The Pirates were off yesterday, but the Pirate management team does not consider these rest days. After all, the Pirates have to travel, and as we all know, this can be exhausting for people in their mid-20s. The Pirates stand at 11-18 right now. They are in last place, 6 games out of first place. Baseball Reference has listed their chance of making the playoffs at 0.2%. Quite frankly, I feel that is optimistic. Most of the Pirates’ problems have been on offense. Surprisingly, they have played pretty good defense. They are currently ranked 14th in Defensive Efficiency, which is in the top half of the league. The pitching has been good, giving up an average of 4.43 runs per game. This places them 15th in the league. In any important offensive statistic, the Pirates ranked as high as 23rd and as low as 28th.
Here is one interesting fact about the Pirates offense. The Pirates have 4 players: Joey Bart, Oneil Cruz, Andrew McCutchen, and Enmanuel Valdez that have OPS+ over 100. This means they are all above league-average hitters. Cruz leads the way with an impressive OPS+ of 154. Until they had recent slumps, Bryan Reynolds and Isiah Kiner-Falefa were above league average. At the present moment, these are the 6 best Pirate hitters. They have not seen the most action. In fact, McCutchen, Bart, and Valdez are 7th, 8th, and 9th in plate appearances, respectively. Who is ahead of them? Of course, Tommy Pham and Adam Frazier. They have OPS+ of 41 and 79. Tommy Pham has come to the plate 11 more times than McCutchen. He has come to the plate 24 more times than Valdez. Frazier has come to the plate only 5 fewer times than Pham. This dynamic duo has combined for a batting average of .216 and has slugged .273. The third member of this hitting trifecta is Ke’Bryan Hayes. His OPS+ is at 73. He carries the robust average of .235 and is slugging a whopping .306. The excuse for playing him is his great glove, but he is playing a corner infield spot that is usually reserved for a big bat. The only reason Frazier and Pham are playing is so management can justify signing them. They do not care that these two are basically out machines. Pham has even batted leadoff. It’s not really like the Pirates don’t have players that can hit. They are just not given the opportunity to hit.
For the next 18 games, with the exception of the Cardinals, the Pirates are going to play teams that are over .500 or made the playoffs last year. They have 9 games at home and 9 games on the road. The only way this team is going to make any headway during this time is by playing the best players. That means we should not see much of the following players: Tommy Pham, Adam Frazier, Henry Davis, Alexander Canario, and Jared Triolo. Triolo playing against left-handed pitching is ok. I would rather give Valdez a shot at left-handed pitching than see Frazier on the field. The starting lineups on this last road trip, with the exception of Frazier and Pham, were pretty solid. We have to get rid of the exceptions if the Pirates have any chance of salvaging this season.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 