Three Things About the Pirates
With a sweep of the Royals this weekend, the Pittsburgh Pirates moved into a tie with Cincinnati for first place in the National League Central. If you read baseball blogs, you probably realize how surprising this is. Sure, last year the Pirates had a winning record as late as August 1 before finishing the season 72-90. But rather than getting into an overall “are they going to regress?” post, I’d like to be more light-hearted (or shallow, depending on your perspective), and look at three curious facets of this particular Pirates team so far.
Who needs offense? The Pittsburgh offense was not expected to be good this season, but, well. Let’s put it this way: one might wonder whether the Pirates are using the contrast between to Andrew McCutchen‘s 156 wRC+ and the rest of the team as a concrete demonstration that lineup protection is a myth. It is one thing for McCutchen to be the only above-average hitter on the team, or for only Garrett Jones and Neil Walker to have wRC+-es over 90. The Pirates’ team wRC+ is currently 70.
How bad is that? The hilariously impotent 2010 and 2011 Mariners were substantially better. For a broader perspective, take a look at all of the team-seasons since 1955 (the era for which the base linear weights for wOBA are most appropriate). Only one team has a worse wRC+: the 1963 Mets, at 69. That team finished 51-111. Only two other teams had a wRC+ of 70: the 1965 Mets (50-112) and the 1981 Blue Jays (37-69 in a strike-marred season). Sure, someone has got to regress somewhere, but still, wow.
Pitching stories: I don’t care how much “luck” a team has had with respect to their Pythagorean expectation and actual record, or how “clutch” they have been (more on that below), with the an offense that offensive to good baseball taste, something needs to be going well with the pitching. The Pirates’ pitchers are not dominating, and are in the middle of the pack overall. Yet there are at least three nice stories and performances so far this season among their starters.
Perhaps the least surprising performance of the three I am singling out is Erik Bedard‘s. After all, Bedard’s problem has never been talent, but health. Still, while some may have wondered what the point of signing Bedard was for a rebuilding team like the Pirates. Yes, it is good to have non-horrible players, even in a rebuilding year, but Bedard could just as easily haven gotten hurt and ruined his trade value. For now, he’s been a big part of why the Pirates remain in the mix, despite the high walk rate.
More encouraging for the Pirates beyond this season has been the performance of James McDonald (27), who came over after a wacky 2010 with the Dodgers in a trade. After a less-than-awesome 2011 with Pittsburgh, he has easily been their best starter so far this season, with a 2.39 ERA and 2.72 FIP. McDonald has posted impressive improvements in his strikeout and walk rates. One cannot simplu discount either his past performances nor good ol’ regression to the mean. However, the addition of a slider as one of his main pitches may also be an indication that the new level of performance is more sustainable than as merely binomial approach may lead one to believe. Now, if only Dr. Andrews stays away. Surely a guy with an awesome middle name like “Zell” is immune to injury? (hat tip to Mike Petriello)
Finally, we have A.J. Burnett: what can we say about this guy? Given up for as dead in New York, he has found a new lease on life in Pittsburgh. Sure, some of that is getting over his 2011 gopher-itis (part of that is probably switch parks), and some of that is probably facing pitchers. Still, after the last two seasons of “A.J. Burnett is done,” him pitching very effectively so far this season is a nice surprise, and certainly is a big part of why the Pirates are still in this thing (at least as far as the standings go).
CLUTCH~! The Pirates’ current record is 32-27. Their Pythagorean record is 27-32. Using Pythagorean record as the key to true talent is something that is overdone, but so is the “good managers make their teams outperform their Pythagorean record” non-explanation. So how is Pittsburgh pulling this off? Well, they have been very, very “clutch.” Of the National League offenses, only the Mets’ and Nationals’ have been more “clutch” so far this season. Pirates’ pitchers lead all National League teams in “clutchness” — the next closest team, the Giants is almost a win behind in this respect.
What this means, in short, is that the Pirates have been performing much better in high-leverage situations on both sides of the ball than they have on average. I will leave it to others to debate whether or not this is a skill of the players involved or something special Clint Hurdle is doing.
Will the offense remain futile (it has to be better than this, right?)? Will the pitching hold up its end? Will the team’s good performance in crucial situations “even out” over the rest of the season? There are good ways of dealing with these questions, but that is for another time. At the moment, the Pirates have 32 wins in the bank and are in first, and they have done it with some nice starting pitching unexpected places, despite an offense “on pace’ to be historically awful, and clutch performances all around. Whatever happens for the rest of the season, so far it has been fun.
Dude spell his name right, its MCCUTCHEN… aren’t you like an expert or something?!?
His name is Andrew McCutchen. He is an elite player. Learn his name. Nobody has trouble with moustakas.
Perhaps his name should be McClutchen, because he’s so damn clutch.
I do. Hate that damn eggplant. And it’s Moussaka, by the way.
does the spelling of his name matter more because he’s elite? Now that Alex Gordone is struggling is it ok to mispell his name? What about Eric Eyebar? or Rickey Weaks?
oh and chill out guys, people make grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. last I checked this site had to do with BASEBALL ANALYSIS, not poetry, prose, and grammar.
So true! These FanGraphs writers, SO RACIST. I’ve never ONCE seen “Teixeira” misspelled because people just know, he’s white, so they gotta get it right.
(McCutchen’s been on one of my keeper league fantasy teams for a few years now. I still spell it “McCutcheon” all the time.)
Ricky Weaks is actually pretty apt.
During the 12-3 run they are just a tick below 4.4 runs per game (above NL average). Not a huge sample, but the bats have been better.
A team full of outstanding veteran players like Rod Barajas, Clint Barmes and Casey McGehee. I saw this coming. While J-Mac is no Octavio Dotel, the rest of the pitching staff and bullpen look good, but could use someone with experience like LaTroy Hawkins or Scott Proctor.
I find it hard to believe that you can realistically compare J-Mac to Dotel, considering J-Mac is a starter and Dotel closed for the Buccos two seasons ago. While saving twenty-one games that year, during his stint with the Pirates, Dotel only achieved an ERA of 4.28 and a WHIP of 1.30. Through his first twelve starts of the year, J-Mac has amassed an ERA of 2.39 and a WHIP of .996. So based on the numbers so far, it would be accurate to say that Dotel is no J-Mac.
Whoosh
I guess Neal don’t do sarcasm.
Really bro?
Scott Proctor (as a Yankees pitcher) was such an influential part of the Rays making the playoffs last year.
Agent Ned, you are correct.
They seem like a team that can structurally beat their pythag record. They play good defense and have a strong bullpen. Hanrahan means they’re probably more likely to eek out close victories. They have to be due for some positive regression. Most importantly, their most difficult part of the schedule is already over. Even with their negative run differential, I think the odds of them getting to at least 81 wins is about 55-60%.
They’re like the bizarro Cardinals, who plan to win every game 10-2 and lose every game 5-4.
I know spelling is difficult, and names are particularly hard, but really!? Andrew McCutcheon? That doesn’t sound close in pronunciation.
Just as I say it :)
‘McCutcheon’ is the old world spelling of ‘McCutchen’. They are as ‘McLaughlin’ is to ‘McClachlen’. They are pronounced exactly the same. Were you thinking the ‘-eon’ gets pronounced like ‘ion’?
I cannot believe how many people are complaining about this. Chill out and move on. It’s not a huge deal and people make typos regularly. Good god.
Professional Web sites don’t have typos regularly. Only this one.
It’s no big deal to me, either. But I would prefer their ‘fessing up to casual editing, be it for legitimate reasons of cost, or convenience, or speed. Rather than pretending they edit to a standard they so often don’t meet.
I’m sorry, but if you’re a Pirates fan and read lots of articles and comments and whatnot then you see this wrong spelling ALL THE DAMN TIME and it is incredibly annoying. As far as I’m concerned it should corrected and the person who made the error should be derided so that they and anyone else reading don’t the same mistake for the billionth time.
I think this year as opposed to last, their team is much better built for handling a regression.
They’ve already dealt with an abysmal offense and it’s at least showing signs of life, so it’s not unrealistic to think the offense can play how they are in June if not improve, especially if they add a bat.
Also, they have much better pitchers this year. The three starters you mentioned are guys who are getting it done with skill instead of luck. Last year, guys like Corriea, Maholm, and Morton were pitching above their heads and regression and injuries hit like a truck. This year, what they get for Corriea and Morton has been a bonus and if Karstens comes back, he’d be a very good 4th or 5th starter, as he can pitch better than the others.
The bullpen is due to regress soon but probably not by a ton. It seemed like this series at least they were stranding an inhuman amount of runners. Part of it has been the mediocrity of the Royals offense, but eventually some of the bullpen guys will get it, mainly Juan Cruz who somehow stakes out of innings with a low ERA despite an astronomical WHIP.
How can you run piece about the Pirates unexpected success and nor bring up how terrific their bullpen has pitched? Sure the rotation has been good led my MacDonald, Burnett, and Bedard, but that bullpen has been off the charts. They had three different relievers lock down saves this week all in one run games.
The bullpen actually looks due for more regression than the starters; every single reliever except Evan Meek has an ERA lower than his FIP and xFIP, whereas most of the starters have peripherals that are as good as or better than their ERAs. On the other hand, SIERA pretty much uniformly likes the bullpen better than xFIP does (and judges the starters about the same).
A whole lot of relievers across MLB routinely outperform their peripherals. I wouldn’t count on regression for this reason.
How many wins are added getting to play the Chubs and Stros fairly often? And that weak ass interleague the NL Central always gets.
Hey Trollface! I wondered where you disappeared to after the Reds crushed your pathetic Braves in 4 straight games. Did it take this long to come out of that alcohol induced coma? Funny you mention the Cubs since your Bravos scored a grand total of 4 runs in three games against them and you LOST two of three to them. How badly did you hit the bottle that weekend?
Why don’t you worry about your weak ass starting rotation and your overrated 23 year old starters? That Tyler Pastornicky is really tearing up AAA, isn’t he? Why don’t you start worrying about the real 23 and under stars in WASH (Strasburg & Harper) than the Central? I wouldn’t be so chesty about the racists’ record of 14-11 against Central teams either …
Wow. That was a thorough drubbing.
If you’re gonna judge the Pirates’ upcoming schedule, then you should also examine the games they’ve already played (the ones in which they outperformed their pythagorean record)… during which they played the Cubs three times, and the Astros not at all. and their “weak ass” interleague schedule started with 3 games vs. the Tigers in May (which included getting one-hit by Verlander)
the thing is, the Pirates had the most difficult schedule in baseball for the first 2 months of the season, and yet they still outperformed their expected record. I would certainly hope that the rest of their schedule this year is easier!
I know the grammar issue has been beaten to death at this point but this was one of Fangraphs’ most error-riddled articles that I’ve read. Just a simple re-read by Matt should’ve fixed 90% of this.
Ugh. Most any Final Fantasy fan would tell you that Zell is most certainly not a cool name of any kind.
simplu
i think you meant “simply”
6th paragraph.
Nope, I think they meant simplu. I think it’s latin.
Damn, came here to see if I should keep starting McDonald every time out or expect regression (I am of the keep starting him camp) and the majority of you are tattooing the article for grammar. The five fingers to the face of Antonio Bananas was good though, but bad for Braves fans.