For the better part of the MLB season, we’ve been choosing our “Pirate of the Week” each week. Now, as the regular season is over and the Pittsburgh Pirates head into the postseason and get set to host the Wild Card playoff game, we want to bring you our Pirate of the Year. Without further hesitation, your Pirate of the Year is …
Andrew McCutchen.
McCutchen has been heralded as the team’s MVP all season. Just about every at-bat he has the chants of “MVP” ring out through PNC Park and even on the road. The Pirate faithful love their team’s leader, and they have good reason to.
For the regular season, McCutchen hit .317, drove in 84 RBIs and hit 21 long balls. He led the team in batting average, hits, and on-base percentage.
If you break it down, McCutchen was nothing but consistent all season.
Against lefties, he hit .388. Against righties, he hit .302. Both of those are solid averages, making him a threat at all times. 17 of his homers were belted off of right-handed pitchers, though. It seemed as if Cutch got a little pumped up when he was hitting in front of his home crowd, hitting .337 and blasting 9 home runs for the season at PNC. There also seemed to be something about playing under the lights as Cutch hit .330 during night games this season. 17 of his home runs also came at night.
Despite his slow start to the season, Cutch hit over .300 in every month of the season except for April. His best month was August where he hit a blistering .384. He was pretty consistent all season, hitting at least two home runs and driving in at least 10 RBI’s each month of the season. He even had a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 12th inning against Milwaukee in May.
The Pirates have been historically known for their post All Star break collapse, but Cutch picked it up during that stretch.
Before the break, he was hitting .309. After the break? He hit .339 to finish the season. He also struck out less during the second half and even drew more walks.
No one team seemed to give him trouble during the season as he only hit below .240 against one team, which was the Detroit Tigers in which he hit .200 against for the season. On the other side of that, he hit over .500 against three teams (Miami, Houston, Texas).
Cutch did his best hitting when the count was 0-1, making 23 of 43 at-bats successful with that count. He hit .282 with runners in scoring position, .290 with runners on base, .245 with runners on and two out, and .340 with the bases empty.
For the entire season, McCutchen stepped up when his team needed him. When his town needed him. The Pirates needed to have a solid second half of the season to make a serious playoff push, and they got two solid halves from McCutchen to lead them into the postseason.
There’s no need to question why McCutchen is this year’s Pittsburgh Sporting News Pirate of the Year.
Here’s some video evidence to leave you with to start off Buctober.
Photo Credit: JMillerphotography.com
