Pirates Morning Report: Home Opener Thoughts.

The home opener is today. Although only 7 games have been played, fans are more disheartened than ever. I feel as long as Derek Shelton is leading this team that things are not going to get better. It is not so much that the Pirates are 2-5, but how bad they have looked doing it. Missing cutoff men. Base running blunders. Bad throws. Very poor at-bats. Very odd starting lineups and batting orders. Will any moves be made? They made two moves. First, bringing up Thomas Harrington was a good move. Second, optioning David Bednar to AAA was not a good move. Let’s take a look at some of the good, the bad, and the ugly as the Pirates open up at home.

Yes, there is some good news even on the offensive side of the ball. Granted, all of this is a very small sample size. I still think it is good to look at some positive numbers with all the pessimism around. Oneil Cruz, IKF, and Andrew McCutchen are all hitting well above league average. Paul Skenes has been his brilliant self. The other three starters all did well. The waiver bullpen has not been that bad. The Marlins may not be as bad as we thought they were. After getting blown out by the Mets in the first game of the series, they won the next game. They lost a heartbreaker in the rubber match 6-5 in 10 innings.

The bad. There is plenty of that to go around. It is a very fine line between the bad and the ugly, but I will do my best. Management could be blamed for a lot of the early problems. Earlier, I mentioned that McCutchen has been one of the bright spots at the plate. Bryan Reynolds has an arm problem. The Pirates believed the best way to deal with it was to DH Reynolds. They decided to sit McCutchen. The results were not good. Reynolds was 2 for 13 as a DH. Most thought there was something wrong with McCutchen. The Pirates eventually cleared things up. David Bednar and Colin Holderman have not been good since the start of the season. Bednar was sent to AAA to get right. I am not sure he is going to get right facing a bunch of AAA batters. In my opinion, putting him in more low-leverage situations would have been much better. The Pirates will have plenty of those situations. If the Pirates are thinking like that, then they should send Holderman down too. The big concern here is that the Pirates have looked lackadaisical and uninterested for all 7 games.

The ugly. That can be summed up by two players: Ji Hwan Bae and Tommy Pham. Bae, who I had such high hopes for, looks totally lost out there. Bae has not had many opportunities, and I don’t blame the Pirates for that. When he pinch-ran for McCutchen, he did not know what the hell to do. Lack of opportunity is not Pham’s problem, but maybe it should be. Pham has appeared in all 7 games. He has had 27 plate appearances. Here is the ugly slash line: .087/.222/.130 for a 4 OPS+. Believe it or not, he is not the worst. There are 3 Pirates with negative OPS+ who will stay nameless because I am so kind. Despite Pham’s numbers, he has been the leadoff man and once batted cleanup. Finally, the Pirates have had some truly ugly lineup cards. The starting lineups make absolutely no sense. The Pirates spend a lot of money on the analytics department. It is by far the biggest waste of money in the organization. Either that or nobody listens to them. It is the home opener today against the New York Yankees, the most storied franchise in baseball. Will we see some more changes in the team makeup before the first pitch? Who knows? Only The Shadow Shelton knows for sure. Maybe

Right after I finished this, the Pirates did make a move. They sent Ji Hwan Bae back to AAA and activated Alexander Canario, who they just acquired from the Mets. There has been a lot of positive vibe from this acquisition. A lot of people are thinking Joey Bart II. In my view, that is wishful thinking. Still, I do not see how this guy could be worse than Bae or Pham. That could be a positive. I was happy to see Jason Delay get traded to the Braves. Maybe he will get a better opportunity there. Regardless, let’s hope the Pirates can be competitive against the Yankees. Even if they lose all three games, Shelton will be happy.