Huntington Faces Tough Decisions

As we approach the midpoint of the baseball season and with the trade deadline less than a month away, Pirates management and General Manager Neal Huntington have a very interesting decision on their hands. The Pirates sit at 41-39, only 2 games out of first place in the NL Central and only one game back in the loss column. This is the Pirates best record through 80 games since the 18 year losing streak began and fans are excited. No doubt that the temptation is there for Huntington to make a trade to improve this ballclub and make a run at their first winning season and maybe even an outside shot at contention in nearly two decades.

Under normal circumstances, aka one where the team has not had 18 consecutive losing seasons, I would say hold it right there. This team has obvious deficiencies, is pitching a bit over its head and is still another year or two away from truly contending. The advice would be to move parts, such as Paul Maholm, Kevin Correia and/or whoever else may not be part of the team in the future, to continue building for success over the next few years. The Pirates have the core parts of their team going forward in place – Andrew McCutchen, Jose Tabata, Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker, Charlie Morton, James McDonald, Ross Ohlendorf, Joel Hanrahan – but there are still plenty of holes to fill for this team to contend with the Reds, Cardinals and Brewers over the next 2-3 years. Trading Maholm, Correia, Matt Diaz, Garrett Jones and/or all of the above could fill a couple of those holes moving forward.

It would also almost guarantee another losing season in 2011 and upset a fan base dying to get behind this team. That is where this decision gets interesting. If the Pirates are able to continue winning or at least stay near the .500 mark into August and September, it could give the Pirates a significant financial windfall. Can you imagine PNC Park in August or September if the Pirates are even near the playoff race? Just the chance at breaking the losing streak would have the stadium filled every night and what if there is no NFL season? This “success” could be worth millions, and maybe tens of millions, to the ballclub over the next couple of months if they continue to overachieve. Huntington could aid this effort with a shrewd acquisition or two coupled with the healthy returns of Pedro Alvarez, Jose Tabata and Ryan Doumit. So Mr. Huntington, what’s it going to be? Continue with your plan of building a strong nucleus around McCutchen, Alvarez and others with the chance to contend over the next five years or go for the short term bliss and financial gain that would accompany it by holding onto valuable trading chips and even trading away a prospect or two to boost your chances.

While the situation may not be ideal, it is still the best possible scenario Huntington and his staff could have hoped for entering the 2011 season. To make matters a little easier, Huntington can even play a little on both sides of the fence and see what’s out there. To me, this is the path he should go down. Huntington should explore trade scenarios for Maholm, Correia, Doumit and anyone that may not be here over the next couple of years. If you find a piece in return that could substantially improve the ballclub over the next few years, you make the trade and deal with the repercussions from the fans later. If you don’t find an offer that you really like, you hold on to those guys, think about picking up their option years where available, and you hope for the best the rest of the season.

At the same time Huntington is shopping his own players for pieces towards the future, he should be on the hunt for position players that could help the Pirates dreadful offense in the near term. The players Huntington should be targeting are guys who will be salary dumps by their current teams and require no substantial prospects to be dealt in return. One problem here is that only a few teams are out of contention at this point and it may become more of a seller’s market than a buyer’s. Perusing the standings, the only players that immediately come to mind are Carlos Pena of the Cubs and Gaby Sanchez (arbitration eligible after this year) of the Marlins. Both teams would be happy to dump these players’ salaries but both would probably want something in return, especially the Marlins who still control Sanchez’ rights. So while the thought of acquiring immediate help is nice, and the Pirates should certainly have some money to play with, the actual cost of getting something done in terms of what you have to give up could be a problem.

As the Pirates fans get more and more excited about their current ballclub and rightfully so, it is going to be a long, hard month for Neil Huntington as he tries to figure out what to do for this organization that best fits their long term plan while not disrupting the current team’s success. I think the best case scenario for the Buccos would be acquiring another bat at nothing more than the cost of his salary for the rest of the year (think Carlos Pena), a healthy Pedro Alvarez and Jose Tabata return, provide more offense and look like the building blocks the Pirates hope they are, and a trade of Paul Maholm that nets the ballclub another piece or two that could help the team contend over the next 2-3 years. A healthy and productive return of Ross Ohlendorf, the development of Alex Presley as an outfielder, or anything else that could potentially help this year’s team would be gravy on top.

I do have another proposal for Pirates fans. Let’s just enjoy the ride that the ballclub is on. It is fun to debate what the team should and shouldn’t do before the trade deadline but it has been so long since we have seen a team play good baseball, let’s just enjoy this relative success and see what happens as the season progresses.

Pirates Showing Improvement

Those that stayed up late last night saw the Pirates commit a series of miscues and poor decisions that led to blowing a late lead and a shot at .500. The loss had the feel of one of those “same old Buccos” losses that we have become accustomed to over the past 18 years. Those losses, however, have been few and far between so far this year. At the 30-game mark, the Pirates sit a respectable 14-16 and only three games out of first place in the NL Central. While the Pirates have gotten off to some decent starts during their current consecutive losing seasons streak, there is some legitimate cause for hope stemming from this relative batch of competent play.

First, the Pirates run-differential of -20 is worse than a normal team you would expect to be 2 games under .500 but that number is heavily skewed from a truly terrible series in Florida a couple weeks ago in which the Pirates were outscored 21-5 in the Marlins three game sweep. The Pirates run differential in their other 27 games is -4, essentially what you would expect from a .500 or slightly below team. Second, the Pirates record is not built on a mirage of wins in one run games. The Pirates 5-4 record in games decided by one run and 7-6 record in games decided by two runs or less is pretty much par for the course for any Major League team. In the past, the Pirates respectable starts have been fueled by an inordinate amount of one run wins, games that are statistically proven to be complete toss-ups no matter how good (or how bad) a team is. Last year, for example, the Pirates got off to an identical 14-16 record but that came about from a 6-2 record in games decided by one run and a 10-2 record in games decided by two runs or less. The writing was on the wall that the 2010 Buccos would come crashing back down to earth, which they soon did losing 35 of their next 47 games.

Third and most importantly, is that the Pirates have received little contribution from their two best players in Andrew McCutchen and Pedro Alvarez. McCutchen has a proven track record at this point. In over 1,000 career at-bats Cutch has a batting average of .280 and an OPS of .815. Those numbers are pretty much the minimum we should expect from a guy entering his age 24 season. As of last night, the Pirates center fielder is batting .222 and has an OPS of .737. Alvarez, without the track record possessed by McCutchen, can at least be expected to provide some power. Alvarez hit 16 HRs in 347 at-bats last year, or a HR every 21 at-bats or so. This year Alvarez has just 1 HR in his first 99 at-bats and is slugging just .283 on the season. Even if you do not believe Alvarez is the real deal, which I do by the way, you have to at least admit he is going to hit home runs at a rate a good bit better than 1 per every 100 at-bats. Alvarez’ minor league track record also suggests that he is a slow starter, meaning we should begin to see some major improvement from him in the coming weeks.

With McCutchen setting the table and Alvarez providing some pop that the Pirates desperately need, I expect the Pirates to drastically improve upon their 3.6 runs per game that currently ranks 15th in the National League. I do not expect the Pirates to become the ’27 Yankees overnight but somewhere around the eighth to tenth best offense in the National League can be expected.

While the Pirates’ line-up has generally underperformed to this point, with the notable exception of Garrett Jones, the pitching has been even better than Clint Hurdle and his staff could have hoped for. Kevin Correia, who takes the mound for the Pirates tonight as they try to win their fifth road series of the season, has a 2.90 ERA in six starts. Charlie Morton is at 3.52 and Paul Maholm has an ERA of 4.14. The career ERAs of those three starters are 4.48, 5.65 and 4.46, respectively. While none of the three can be expected to keep up their current pace, it is reasonable to assume based on their history, their home ballpark and the Pirates relatively solid defense (as well as Morton’s new pitching motion and style), that each will finish the season with an ERA in the low to mid fours.

The funny thing is that the Pirates’ ERA of 3.73 (which ranks 10th in the NL and while that doesn’t sound great it is a remarkable improvement from the Majors’ worst staff a year ago) is respectable despite terrible performances so far from the Pirates three most dependable pitchers from last year in James McDonald, Ross Ohlendorf and Evan Meek. The Pirates are certainly hoping for and can reasonably expect more from McDonald and Ohlendorf, who have combined to give up 30 earned runs in only 39 innings of work. Both McDonald and Ohlendorf had career ERAs as starters in the low fours entering the season. At the end of the day, the Pirates have a rotation full of #3, #4 or #5 type starters. Those guys are not going to win you the pennant but they can certainly keep a team respectable and competitive through the course of a season.

Summing everything up, the Pirates’ hitting should see some expected improvement as McCutchen and Alvarez begin coming around while the pitching should see things return to more reasonable individual expectations but stay relatively the same from an overall standpoint. I have some legitimate hope, for the first time in a long time, that this Pirates team can remain competitive for the balance of the season. That isn’t to say that Pirates fans should expect the team to compete for a playoff spot but a more reasonable goal of 70-75 wins is a possibility. Seeing where this team was the past few years and that the core of it should be in Pittsburgh for at least the next few years, there is finally reason to believe that there actually is hope sometime in the near future. That should be considered improvement in itself.