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The Pirates At the 100 Game Mark

By Kipper @pghsportsforum
The Pirates are 60 - 40 going into the series in Miami and coming off a very impressive series in Washington where the Pirates took 3 of 4 and are now 4 - 3 since the All Star break with all of the games on the road at Cincy and Wash. Count me as one of those folks who is thrilled with those results. After the Miami Series, the Cardinals come to Pittsburgh for a five game series. At the 100 game mark the Pirates trail St Louis by 2.5 games, and are ahead of Cincy who are 5 games behind the Cards. However, the Cardinals are on a 12 - 3 streak, and the Reds are 6 - 2 since the AS Break. At a dashboard vision, how are the Pirates doing?
  • Hitting - All of MLB the Cardinals are #2 at .278; the Reds are #15 at .255; the Pirates are #24 at .243.
  • Pitching - Pirates #1 at 3.09 ERA; Reds #2 at 3.35 ERA; Cardinals #3 at a 3.37 ERA
  • Fielding - Cardinals #3 at .989; Reds #7 at .987; Pirates #21 at .982

Pretty obvious that the Pirates are riding the solid pitching to a lot of close victories. The numbers tell us they should not be as good as they have performed, and they have done so in a transition year where they have brought 2 Rookies* into the starting lineup (24 year old Starling Marte and 26 year old Jordy Mercer) and 2 Rookies* into the Rotation (24 year old Jeff Locke and 22 year old Gerrit Cole). Additionally, the Pirates have 4 player/pitchers in the Top 50 MLB Prospects, two of whom are at AA and could be in Pittsburgh as early as 2014. IMO, the Pirates future is solid for a long time into the future, but what can we do to better support the Pirates of 2013? Nothing that would cost us prospects or impede the progress of those prospects to the majors. We cannot make up the gaps in hitting and defense with one or two players, and there is no reason to think we need to add anything to the pitching staff. The two I have heard are Rios and Schierholtz. Rios is an expensive dud and he could not help the Blue Jays or the White Sox, so why would we think he would show hustle or desire as a Pirate? Schierholtz is a strong LH bat who is having his career year in 2013 and the Cubs are looking for a big return - not worth it to gamble the future with another lefty who cannot hit against lefties. We have been using Garrett Jones more in RF lately relegating Travis Snider to pinchhitting, but if we get a guy like Schierholtz we have to find him AB's and they will probably come from Garrett Jones - not what I would want to see.

For my money, if we can get a RH bench strength hitter like we did with Gaby Sanchez last year, I would make that move. Is that a guy like Jason Bay who is hitting a HR every 18 AB's in Seattle? He is on a $1 mil contract and would be a FA after the year so there is no reason to keep him beyond the end of the year. There have to be others out there like that - remember, Gaby Sanchez spent most of last year in AAA before the Pirates rescued him Is there any reason to think we need to make a move by August 1? No, in fact it would be more beneficial to wait until mid-August when more teams have given up any hope for 2013 and better quality players could be available for short-term usage. That's my take, what's yours?