With Spring Training thankfully less than a month away for your Pittsburgh Pirates, what better time to open the doors to questions from our readership?
We recently put out a call for any burning questions you may have regarding the Pirates. As you can probably expect, the questions were many and varied. Here’s a selection of some of the best queries that we received.
QUESTION: Are we ever going to get a power hitting first baseman?
ANSWER: On the surface, it’s easy to understand the hand-wringing that goes along with the loss of Pedro Alvarez’s 27 home runs in 2015. After getting past the initial shock, a different picture starts to emerge. The simple fact is that the myth of a power-hitting first baseman being a necessity is slowly going away, at least in the National League.
Consider this: the average totals of the top five first baseman home run leaders for the National League was 40.16 from 2006-2010. In 2011 through last year, that average dropped to 29.08, a drop of 27 percent. In 2010 the leader in home runs by a first baseman was Albert Pujols with 42. In 2011, Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks led the way with 33.
To more directly answer your question, I believe that the Pirates will not invest anything further in the first base position until they decide on what they have in Josh Bell. Critics will say that Bell did not have much power during his time in Triple-A Indianapolis, but for a team like the Pirates who value run creation in more ways that just the long ball, this is not necessarily the red flag it’s made out to be.
Q: Who of the existing players on the MLB squad right now assumes the 4th/5th starter role?
A: The easy answers are Jeff Locke and Ryan Vogelsong, and it does not necessarily matter who assumes which role. It’s no coincidence that the team has spent a huge percentage of its available resources in strengthening the bullpen. With general manager Neal Huntington all but conceding that the team can afford a “soft spot” in the rotation, expect both of these hurlers to be put on short leashes during their starts.
In the case of Locke, that short leash may be something he will have to get used to. For Locke, the formula to stay in the rotation is a simple one: lower his walks. Although he gave up almost a full hit per nine innings more in ’15 than in ’14 (9.6 to 8.7, respectively), the real number that hurt Locke was his walks-per-nine innings. Giving up 3.2 free passes per “game” is an ugly mark by any measure. With stellar defense behind him, the Pirates will live with the amount of hits that he will inevitably allow. Giving a team free base runners cannot happen at the rate Locke has allowed it to.
Speaking of Vogelsong…
Q: Vogelsong? Really?
A: Yes, really. Of all of the team’s offseason moves, this is easily the hardest to understand for many. The 37-year-old veteran did not appear to have much left in the tank last year, and many of the peripherals supported that thinking. Interestingly enough, one factor that stayed static for Vogelsong – over most of the past five years in fact – has been his strikeout ability. With 108 strikeouts in 135 total innings last year, Vogelsong struck out 7.2 batters per nine innings. Of his five pitches, his curveball carried the best swing-and-miss percentage with an 11.23 percent rating. In this way, Vogelsong may provide a complement to the rest of the Pirates starters who rely on sharp movement to produce whiffs and ground balls.
Q: Can Neftali Feliz find his old dominant stuff and stay healthy to potentially turn the bullpen into the best in MLB?
A: In building the bullpen for 2015, Huntington may be taking a page out of his own playbook. Last year saw the team target some serious flamethrowers with flyers before the season started. True, Radhames Liz flamed out, but the Pirates saw a fantastic addition in hard-throwing Arquimedes Caminero. It’s a fact that the club’s average velocity among all of its pitching staff has risen steadily in each year since Huntington took the helm. Feliz is known for his velocity, which has not wavered much since his breakout 2009 American League rookie-of-the-year season. That year saw an average fastball speed of 97.50 mph. Last year saw him average 95.59 on the gun with the four-seam fastball.
Skeptics will point to Feliz’s disastrous stint with the Tigers last year in which he posted a 7.62 ERA. When looking at his FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching) of 3.95, there is still a ton of potential in bringing Feliz back from the perceived scrap heap. He doesn’t have to be as dominant as he has been in the past, but if he can approach Caminero-like productivity, he’ll be a valuable piece.
In short, the velocity has not left, and this means that Feliz has a great shot at bouncing back.
Q: Can Gregory Polanco take his game to the next level and show us he can be the 1978-79 version of Dave Parker, a do it all player?
A: To expect anyone in their age-23 season to replicate Parker’s 1978 MVP numbers would be asking a lot. In that year, Parker led the NL in batting average (.334), Slugging (.585!), and OPS (.979). Polanco cannot much Parker’s raw power ability, but I am bullish on Polanco’s 2016 for several reasons.
First, he ranked third on the team in walk rate at 8.4 percent, trailing only Andrew McCutchen and Francisco Cervelli. Second, his strikeout rate showed an admittedly small improvement – 18.9 percent in 2014 to 18.6 percent in 2015 – despite doubling his plate appearances year over year.
Any improvement for a second-year player who also happens to be in his first full year as a regular is very encouraging.
Most encouraging in my view are Polanco’s 35 doubles. Despite only hitting nine home runs, Polanco showed great ability to drive the ball. As he matures and faces more major league pitching, it’s easy to envision El Coffee enjoying a potential 20/20/20 season (20+ doubles, 20 home runs, 20 stolen bases.)
Curiously enough, Dave Parker had back to back 20/20/20 seasons in 1978-1979.
Interesting.
That does it for this week’s installment of our pre-Spring Training Pirates mailbag. Stay tuned next week for Part Two! Have a question you want answered next week? Let us know in the comments, on our Facebook page, or please follow me on twitter and ask away.
