Battling Bucs : The Quest For Righty McThump

Some of you may recall a few years ago when the Pirates seemed to be constantly in pursuit of a power left handed hitter to help balance out the lineup and take some pressure off of Jason Bay. Fast forward a few years later and the Pirates have those types of hitters coming out there ears. Jones, Snider, Alvarez and even Walker all to some degree fit that description. Those 4 hitters are great against right handed pitching and really compliment the right handed bats of Martin, Marte, McCutchen and who ever is playing shortstop.
However there is a problem here and that is that none of those 4 are particularly effective against left handed pitching. The Pirates only have 5 players who have hit left handers with any degree of success this season and they are Martin, Sanchez, Mercer, Marte and McCutchen. Those 5 need to be in the lineup against every left handed pitcher but the problem becomes who do you have play the other three positions?
Below is a break down of how the other 8 usual position players are faring against left handed pitching this season. I used wRC+ as it is a fairly comprehensive offensive measure and is pretty straight forward with 100 being average and each point above or below being a percentage point above/below average.
Pedro Alvarez: 45 wRC+
Jose Tabata: 32 wRC+
Neil Walker: 13 wRC+
Travis Snider: 10 wRC+
Clint Barmes: -4 wRC+
Brandon Inge: -9 wRC+
Michael McKenry: -14 wRC+
Garrett Jones: -24 wRC+
Now obviously some of that is sample size related and these 8 players for the most part aren't going to keep hitting quite this bad against left handed pitching moving forward but it is still concerning. For a larger sample size I looked at how these same 8 hitters have fared since the start of 2011.
Jose Tabata: 103 wRC+
Clint Barmes: 82 wRC+
Brandon Inge: 81 wRC+
Neil Walker: 70 wRC+
Pedro Alvarez: 67 wRC+
Michael McKenry: 64 wRC+
Travis Snider: 58 wRC+
Garrett Jones: 29 wRC+
Now I should point out that Snider's sample is still less than 100 PA but I think these for the most part paint a better a picture. Starting at the top there is reason to be somewhat optimistic with Tabata. Even with his awful season last year included Tabata has been about average against left handed pitching and really that isn't a bad thing. Even the next two Barmes and Inge don't have particularly scary numbers but one has to remember at their ages it is entirely possible and even likely they are experiencing some kind of decline in skills. The numbers of the last 5 probably speak fairly well of their talent level against left handed pitching and that isn't a good thing.
So if we include Tabata the Pirates have a C, 1B, 3 OF and 1 IF that can hit left handers at something resembling a reasonable level or better. They also have two infielders who haven't been awful over the last three seasons but who are obviously on a steep decline and are more likely to continue to hit left handers poorly than to rebound to those non-awful numbers.
The bottom line here is the Pirates need to find somebody who can play the infield and hit left handed pitching. Two some bodies actually probably wouldn't be a bad idea but they could certainly deal with one of Alvarez, Barmes or Walker taking up a spot. Additionally adding an outfielder with the same skill set would probably be a fairly good idea as well. Tabata may be decent at it but he does come with some health concerns. Moving forward it is complimentary pieces like this the Pirates need to focus their attention on. Be it external moves or internal moves the Pirates need to improve their offense and a great first step would be adding some people who can hit left handed pitching. Or in other words going on a quest for Righty McThump.