


Rain is in the forecast each of the next three days in Cincinnati, but the weather looks to be warm.  Take some steamy nights (for May!), two struggling pitching staffs, and an explosive Pirates offense, and you have a recipe for some high-scoring games at Great American Ballpark.  Go Reds!

Pirates Series Preview

Francisco Cervelli has been outstanding behind the dish for the Pirates
Photo Credit: Mark Kortum

Having deftly delivered a (minor) setback to the St. Louis Cardinals, the Reds head home to welcome the second-best team in the division, the Pittsburgh Pirates.  The Pirates are having an excellent season and are hanging tough with the Cardinals near the top of the NL Central.  Their record is probably a tad better than they've played, but to my eye they have some upside among their hitters that has gone untapped thus far.

A lot has been made of the influence that the Pirates' front office has had in improving the team.  On my reading list is Big Data Baseball, which reportedly tells the tale of, among other things, how the Pirates have used infield shifts and an emphasis on ground ball rates to improve their run prevention.  It shows: the Pirates lead the majors in ground ball rate thanks to a rotation in which every single one of their starters has a 50%-plus ground ball rate.  That's amazing.  By contrast, the Reds currently have one starter with better than a 50% ground ball rate, Mike Leake, who is unlikely to be a Red in less than 48 hours.  At the same time, while I can't find a link right now, the Pirates are typically among the team leaders in the number of infield shifts, as well as runs saved by the shift.  It's a straightforward strategy, but one that seems to have a lot of merit.

I live in Central PA, and have for 8 years now.  Their AA affiliate is pretty close to my house, so we go to a good number of those games per year.  I've watched the Pirates transition from laughing stock to one of the better-run organizations in baseball, and got a chance to meet Neil Huntington and stat-guy Dan Fox.  Fox is a guy I've followed on this blog for years before he was hired by the Pirates.  As such, I have a pretty strong fondness for the Pirates.  I'll always be a Reds fan, but it's exciting for me to see this team doing well.

Position Players

The success of Francisco Cervelli really should be one of the biggest stories about the team this year.  Russell Martin was a revelation for this team over the past two years, but when he left via free agency the Pirates had a huge hole to fill.  They contacted the Yankees and acquired long-time backup catcher (who is still just 29!) Francisco Cervelli.  He has been outstanding.  He's a terrific pitch framer, which I think the Pirates knew before they got him.  They have to be surprised, however, with his offense.  His batting line looks a bit BABIP-y (0.372 BABIP), so he might decline a bit moving forward.  That said, he has at least one feature that speaks well to his ability to maintain an above-average BABIP: like Joey Votto, he's an opposite-field hitter:

As a right-handed hitter, his ground balls tend to go to left field.  But when he gets it in the air, most of the time, he's hitting to center field and right.  He probably doesn't have a lot of home run power (certainly nothing like Votto has), but if he can continue to use that right-center field alley he may be in for good doubles production for the foreseeable future.

The Pirates have a lot of other interesting players.  Andrew McCutcheon, of course, and he might be better in the second half.  The Jung-ho Kang signing was met with a lot of raised eyebrows this offseason, but he's been fantastic as a super-utility guy.  With Jordy Mercer out thanks to a take-out slide, Kang is their starting shortstop for the foreseeable future.  Against lefties, which the Reds now feature, former Ray and lefty-pounder Sean Rodriguez often gets the start over Pedro Alvarez.  Aramis Ramirez seems like a nice, low-cost pickup to supplement the loss of Josh Harrison.  Gregory Polanco still has a lot of promise, and the Pirates are hoping he comes into his own in the second half.

Reds note: Jay Bruce is still hitting, and now has his WAR over 2.0 for the season.  His miserable start and last season's struggles seem almost a distant memory.  They happened, but he's looking really strong.  And that's really fun, because I love Jay Bruce.

Probable Starters

David Holmberg's start today is the start of the post-Cueto era, because this is Cueto's turn in the rotation.  It's sad.  But it was a good trade for the Reds, and hopefully will improve them as early as next season.

Holmberg profiles as a soft-tossing lefty, with velocity sitting in the upper 80's.  He hasn't historically gotten a lot of strikeouts, and has been an extreme fly ball pitcher in the majors (career 35% FB%, albeit in just 33 innings).  Control seems to be a big factor in his relative success success: early last year, he was walking batters left and right, and suffered as a result.  Late in the year, when he was getting good results, he was doing a much better job of throwing strikes.  This year in AAA, his peripherals aren't very inspiring: 5 k/9 vs. 3 bb/9.  Meh.

Referring back to my intro above, check out the Pirates' ground ball rates!  Ground balls have long been Charlie Morton's main skill.  That's looking like about all he can do.  But it's something.  Really good at everything: Gerrit Cole.

Bullpen

The Pirates have consistently had a good bullpen over the past several years.  That's not an accident: while they never break the bank to do so, they consistently are bringing in new arms to replenish their stores.  Tony Watson and Jared Hughes are draftees, and Mark Melancon has been in Pittsburgh since 2012.  The other five, however, have all joined the team in the past two seasons.  The Reds haven't exactly been sitting on their pen either (Mattheus and Badenhop are new this year, Adcock and Axelrod were replacement-type pickups over the past year), but the Pirates have been more active...and better at it...than the Reds.

As a fan, my ideal World Series this year (and MLB's worst nightmare) would be a Pirates-Royals match-up.  This Pirates team is most likely going to have to fight through a wild card playoff game to get into the proper playoffs, but if they can align their rotation properly they have as good a shot as any other team.

Pirates Series Preview

Today I previewed the Pirates series at Red Reporter.  They're kind of the anti-Reds: great offense, lousy starting pitching.  The net result is pretty much the same; both teams are a tick below .500.

The Pirates were forecasted by many to regress from their fairy-tale season last year, and they have.  They sit a game below 0.500, a consequence primarily of their struggling pitching staff. While their rotation was a strength last season, they have struggled this year to put together good outings.  Even more problematic, their top two starters, Francisco Liriano and Gerrit Cole, recently found themselves on the disabled list with a strained oblique and shoulder fatigue, respectively. 

The good news for the Pirates is that their offense has been dynamite.  Their 105 wRC+ is the second-best in the league, and the arrival of Gregory Polanco might mean they could get even better.  The Reds' pitching staff could well have their hands full trying to contain the Pirates' bats.

Prospecting the Altoona Curve, Part 2: Pitchers

Continuing my look at the Altoona Curve, I'm turning my attention to pitchers today.

As with the hitters, the projection is the pre-season Oliver projections.  I like to use Oliver for minor leaguers, in particular, because of its emphasis on minor league equivalencies, and because it usually reports more players than anyone else!

Top Prospect: RHP Nick Kingham
Kingham was a 4th-round selection out of high school in 2010.  Now in his age-22 season, the 6'5" Kingham posted the best season of his young career last year with a 2.89 ERA across high-A and AA last year, and with peripherals to match.  This year he hasn't looked quite as strong, at least in terms of his peripheral numbers.  His strikeout rate has been down, and his walk rate has been unimproved from last year.  Entering the season, Tim Williams reported that he'd been adding velocity, while Marc Hulet was talking about him needing to learn to use his height and pitch in a downward angle.  He's obviously the guy that I'm most interested to see pitch...although I don't think the schedule matches up.

Top Performer: RHP Adrian Sampson
Sampson was drafted in the 5th round in 2012 out of community college.  He had a very nice season in low-A that year, but struggled a bit last year at high-A; his strikeouts took a big hit, even as he demonstrated exceptional control.  Perhaps as a result, he was left off all but the deepest Pirates prospect lists.  This year, now pitching in AA, his strikeouts are back up to mostly-respectable rates, and he's continuing to show good ability to avoid the walk.  He is listed as 6'3", 200 lbs, so he has good size.  Beyond that, the best info I've found on him was here: high-80's to low-90's fastball, good curve.  If I'm reading the schedule right, he should be in line to pitch on Saturday when I head to see the Curve.  I'm looking forward to watching this guy.  The Pirates have been aggressive in promoting him, and this year it seems as if it's paying off.

The Other Name: LHP Joely Rodriguez
Calling Rodriguez a "name guy" might be overstating things, but he managed to be ranked right along with Adrian Sampson in the pre-season lists that were deep enough to include him.  Rodriguez's 2014 stat line makes him look like a soft-tossing lefty.  Interestingly enough, despite his low career strikeout rates, Rodriguez actually was featured in a Nathaniel Stoltz profile as a power lefty.  He throws hard for a lefty, sitting in the low-to-mid-90's, and, thanks to the Pirates emphasis on it, is showing a good change-up.  Still, at some point, the stuff needs to play up and result in performance.  While he hasn't been bad, he's been the weakest of the Pirates' trio of 22-year old starters thus far.

The Veteran: LHP Brandon Mann
The top strikeout rate on the team actually belongs to Brandon Mann, who has largely thrown out of the bullpen.  He's also 30 years old, apparently did not play in organized baseball last season, and before that spent two years in Japan.  He last appeared in the affiliated minors in 2010 with the Dodgers after being cut loose by the Tampa Bay Rays, who drafted him as an 18-year old in 2002.  He's not a prospect, and is undoubtedly pretty far down on the depth charts.  But he's left-handed, so you never know, right?  Kudos to him for working his way back into affiliated baseball.

Prospecting the Altoona Curve, Part 1: Position Players

I live fairly close to Altoona, PA, which is the home of the Altoona Curve.  They are the Pirates' AA affiliate, and as such get a pretty constant stream of prospects that go through the club, only to arrive in Pittsburgh a year or so later.  I've long wanted to pay closer attention to my "local" club.  I'm heading to a game in a little over a week, so I thought I'd do a short post profiling the Curve's starting lineup.

The "Rank" I'm reporting below is from Chris St. John's consensus preseason prospect rankings.  They aren't perfect, but I'm more interested in who is on the prospect radar than who is the #8 vs. #9 prospect in the system.  All projections are courtesy of Oliver, and are preseason projections.  Bold-faced players are the team's regulars.

Top Prospect: Alen Hanson, SS

Hanson is the clear top prospect among the position players--you could argue he might be the only one--ranking in the top-10 on pretty much everyone's list.  While there are apparently some questions about his defense, his fielding projection is quite strong (though shy of Gift Ngoepe's fielding projection).  He is (along with Willy Garcia) the youngest player on the team, and yet projects with the second-best MLB wOBA of anyone on the ballclub.  Offensively, he's hit solidly thus far in his second look at AA pitching (half season last year), and is showing good improvement from last year.  But I think it's worth noting that he has the lowest walk rate on his club among the starters.  He walked better at lower levels, but has yet to do so at AA.

Top Projection: Stetson Allie, 1B

The former pitching prospect-turned position player is known as a power threat, and he has hit 8 home runs thus far after hitting 21 last year.  He apparently revamped his swing a bit from last season.  It hasn't changed his peripheral numbers, but he's continued to hit very well in AA after mashing his way through A-ball last year.  If he continues to hit like this, I think he's likely to show up in some of next years' prospect lists.

Best Start to 2014: Keon Broxton

At 24, Keon is a getting to be a bit old for this level.  But he's had a lot of fun this season, which is his first with the Pirates after spending his career with the Diamondbacks.  He has posted his best wOBA of his career (so far) along with the lowest strikeout rate of his career.  I don't know much about him, but I did find it amusing that he once beat out Paul Goldschmidt for the 10th spot on Marc Hulet's 2011 Arizona Diamondbacks top 10.  Whoops!

Two other guys

Willy Garcia is the other 21-year old on this squad, and has been a below-average hitter while piling on the strikeouts in the early part of the season.  He had a decent full year in High-A ball last year, however, so it may be best to let him fight through his struggles in AA.  

Gift Ngoepe was one of the players I got to see in Altoona last season.  He's a fun, scrappy little guy who plays great defense up the middle (last year at shortstop, this year at 2B).  He's also off to a nice start with the bat...but unfortunately, his lack of power and ample contact issues will probably prevent him from making  much of an impact at the major league level.  

A look at the Curve's pitching will come some other night!

Pirates at Reds Preview

Last night, I wrote up a preview for the Pirates vs. Reds series.  It is now posted over at Red Reporter!

I like this Pirates club a lot more than I expected to coming into this. With one exception, their lineup looks both young and solid, and they have a deep bench that they can use to try to platoon away some of their weaknesses. Their rotation looks solid as well, and includes at least one young guy with a lot of upside. And I like that they are innovative: their aggressive use of the shift last season has been cited as an important reason for their success. In a lot of ways, they remind me of a light version of the Rays. If they can keep inserting useful parts into their pitching rotation, this is a team that can be a major presence in the NL Central for a long time to come.