I admit, this was a tough one. Let’s start with the man that the fans and media feel the most negative about, Ben Cherington. Two years ago he picked Paul Skenes over Dylan Crews. I for one thought he should have picked Crews. Boy, was I wrong. It’s too early to put Crews in the same category as Henry Davis but he has not produced at the MLB level. He has had some injuries but his slash line in 196 plate appearances is .209/.280/.360 for an OPS+ of 81. Last year he picked Konnor Griffin in the first round. At 19 years of age he is the no.1 prospect in all of baseball. He is in AA where he seems to be making the adjustment fine, getting 3 hits last night. Tremar Johnson who just turned 21 in June is doing better lately. In AA his line is .267/.347/.393 with 9 homers and 31 RBI’s.
The Pirate’ pitching staff is above league average in every important pitching stat except strike outs. I believe the Pirates should keep the pitching staff intact. The Pirates need offensive help but not as much as you think. If the Pirates had scored 4 runs in every game their record would be 68-60 at the moment. They would be right in the wild card hunt. Their league worse average is 3.51 per game. Scoring 4 runs per game would move them to 25th. This is just a half a run a game. They could easily do this in the free agent market. I do not see the need to weaken a strength.
Finally, the Pirates have 8 players whose OPS+ is between 99 and 91. This 1 to 9% below league average. Even though they have no one above league average it is the most they have had above 90. There are 34 games to go. If some of these players get hot the offense may have a nice stretch run. Of course these 8 players have to play. This blog is supposed to be all positive so I won’t mention who could be standing in their way.
Well there it is, a positive Pirate blog. I did my best. The Pirates open a 3 game series against the Rockies tonight. I have a feeling things will be back to normal tomorrow. I could be wrong and they might sweep the Rockies. If that happens there could be more positive blogs in the future. It would be a nice change.
The Goofy Game of Golf/Life Searching for the Answer 