Pitching hasn’t been very robust since 1989, but there have been some good performances. Oliver Perez (top left), Doug Drabek (top right), and Joel Hanrahan (bottom) are bright spots.

The last installment of the 25 Best Pirates I’ve Ever Seen featured some legitimately great ballplayers. Barry Bonds should be in the Hall of Fame. If Andrew McCutchen can get back on track, he too will eventually warrant Hall of Fame consideration. With a couple of exceptions, each of those players carried Pirates lineups at some point in their careers.

This next list is not quite as inspiring. But the 1989-2016 Super Bucs can’t field a team without a pitching staff, can they? No, of course they can’t. So here goes nothing…

STARTING PITCHERS

SP Denny Neagle ’96 – 6.1 bWAR 

Tell me if there’s a clearer representation of the shallowness of the list of starting pitchers in the past 27 years: Denny Neagle, who began as a full-time Pirates starter in 1994, is number one on this list, even though he spent the final third of the season pitching for the Atlanta Braves. That was obviously the best-case scenario for Neagle, whose 3.05 ERA over 182.2 IP earned him legitimate Cy Young consideration. Neagle would go on to start Game Four of the ’96 World Series with the Braves and have a few more productive years at the bottom of one of the best rotations in the history of baseball.

The bright side of that deal was that the Pirates received a young Jason Schmidt in return. Of course, the Bucs would eventually deal Schmidt just in time for him to become a star with the San Francisco Giants.

SP Oliver Perez ’04 – 5.8 bWAR

Even during the darkest of the Pirates’ dark days there was occasionally reason for excitement. Flash-in-the-pan performances by guys like Zach Duke and Paul Maholm occasionally sparked enthusiasm in what was at that point a beaten and disillusioned fan base.

No glimmer of hope shone brighter than that of Oliver Perez. When the lefty was acquired, along with Jason Bay, from the Padres in the Brian Giles deal, the Pirates overhauled his mechanics to try to work out some of the hitches in his awkward delivery. It worked initially: Perez’s 10.97 K/9 ratio was the best in the major leagues and his 2.98 ERA was the same as Roger Clemens’s  in ’04. His starts became must-see events, even though the Pirates only managed 72 wins that season.

Perez’s inconsistent delivery caught up to him and the rest of his tenure with the Pirates was lackluster. Eventually Perez, like many hard-throwing lefthanders who are given infinite shots in the major leagues, reinvented himself as a reliever and is still floating around. But he never really approached the success he had as a 22-year old in 2004.

SP Francisco Cordova ’98 – 5.5 bWAR

Francisco Cordova had an interesting career because of how quickly that career ended. Cordova had five seasons from 1996-2000, all with the Pirates, which ranged from league average to All-Star caliber, before arm troubles abruptly halted what could have been a long and prosperous major league run.

But in those five years, Cordova provided some memorable moments. He pitched nine innings of a ten-inning no-hitter during the 1997 “Freak Show” season, but his peak didn’t happen until 1998. His 3.38 ERA and 3.99 FIP in baseball’s most exaggerated offensive era were elite-level, even if his 13-14 record was not. After retiring in ’00, Cordova finished out his baseball career in Mexico.

SP Doug Drabek ’92 – 5.2 bWAR

In five of his six seasons in Pittsburgh, Doug Drabek threw 200+ innings and was an excellent pitcher on some good Pirates teams. Even though Drabek won the National League Cy Young Award in 1990, bWAR indicates that Drabek’s most valuable performance actually occurred in 1992. The mustachioed Texan, from the same hometown as Stone Cold Steve Austin, posted a 2.77 ERA with a 3.28 FIP as the ’92 Bucs opened up a can of Whoop Ass on the N.L. East.

Like most of the best players in the ’92 team, Drabek signed elsewhere prior to the 1993 season. The righty signed with the Houston Astros and, although he made the All-Star team in the lockout shortened 1994 season, was never quite as good as he was in the prime years that he spent with the Pirates.

SP Kris Benson ’00 – 5.1 bWAR

Kris Benson is famous for breaking an MLB record by successfully performing four sacrifice bunts in a game. Oh, and he married a former stripper who once escaped from a murder scene in a stolen car. Yeah, I can’t wait for Kris and Anna Benson’s 30 for 30.

While the Bensons have spent large parts of their marriage actively trying to kill one another, the former first overall pick is not known for his being a particularly exciting major league pitcher. But the generally disappointing hurler did manage to produce a handful of productive seasons in the major leagues, the best of which occurred with the Pirates in 2000.

Benson posted a 3.85 ERA over 217.2 IP and struck out 184 batters in ’00, which easily made him the most effective starter in a rotation that featured injury-plagued seasons by Cordova and Schmidt. But Benson himself suffered an elbow injury in ’00 that required Tommy John surgery. The lefty would post a few more decent seasons with the New York Mets and Baltimore Orioles, but would never quite live up to his top prospect status.

RELIEF PITCHERS

CL Matt Capps ’07 – 2.6 bWAR

From the moment Matt Capps debuted in September 2005 his career resembled an upward-moving escalator. Capps began the 2006 season as a low-leverage bullpen option. By the end of the season, he was Salomon Torres’s setup man. By the summer of 2007, Capps was the team’s closer and looked to be on his way to elite status.

Of course, Capps didn’t quite reach that next level. Manager Jim Tracy seemed content to work Capps until his arm fell off and, in 2008, it essentially did. Capps recovered and had a bounce back season with the Washington Nationals in 2010 after the Pirates had DFA’d him a year earlier. He was able to parlay that success into a nice contract with the Minnesota Twins before fading from the major league ranks in 2012.

RP Tony Watson ’14 – 2.5 bWAR

Speaking of well-used relievers, here’s Tony Watson. The lefty has been an integral part of the Pirates’ bullpen in each of the past four seasons, serving as a late-inning option until assuming the closer role when the team traded Mark Melancon halfway through 2016. Watson has notably struggled since becoming the closer, but has done some really great work in his six seasons with the Bucs.

Watson had his best season to date in 2014. In 77.1 IP, Watson posted an excellent 1.63 ERA with a FIP that wasn’t too much higher. He struck out 9.43 batters per nine innings and was an important cog in one of the league’s best bullpens.

RP Joel Hanrahan ’11 – 2.5 bWAR 

Joel Hanrahan was considered an ancillary piece when Neal Huntington traded outfielder Nyjer Morgan to the Nationals for Lastings Milledge in 2009, but the right-handed reliever ended up being the most valuable player involved in that deal. “The Hammer” was solid in 2010, but was absolutely dominant as the Pirates closer in 2011. Hanrahan posted a 1.83 ERA (and a 2.18 FIP) to go along with 40 saves in his ’11 All-Star campaign.

Hanrahan added another quality season in 2012 before he was traded to the Boston Red Sox. Hanrahan only appeared in nine games for the Red Sox before succumbing to injury. Their loss was the Pirates gain because, in the trade, Boston sent this guy to Pittsburgh:

RP Mark Melancon ’14 – 2.4 bWAR

The inspiration for the Pirates’ bullpen’s “Shark Tank” moniker, Mark Melancon is one of the most reliable closers in baseball. Need proof? These are the top five relievers with at least 100 saves in the past four seasons ranked by their ERA+. Guess which reliever corresponds with each line.

The order goes:

1. Zach Britton
2. Mark Melancon
3. Greg Holland
4. Aroldis Chapman
5. Craig Kimbrel

That’s pretty good company for Mr. Melancon. It’s always easy to predict doom for Melancon, whose fastball now tops out in the low 90’s, but he keeps finding a way to get the job done. Melancon just signed a 4-year, $62M contract with the Giants, but is somehow still undervalued compared to the record-breaking contracts signed by fellow relievers Chapman and Kenley Jansen.

RP Evan Meek ’10 – 2.4 bWAR

Trivia question: Who was the only Pirates representative on the 2010 All-Star team? Well, if you thought to look directly above this question, you could probably glean that the answer is reliever Evan Meek.

To date, Meek has had exactly one good year in the major leagues. But that one year was one of the best seasons a Pirates reliever has had in the past 27 years, so he gets to be on this list. He wasn’t even the closer for the Pirates in ’10, but had a miniscule 1.11 ERA heading into the All-Star Break and Huntington’s gutting of the roster was already well underway. That All-Star spot probably should’ve gone to the Pirates’ spry young outfielder Andrew McCutchen, but that guy has had more than his share of accolades. Let’s give it up one time for the Meekster!

RP Salomon Torres ’04 – 2.3 bWAR

Salomon Torres was a failed major league starter who retired after an especially bad 1997 season. In 2001, Torres resurfaced in the Korean league and in 2002, at age 30, signed a minor league deal with the Pirates.

The deal was a huge success for Pittsburgh. Torres carried a hefty workload for the Pirates, logging at least 90 innings every year from 2004 to 2006. Although he wouldn’t assume the closer role until ’06, Torres’s most valuable season came in ’04 when he appeared in 84 games and posted a 2.64 ERA.

By 2007, Torres experienced elbow problems and blew six saves early in the season. When Matt Capps replaced him, Torres caused a fuss and claimed that he agreed to a below-market contract because the Pirates promised to invest in a baseball academy he built in the Dominican Republic (the academy was eventually rented by the Texas Rangers). The Pirates resolved the issue by shipping Torres to the Milwaukee Brewers for a pair of fringe prospects.

Total Pitchers bWAR: 42.4
Total Team bWAR: 120.7

That’s more than the 1932 New York Yankees and 2016 Chicago Cubs combined! Although it’s probably much less than if you were to play this game with a team that did not lose for 20 years in a row. Oh well.

Barry Bonds, Jason Kendall, and Andrew McCutchen all had single seasons that made Kurt’s cut of best team since 1989.

Recently on Twitter, Baseball Prospectus contributor Russell Carleton posited an interesting thought exercise:

Pick one franchise. One guy from each of the last 25 years. No repeated players. Must form a coherent 25-man. Don’t cheat on positions. Go.

— Russell A. Carleton (@pizzacutter4) January 27, 2017

I’m going to take that premise and alter it a little bit. I was born on June 2nd, 1989, which means that my infantile vision likely improved enough that I could have conceivably witnessed the Pirates strong finish to an otherwise uninspiring season. There is video evidence of a 1-year old Kurt Hackimer wearing a plastic baseball helmet and smacking a whiffle ball across the living room, which would probably make for a more accurate starting point for my baseball fandom, but for the sake of argument let’s just mark the cutoff at ’89.

I, like assumedly everybody who writes about baseball, subscribe to Baseball Reference’s indispensable Play Index and will be using their measure of Wins Above Replacement (bWAR) to measure the best players. Every position player on this list had to log at least 100 innings at their listed position. The 25-man roster will consist of eight starting position players, a five-man bench, five starting pitchers, and a seven-man bullpen. Only a player’s best season will be used. Today I’ll deal with the position players and will review the pitching staff next Monday.

So, without further ado, I give you the 1989-2016 Super Bucs position players.

POSITION PLAYERS

C Jason Kendall ’98 – 5.6 bWAR

Despite being the face of the franchise for several years, many Pirates fans don’t remember Jason Kendall fondly. Some of that criticism, like the backlash he received when the Pirates signed him to a 6-year, $60 million contract extension in 2000, is beyond his control. Some of it, like him welcoming new Pirates to the clubhouse by saying, “Welcome to hell,” is self-inflicted. But if one looks at Kendall’s career objectively, not only was he the Pirates’ best catcher in the past 27 years but he was the most successful catcher in the history of the franchise.

Tony Pena’s 1984 season (5.9bWAR) is the best that a Pirates catcher has ever had according to Baseball Reference’s metric. But Kendall’s 1998 season clocks in at a close second. Kendall slashed .327/.411/.473 in ’98 and collected 12 HR, 75 RBI, and a league-leading 31 hit-by-pitches to boot. All of these stats trump Russell Martin’s virtuosic 2014 campaign, although it’s tough to compare the two defensively due to lack of pitch framing data in the ‘90s. And that’s not even considering the rest of Kendall’s Pirates career. Five of the ten best seasons by a Pirates catcher according to bWAR belong to Kendall. His knack for getting on base by any means necessary makes him an ideal candidate to lead off for the Super Bucs. 

1B Kevin Young ’99 – 5.6 bWAR 

Another former Pirates player whose body of work might have been marred by the fact that the Pirates, as a whole, just weren’t very good is Kevin Young. And part of that is legitimate. When I compiled this list and saw that Young posted the best season of any Pirates first baseman in the past 27 years, I took it as a sign that the position has been pretty shallow for a long time. And I was right. When such stalwarts as Gary Redus, Mark Johnson, and Josh Phelps rank among the top ten, it’s clearly not a historical position of strength.

But that doesn’t take away from the fact that Kevin Young had a few good years with the Buccos, the best of which happened in 1999. Young batted .298/.387/.522 with 26 HR and 106 RBI. Sure he had an Alvarezian 23 errors at first base, but who has ever signed a first baseman for his glove? Like many players, Young made a lot more money in his age 31-34 seasons to put up far more limited production. But Young has set the bar for Josh Bell or whomever else mans the not-so-hot corner in the future.

2B Josh Harrison ’14 – 5.3 bWAR

Yea, Josh Harrison’s breakout performance in 2014 was probably a fluke. Yea, he probably shouldn’t be making $30 million. But can we please take a minute to appreciate how incredible this 5’6” utilityman’s season was? In a year when the Pirates were slow out of the gates, Harrison, who played five positions in ’14, usurped third base from Pedro Alvarez and took the whole team on his back while the team was struggling maintain its winning record in August. And, to top it off, he did it with flare. Josh Harrison became the King of the Pickle in 2014. Remember this rundown? Or how about this one? And this home run, for good measure. Yea, he was on fire.

Harrison finished the ’14 campaign with a .315/.347/.490 line that drew comparisons to Bill Madlock and was instrumental in what was then Pittsburgh’s second consecutive trip to the playoffs. Harrison only logged 105 innings at second base in ’14, but he’s played all over the diamond and his versatility should help the Super Bucs greatly.

3B Bobby Bonilla ‘89 – 4.8 bWAR

If there were a manager of this fictitious baseball team, it’d undoubtedly be Jim Leyland. He somehow managed to downplay the egos of Bobby Bonilla and Barry Bonds to present some truly great Pirates teams in the early 1990s. Of course, maybe that’s just proof that talent rises to the top and that team chemistry is overrated. Who knows?

Whatever the case, Bonilla was such a troublemaker that the New York Mets are still paying $1.19 million per year to not play for them. But most of Bonilla’s most valuable years came while he was splitting time at third base and the outfield in Pittsburgh. And, at his best, Bonilla was very good. His best season came in 1988 (5.1 bWAR), just before the cutoff, but his ’89 season was nearly as good. Bonilla spent 156 games at the hot corner and posted good offensive numbers (.281/.358/.490). Oddly, Bonilla only drove in 86 runs in ’89 whereas he eclipsed the 100 RBI mark in three other seasons with the Pirates.

SS Jay Bell ’93 – 6.2 bWAR

Jay Bell is every little league baseball coach’s favorite ball player. A fixture at shortstop and in the second slot of the batting order for the majority of his career (although he’d probably bat eighth for the Super Bucs), Bell’s job was to act as a bridge from the leadoff hitter to the meat of the lineup. In 1990 and ’91, Bell led the major leagues in sacrifice hits and was, according to my dad, one of the best bunters of all time.

Of course, all of that makes modern baseball thinkers’s heads spin. Giving up outs rarely makes any sense, especially because when Bell was allowed to swing the bat, he was often very good. Bell’s 1993 season was one of the ten best by a Pirates player in the past 27 years and the best by a shortstop. His sacrifice hits dropped precipitously from 39 in ’90 to 13 in ’13 and the rest of his stats skyrocketed. The shortstop slashed .310/.392/.437 for a Pirates team that had recently been gutted by the losses of Bonds and Bonilla.

LF Barry Bonds ’90 – 9.7 bWAR

Before he became a swollen, steroid abusing, baseball crushing, superhuman, Barry Bonds was, well, still an incredibly good ballplayer. The only other Pirates seasons that really come close to Bonds’s MVP season in 1990, where he posted 9.7 bWAR, are other seasons by Barry Bonds. If the rules of this exercise were different, Bonds would occupy left field, center field, and two of the bench spots. And, of course, this season doesn’t even represent Bonds at his peak. Bonds would go on to post higher bWARs in 1993 (9.9 bWAR), 2001 (11.9), 2002 (11.8), and 2004 (10.6).

The Pirates left fielder actually hit a little bit better in his 1992 MVP season when he led the league with a 1.080 OPS and earned 9.0 bWAR, but his 52 steals in ’90 to go along with 33 HR and 114 RBI makes slotting Bonds into the number two spot of the Super Bucs batting order an easy decision.

CF Andrew McCutchen ’13 – 8.1 bWAR

Everybody knows the Pirates’ sob story. When Bonds left in ’92, the team fell apart and didn’t post another winning season until 21 years later. And, of course, the player most responsible for ending these two decades of woe is Andrew McCutchen. Obviously, Cutch has been talked about ad nauseum over the past year as he seemingly slipped from superstar status overnight. But there are only two MVP seasons on this list: Bonds’s 1990 campaign and McCutchen’s glorious 2013 season.

While it’s easy to be coldhearted when gazing at McCutchen’s lackluster 2016 statistics, one cannot ignore how fantastic the Pirates’ franchise center fielder has been throughout his eight-year MLB career. McCutchen won the 2013 MVP with a .317/.404/.508 slash line to go along with 21 HR and 84 RBI. Cutch arguably posted better offensive numbers in 2012 and 2014, but defensive metrics liked him a little better in ’13. Here’s hoping that the best version of Cutch can lead the Super Bucs, who will likely still be underdogs against similar super teams, to success.

RF Brian Giles ’99 – 6.6 bWAR

Brian Giles was and probably still is a jerk. He routinely sped past autograph-seeking fans in his gigantic Hummer. He was a toxic teammate. He lost his sponsorship from Nair for Men because his girlfriend sued him for $10 million in damages stemming from seven years of physical and verbal abuse (one such incident was caught on video).

Of course, much like Bonds, off-field incidents don’t change that he was the Pirates’ best player for several years. The Pirates traded Ricardo Rincon to the Cleveland Indians for Giles in 1999 and the left-handed outfielder immediately made an impact. Giles posted four monster seasons in Pittsburgh from ’99 to ’02 and may have earned serious MVP consideration if he played for a decent team. According to bWAR, no season was better than his first season with the Bucs. Giles slugged 39 homers and drove in 115 runs to go with a .315 AVG and a staggering 1.032 OPS. He also spent most of the season patrolling center field, but the 23 games he started in right are more than enough to qualify him for a spot batting cleanup for the Super Bucs.

BENCH

OF Andy Van Slyke ’92 – 6.0 bWAR

Perhaps known mostly as the consolation prize when Bonds and Bonilla departed, Andy Van Slyke was a very good player in his own right. In 1992, he led the N.L. in hits (199) and doubles (45) and finished fourth in MVP voting. Van Slyke posted 30.8 bWAR in his seven years as a Pirates outfielder. He’s the first lefty off of the bench for the Super Bucs and can play first or third base in emergencies.

OF Jason Bay ’05 – 5.7 bWAR

Often the brightest spot on some truly dismal Pirates teams, Jason Bay followed up his Rookie of the Year campaign in 2004 by posting what would end up as the highest bWAR of his 12-year MLB career. Bay posted a career-best .961 OPS and a 150 OPS+. The only other ’05 Pirates player with an above average OPS+ was Matt Lawton with 114. 

C Russell Martin ’14 – 5.5 bWAR

I don’t know if there’s another Pirates player in history who has made as big of an impact in a short period of time as Russell Martin did. He was the Pirates backstop for only two years, but his strong defensive acumen helped bolster the Pittsburgh’s patchwork rotation and turn them into a legitimate contender. Martin coupled his defensive skills with some fine offensive work in 2014 and received a standing ovation when he took his final Pirates at-bat during the ’14 Wild Card Game.

SS Jack Wilson ’04 – 4.8 bWAR

Jack Wilson was known mostly for his fine glove at shortstop, but he posted his best offensive season in 2004 when he slashed .308/.335/.459 and led the league with 12 triples. Though never a superstar, Wilson’s .265/.306/.366 career line compares favorably to fellow glove-first middle infielder and Hall of Famer Bill Mazeroski’s, .260/.299/.367.

3B Freddy Sanchez ’06 – 4.4 bWAR 

Ideally, I’d like to give this final bench spot to 2015 Starling Marte (5.4 bWAR), but the Super Bucs already have five outfielders on the roster.  We need infield help and to find it, we’ll turn to the 2006 batting champion Freddy Sanchez. Sure, the batting title doesn’t mean as much as it used to. I mean, nobody is mistaking a 33-year old Justin Morneau or 2016 N.L. batting champion D.J. Lemahieu for Hall of Famers. But when Sanchez collected 200 hits in ’06 and led the league with a .344 average, this was all that Pittsburgh baseball fans had to cling to. He’ll give the Super Bucs another versatile option off of the bench.

Total Position Players bWAR: 78.3

Half-filled stands are a common occurrence for the World Series-bound Indians

With the Cleveland Indians ticketed to their first World Series since 1997, it’s my inclination as a Pittsburgher to be a little bit jealous. It is Cleveland, after all. If Pittsburgh can claim the moniker of The City of Champions, its Midwestern mate, located two hours west on I-76, represents the antithesis. LeBron James and the Cavaliers changed that when they won the NBA championship this past summer and the Indians, who took the American League Central crown with 94 wins and have carved their way through the playoffs with relative ease, are in a position to turn “The Mistake by the Lake” into “The City of Champions: West.”

Of course, this isn’t a Cleveland-centric blog. So why am I wasting all of this time talking about the Indians? To say that the Pirates could learn some things from the Indians would be trite. This Indians team is great, but the playoffs are filled with randomness. Could the ’16 Indians beat last year’s 98-win Pirates team in a seven-game series? Who knows? Who cares? It’s because the prospect of winning two major championships in a single year is unprecedented in Cleveland and, logically, probably should whip the small sports town into frenzy. But the Indians aren’t exactly the rousing, phoenix-rising-from-the-ashes story that the Cavs represented this past postseason. Where the wide-open arms of LeBron welcome people to the city, the Indians struggle to fill the bleachers at Progressive Field.

For the 2016 season, the Indians drew 1,591,667 people to their ballpark. That number is low: 28^th in the league above only lowly Tampa Bay (1.29 million) and Oakland (1.52 million). That’s less than the Pirates drew in 2010, despite those Buccos winning only 57 games. Progressive Field’s lack of attendance can be explained economically. Only two MLB markets have experienced population decline since 2010: Cleveland and Pittsburgh. Part of the Indians’ problem is that their season overlaps with the understandably more popular Cavaliers’ season and their first half attendance figures, particularly during the Cavs’ playoff run, show that. There are also other things to consider such as the city’s geography (the Cuyahoga River splits the city and Lake Erie prevents northern expansion), economy (shifting from blue collar to healthcare jobs), and the ballpark itself (perfectly fine, but unremarkable).

But even though local television ratings remain high, the Indians’ attendance problem persists. Following the team’s peak from the mid-‘90s to the early-‘00s, where the team recorded seven straight winning seasons and won the American League pennant twice, there has been a distinct downturn in attendance. Cleveland had not traditionally been a strong baseball town, but during its heyday a decade ago they were routinely drawing upwards of three million people per season. That’s a Yankees-esque figure.

Then came the realization that all successful small market teams eventually become faced with: Good players quickly turn into expensive players. Steadily, Cleveland’s homegrown stars began to head to greener (green as in American currency) pastures. Albert Belle became baseball’s first $10 million player, signing with the White Sox in the winter of 1996. Manny Ramirez spurned the Indians to sign an eight-year, $160 million contract with the Boston Red Sox in 2000. Heroic slugger Jim Thome even found his way out of town, signing with the Philadelphia Phillies after the 2002 season.

By and large, the Indians did a pretty good job of extrapolating value for their departing pieces. Bartolo Colon netted them Cliff Lee, Brandon Phillips, and Grady Sizemore from the Montreal Expos in 2002. Kenny Lofton was traded to the Atlanta Braves for David Justice and Marquis Grissom before he just re-signed with the Indians again a season later. And that’s not to mention the several Cy Young caliber seasons they enjoyed from C.C. Sabathia, who the Indians drafted with the 20^th pick in the 1998 draft. In the last 21 years, the Indians have had eight losing seasons. That’s a brand of suffering that most teams in the league would happily endure.

Now here is where the Indians relate to the Pirates: Even though they have fielded decent teams with reasonable consistency, the Indians still have yet to rekindle the magic of those mid-‘90s teams. All it took was a lean year in 2002 combined with the departures of a few star players for the Indians to lose their fans’ trust and, as a result, attendance plummeted from 3,175,523 in 2001 to 2,616,940 in 2002 to 1,730,002 in 2003. The Indians’ gate has exceeded two million people just three times since 2002. They have earned winning records in each of the past four seasons, but have consistently been one of the worst draws in baseball.

The Pirates now find themselves in a similar situation to where the Indians were in 2002. Pittsburgh hasn’t yet had the prolonged success that Cleveland has, but their uninspired 2016 campaign sure feels like a similar tipping point. Three straight playoff appearances ignited a long dormant Pirates fan base. Now they’ve followed that up with a disappointing year. Disappointing not only because the Pirates didn’t win, but because the front office didn’t give them a chance. It’s telling that in a season where the Pirates resigned fan favorites Gregory Polanco, Francisco Cervelli, and David Freese that the story at the end of the season remained that they were too cheap while acquiring pitching talent in the previous offseason (not to mention the ghost of Neil Walker). If you listen closely, you can hear the wheels start to fall off of the bandwagon.

This upcoming offseason will be significant for the Pirates. General manager Neal Huntington and company are going to have to find some starting pitching in a barren free agent market and they are probably going to do it without spending much money. Superstar center fielder and face of the franchise Andrew McCutchen is reportedly on the trading block following the worst season of his career. The Pirates entered the 2016 season with the makings of a strong core, and they’ll enter 2017 with the same, but the confidence that permeated during those three golden years appears to be dissipating.

It wasn’t long ago when serious Pirates fans, the ones who study the organization from the lowest minor league level to the top, anticipated that 2017 would be Pittsburgh’s year. It was scheduled to be the season where all of Huntington’s hoarded prospects came to fruition. And, for all we know, that still might happen. Jameson Taillon had a great rookie year, Josh Bell showed that he belongs in the major leagues, and Tyler Glasnow still throws in the high 90’s, even if he can’t consistently put the ball over the plate. Talent wise, the future isn’t bleak. But it certainly feels that way.

The Indians did not necessarily lose Cleveland because they were bad. They lost Cleveland because they weren’t willing to do any better. The competition for Pittsburgh’s entertainment dollar is fierce. Fans salivate for the Steelers in early summer. Hockey fans spent the past four months celebrating a Stanley Cup. At its best, Pittsburgh does a pretty good job pretending to be a baseball town for a few months out of the year. It’d behoove the Pirates to not give their casual fans any more reason to drop the act.

Put aside the shine of celebrity and remember there is a potential female victim
Photo by Charles LeClaire/USA Today

It’s the midway point of the baseball season and, suddenly, the Pittsburgh Pirates are looking pretty good. They have won eight of their last ten ballgames heading into the All-Star break. The bullpen is on point, the team is shifting towards its high-upside youth, and after the worst June in years there might at least be some buzz around the team through the rest of the summer. All of these great things are happening. But I just don’t care.

That’s because Jung-ho Kang allegedly drugged and raped a woman in Chicago last month. Acknowledging how irrelevant my personal feelings are in this situation, the allegations make me very uncomfortable. Kang is a person whom I’ve interacted with; a person that I liked and respected. Not that I know him especially well, we’ve only spoken in a professional capacity (through a translator nonetheless), but it’s strange to have interacted with a person who could have committed such a heinous act.

Here are the details that we know: Last month while the Pirates were in Chicago, Kang met a 23-year old woman on Bumble, a dating app, and met her in his hotel room at around 10:00 PM. The victim stated that Kang gave her a drink and, upon drinking it, she immediately lost consciousness. She reportedly woke up in a car on her way home with only vague recollections of Kang sexually abusing her. The woman had a rape kit done two days later and went to the police 10 days later.

“We have been made aware of the allegation that has been made against Jung-ho Kang,” Pirates President Frank Coonelly said in an official statement. “We take allegations of this type extremely seriously.”

Currently, there has not been a police report published. Beyond Coonelly’s statement, Kang and the Pirates have been mum as well. But while it’s irresponsible to jump to the conclusion that Kang is guilty, it’s also important to remember that [EDIT: in the court of public opinion] the burden of proof lies on his shoulders rather than on the victim’s.

For some reason, the public tends to twist logic to make excuses whenever athletes screw up. It’s a healthy practice to never read the comment sections on, well, pretty much any article. But it’s especially true when dealing with issues of sexual abuse and even more true when the abuser is a famous person.

“The entire group will fall behind the accused and deny an offense has been committed,” Dr. Claire Walsh, director of the University of Florida’s sexual assault recovery program, told the New York Times in 1990. “The entire community associated with this group will come to its defense.”

Here are a handful of the comments from the Post-Gazette’s Facebook post of the Kang article that illustrate that point:

Even if this woman went to Kang’s hotel room with the intentions of having consensual sex with him, that doesn’t mean she can be drugged and raped without the rapist facing any repercussions. And it’s remarkable how many people are convinced that so many women harbor the sociopathic urge to extort men by pretending to be raped. The FBI Uniform Crime Report in 1996 and the United States Department of Justice in 1997 stated that only eight percent of rape accusations in the United States were regarded as false. So while that situation isn’t impossible, it should be far from the first conclusion one jumps to when forming an opinion on a subject such as this.

No, the first thing that one should do when a woman says she has been sexually abused is to believe her. I’ll say that a few more times: Believe women. Believe women. Believe. Women. In the court system, people are innocent until proven guilty. The court of public opinion doesn’t work like that and it is dangerous to immediately assume that the victim is a liar. When a woman steps forward, especially to accuse a rich, famous person of rape, it takes a lot of guts and she deserves respect rather than ridicule.

Very little is known about the victim in this case, yet people seem very comfortable assuming that she is a conniving, promiscuous gold digger. Meanwhile, we know quite a bit about Jung-ho Kang. He is a professional athlete, held upon a high pedestal in America as well as his home country of South Korea. His multinational appeal will likely earn him the benefit of the doubt, even though it should probably register the opposite reaction.

In 1996, Peggy Sanday, an emeritus professor of anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, found that sexual assaults are more prevalent in some societies than others; tribal societies that emphasize interpersonal violence, male dominance, and sexual separation are more likely to rape. Kang fits into that two of those tribes. While baseball is not typically lumped in with more physical sports such as football, hockey, or basketball, the clubhouse is still extremely male dominated. And when a man has the unquestioned support of an entire community, like many athletes in Pittsburgh do, it’s easy for that man to act without considering the consequences.

Also, South Korea has a notable rape problem. The World Economic Forum ranks South Korea 117 out of 142 countries for gender equality, worst among developed nations. While there are far fewer violent crimes in South Korea than there are in America, nearly 90 percent of the victims who reported violent crimes were women. The South Korean police and court system are largely incompetent when handling these situations, quick to deflect blame from offenders toward victims and willing to bend over backwards to acquit men of violence charges. Rape victims have been called “gold diggers” by authorities and are generally discouraged from speaking out.

Certainly, this is not to say that most male athletes or South Koreans are inclined toward abusing women. That’s untrue. There is no reason why Kang’s actions should paper over the good that the Pirates do for the community. Post-Gazette columnist Gene Collier recalled the Pirates partnering with the YWCA of Greater Pittsburgh for a domestic violence awareness event and the “Pitch For Hope” Women’s Baseball Clinic at PNC Park, which benefitted Glimmer of Hope, a local organization funding the only under-40 breast cancer study in the country. As sports fans, we’re all just rooting for laundry. But we should take solace in knowing that the majority of the people wearing those Pirates uniforms are good people who are worthy of our support.

But rape is a cultural phenomenon, one that both organized sports and the Republic of South Korea apparently accommodate. The court of public opinion should not give Kang the benefit of the doubt just because he is an athlete. We, as a society, should not assume a woman is lying just because she accused a person who happens to have a lot of money. The details of this case will roll out over time, but for the moment it is important to realize that a victim-blaming rape culture exists and will continue to permeate until we acknowledge that it’s a problem.

The Pirates have lost a bunch lately – 14 of their last 19 games, to be exact – and have fallen precipitously since reaching the season’s high water mark of 29-18 on May 27^th. Losing streaks happen, but for the past few seasons this is where the Pirates have started to pick things up rather than slump. So fans are concerned and they’re looking for somebody to blame.

Certainly, there is plenty of blame to go around. Every member of the bullpen other than Mark Melancon has had one or more bad outings in that stretch. The starting rotation has been lackluster and now has to deal with their best pitcher, Gerrit Cole, being put on the disabled list. But most of the time, the ire of the Pirates fan base most frequently goes toward Pirates manager Clint Hurdle.

Taking criticism is part of a manager’s job. Twice a day, Hurdle meets with the media to answer for his decisions on the playing field. While these interactions are certainly more civil than some of the opinions that get thrown around on the internet and on radio talk shows, Hurdle is immediately critiqued after every game and again before the game the next day.

To Hurdle’s credit, he has been a great coach for the Pirates. Hurdle’s unique positivity has helped foster a family-like clubhouse environment that has become helped acquire free agents and convince homegrown stars to stay put. The Pirates skipper has been willing to shirk many of his old school tendencies in favor of nu-baseball analytics in order to help the organization grow.

But that certainly doesn’t mean that Hurdle’s coaching decisions are always perfect. On Twitter, #Hurdled trended at one point, most prominently before the Pirates were a winning team. The hash tag referred to coaching decisions of Hurdle’s that turned out to have a negative impact on the ball game. While #Hurdled is most frequently used without reasonability, there were three notable situations in recent weeks, two of which strangely involved utility player Sean Rodriguez, where that hash tag would have been quite relevant.

In response to the recent outcry over Hurdle’s coaching antics, I have taken the liberty to painstakingly create the scientific #Hurdled System. The Pirates manager’s decisions will be ranked on the following scale:

One Hurdle indicates that the manager made the right call, but it just didn’t work out. Baseball is a game where the best players are often only successful 30 percent of the time. We live in a results-oriented society, however, and the blame has to go somewhere. So it often falls onto the manager even if his decisions are defensible.

Two Hurdles represent the variety of disheartening decisions that Pirates fans have become accustomed to seeing from their team’s manager. Having Rodriguez, Chris Stewart, and Cole Figueroa compiling the bottom half of a Sunday lineup? That’s Two Hurdles. Bunting Starling Marte? Two Hurdles. These are the lingering old school manager techniques that we all hope would have been beaten out of the Buccos skipper by now.

Three Hurdles is the worst. These are the decisions that simply don’t make sense through the traditional or analytical sense. Three Hurdles are nuclear. They aren’t reasonable or defensible.

Why Not Cutch?

The first happened on Sunday June 5th against the annoyingly named Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. After long forgotten enemy Albert Pujols hit his 30^th career homer versus the Pirates to give the Angels a 5-4 lead in the eighth inning, the Pirates had an opportunity to tie or possibly win the game in the bottom of the ninth.

With one out, Gregory Polanco walked and advanced to third on Jung-ho Kang’s double to right field. Angels closer Huston Street walked Starling Marte to get to Rodriguez, who promptly grounded into a 6-4-3 double play to end the game. On the surface, this doesn’t seem too offensive. Rodriguez was in the lineup and had to come up to bat sometime. It was just unfortunate that his spot came up in the ninth inning with the game on the line. That’s baseball.

Except Hurdle had one particularly appealing option sitting on his bench: Andrew McCutchen. Pittsburgh’s star center fielder had the day off, but was available to come off of the bench. Now it’s been documented here and elsewhere that McCutchen is having a down year. But in no universe is Sean Rodriguez a better option to hit with the bases loaded in the ninth inning than the former National League Most Valuable Player.

Hurdle’s defense: “Everybody was available. I think we made the moves we wanted to make today, we just didn’t get the results that we wanted.”

Verdict: One defense of Hurdle’s decision could be that McCutchen just does not pinch hit very much. Coming into a game cold to hit live pitching is very difficult. The Pirates also would have been stuck with, presumably, Matt Joyce playing first base. That is certainly not ideal.

But there is a point in a baseball game, particularly the 24^th of 31 straight baseball games, where a team has to put all of their chips on the table and go for the win. And when a manager has a choice between his franchise player and a career .242/.296/.410 hitter, that manager should probably go for the gusto. This is a classic Two Hurdle decision, right here.

He didn’t bunt?

Three days later, things were looking up for the Pirates. They had just swept the New York Mets in a double header and were on their way toward completing the series sweep on Wednesday June 8^th in Jameson Taillon’s big league debut. The Bucs were up 5-3 headed into the top of the eighth inning when Jared Hughes, who was pitching with a blister on his finger, allowed a two-run home run to Michael Conforto that tied the game and eventually forced it into extra innings.

New York scored a run in the top of the 10^th inning to take a 6-5 lead, but two walks by Mets closer Jeurys Familia put runners at first and second. Rodriguez, who began the game at shortstop and eventually moved to left field, came up to bat and, again, promptly grounded into a double play. Francisco Cervelli moved to third, but was stranded there when David Freese was called out on strikes. Game over.

The argument to be made here is whether or not Hurdle should have had Rodriguez bunt with nobody out and runners on first and second. It’s important to note that the player behind Rodriguez, Chris Stewart, is no wizard with the bat himself and that the Pirates were totally out of pitchers. After the game, Hurdle said that if the inning had remained tied, Rodriguez would have been out on the mound to start the 11^th.

Hurdle’s Defense: “If you’re looking at our situation, [Cory] Luebke is our last pitcher … You can bunt him, and then what do you do? Do you let Luebke hit because he’s your only pitcher or do you let Stewart hit to drive him in knowing that your next pitcher is going to be Sean Rodriguez? Or do you let Sean Rodriguez hit, drive in the run, and then let Luebke bunt? I decided to gamble and let Rodriguez swing the bat.”

Verdict: This situation does not seem too offensive. Anybody who has read Moneyball, or has even seen the movie, knows two things: That on-base percentage is king and that a team should never, ever bunt. While that’s exaggerated, especially in the National League, an out is indeed often more important than moving runners forward.

In 2016, situations where teams have runners on 1^st and 2^nd and no outs have yielded an average of 1.45 runs. Situations where teams have runners at 2^nd and 3^rd and one out have yielded 1.32 runs. Rodriguez grounded into a double play, which was a bad outcome. But the tying run still advanced to third base and the Pirates still had a chance to win. This obviously wasn’t the ideal situation, and maybe Hurdle could have utilized his bench better earlier in the game, but his decision was perfectly defensible. One Hurdle.

Walking for Waino

Pittsburgh’s June 10^th game against the St. Louis Cardinals was a wild one. Gerrit Cole left in the second inning with an injury, but relievers A.J. Schugel and Tony Watson held down the fort to allow the Pirates to head into the eighth inning with a 2-0 lead. Unfortunately, Neftali Feliz served up a three-run bomb to Cardinals second baseman Matt Carpenter in the eighth inning and St. Louis turned the ball over to closer Trevor Rosenthal for the save.

Rosenthal, however, wasn’t able to get it done. The Pirates tied the game in the ninth and almost won (Rodriguez, again, failed in a crucial late-game situation), but the game went to extra innings. In the 12^th inning, with a shallow bullpen, usual starter Juan Nicasio made a relief appearance. The righty easily dispatched of the first two batters, but walked Carpenter with hard-hitting shortstop Aledmys Diaz on deck.

This is where things get weird. With two outs and a runner on first, Hurdle decided to intentionally walk Diaz in order to get to Cardinals starting pitcher Adam Wainwright, who was pinch hitting for relief pitcher Jonathan Broxton. Wainwright promptly crushed a two-run double into the North Side Notch and gave the Cardinals the lead. St. Louis would add four more runs that inning and defeat the Pirates 9-3.

Hurdle: “I had a tough decision to make with Diaz. There was a game a few years ago where [Jose] Tabata hit a triple off of the right field wall to beat the Rockies with the pitcher on deck. Not that it was the sole reason, but I figured we would take our chances.”

Verdict: It’s funny that Hurdle’s explanation for this gaffe was essentially, “If Tabata can succeed in this situation, imagine what a capable major league hitter could do!” This was a bad call by Hurdle. Wainwright is surely a higher percentage out than Diaz, but walking the potential game winning run into scoring position just does not make any sense at all. With the speed and power arms that reside in the Pirates outfield, Diaz would have had to hit a double to drive in Carpenter. All Wainwright would have had to do was run into a single to put St. Louis in front. Of course, he did much more than that which solidified this as a Three Hurdle move.

Victor Hedman has been a monster all playoffs for the Lightning. The Pens will have to negotiate around him.
Photo via NHL.com

The Pittsburgh Penguins have defeated the Washington Capitals and are headed to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since Dan Bylsma got the pants coached off of him by Claude Julien in 2013. While that 2013 team featured one of the most star-studded NHL lineups since the salary cap was instituted (Jarome Arthur-Leigh Adekunle Tig Junior Elvis Iginla!), the Penguins were dominated by a Boston Bruins team that would go on to lose to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Finals.

This Penguins team seems different, however. In a half season under head coach Mike Sullivan, the Penguins have turned from a listless, mediocre hockey club to arguably the favorites to win the Stanley Cup. They are fresh off of a six-game series win over a tough and talented Washington Capitals team that waltzed away with the President’s Trophy this season and are playing fast, determined hockey.

Up next, from the Atlantic Division, are the defending Eastern Conference Champions, the Tampa Bay Lightning. General manager Steve Yzerman and head coach Jon Cooper have put together a fast, determined squad in their own right. Even without contributions from injured stars Steven Stamkos and Anton Stralman, the Lightning breezed through the Detroit Red Wings and New York Islanders in the first two rounds of the playoffs, which, more than anything, is a credit to their goaltending, depth, and young talent.

The Injured Reserve

The Penguins have certainly had their fair share of injury concerns throughout the season. Kris Letang, Evgeni Malkin, and Marc Andre Fleury have all missed significant time due to injury – the latter two might still not be completely healthy. But Pittsburgh’s injury concerns have largely diminished while Tampa Bay’s remain problematic.

Two of Tampa Bay’s impact players, star center Stamkos and first-line defenseman Stralman, are both currently on the injured list, but may be able to make an impact on this series at some point.

Steven Stamkos is generally considered to be one of the best scorers in hockey. He has recorded at least 36 goals in five of his eight NHL seasons, the only exceptions being his rookie year in 2008-09, the lockout year in 2012-13, and an injury-shortened 2013-14 campaign where he managed to score 25 goals in just 37 games.

Stamkos had surgery at the beginning of April to address a blood clot. His presumed recovery time was 1-3 months, which means that a return during the Eastern Conference Finals would fall within that timetable. Stamkos is still on blood thinners, but has taken part in non-contact drills during practice. The 26-year old centerman will likely receive a gargantuan payday as he hits unrestricted free agency this upcoming offseason.

Anton Stralman formed the formidable “SweDefense” with the hulking young defenseman Victor Hedman this season. Stralman fractured his fibula at the end of the season and, barring a setback, will probably return at some point during the series against Pittsburgh. If it weren’t for Hedman’s superhuman performance this postseason, Stralman’s injury might have been a bigger deal. Still, his return could potentially be series-changing if he and Hedman are able to lock down Pittsburgh’s top line.

The Stars

Nikita Kucherov: The 22-year-old Russian sniper appears to be the real deal. During last season’s run to the Stanley Cup Finals, Kucherov was dynamic (10G, 12A in 26 games played). This postseason, he’s arguably been better. Kucherov has already earned 12 points, including a league leading nine goals combined with an 11+/-, also best in the league. Without Stamkos, the offense goes through Kucherov, who owns a shot that is as pristinely accurate as it is lightning quick. Kucherov has colloquially earned the nickname “Klutcherov” by scoring six game-tying or game-winning goals already this postseason.

Victor Hedman: The aforementioned Hedman, has been playing out of his mind during the playoffs this season, much like he did during the playoffs last season. The 6’6”, 223-pound Swedish defenseman is a force in Tampa’s zone, frequently racking up 25-30 minutes per game. Not to mention that he is averaging nearly a point per game (4G, 5A in 10GP). Hedman is arguably Tampa Bay’s best player, even with Stamkos in the lineup, and will almost assuredly be shadowing Crosby for the majority of this series.

Ben Bishop: For the second straight round, the Penguins will be up against a goaltender in the running for the Vezina Trophy. The 6’7” Bishop had a bad game against the Islanders in Game One of the Conference Semifinals, but has played impeccably otherwise. The Lightning goaltender is active in the crease, capable handling the puck, and, with shutouts in two Game Sevens last season, has a proven ability to steal big games. Whoever is in goal for the Penguins, be it Fleury or Matt Murray, will have a tough time outplaying Bishop.

The Grinders

One thing that the Lightning have that the Capitals did not have is a third line full of capable defensive players. Even though Washington largely held Crosby and Malkin in check, the Pittsburgh’s incredible “HBK Line” (Patric Hornqvist, Nick Bonino, and Phil Kessel) were able to exploit the Capitals’ lack of depth and super kick the competition.

Pittsburgh is going to have a much tougher time pushing around Tampa Bay’s grinding line. Cedric Paquette is essentially Matt Cooke, a hard-hitting, trash-talking pest. Former New York Rangers forward Ryan Callahan is a natural leader and will gladly sacrifice his own health for the good of the team. Big-bodied Brian Boyle is a shutdown forward who is good at faceoffs and standing in front of the opposing team’s net.

Aside from Crosby vs. Hedman, this might be the most intriguing matchup of the series. If the Penguins can’t get more production from Crosby and Malkin in this series, Hornqvist, Bonino, and Kessel might not be able to bail them out.

Who We’ll All Be Tired Of Hearing About

Assuming Stamkos doesn’t return, Jonathan Drouin’s story is Tampa’s most interesting. Drouin made the team at the beginning of the season, got injured, was sent down (or up, geographically) to AHL Syracuse for conditioning, publically demanded a trade, refused to play for Syracuse, was suspended, wasn’t traded, eventually returned to Syracuse, transformed himself into a defensive forward, was recalled to Tampa after Stamkos was injured, and proceeded to run roughshod for the Lightning in the playoffs.

Not exactly a heartwarming story. Drouin’s attitude matches the smarmy grin that he frequently flashes on the ice. But his unlikely reformation into a formidable defensive force means that he will probably see a lot of ice as Pittsburgh looks to flood Tampa with waves of offense. Drouin will be all over the place, is a puck-possession maven, and every Penguins fan will be tired of seeing him by the end of the series.

The Lines (With 2015-16 Playoffs Stats)

Nikita Kucherov (9G, 3A, +11), Tyler Johnson (4G, 9A, +12), Alex Killorn (3G, 6A, +10)
Ondrej Palat (2G, 2A, -1), Valterri Flippula (1G, 3A, +3), Jonathan Drouin (1G, 8A, -1)
Cedric Paquette (0G, 1A, -1), Brian Boyle (3G, 0A, 0), Ryan Callahan (1G, 2A, +1)
Vladislav Namestnikov (1G, 1A, 0), Mike Blunden (0G, 0A, -2), Eric Condra (0G, 0A, -1)

Victor Hedman (4G, 5A, +4), Anton Stralman (Injured, but likely to return)
Jason Garrison (1G, 4A, +2), Andrej Sustr (0G, 1A, +4)
Matt Carle (0G, 3A, 0), Braydon Coburn (0G, 2A, +1)

Ben Bishop (1.89 GAA, 0.938 SV%)

The Pirates signed the 24-year old outfielder to a 5-year contract extension worth $35 million guaranteed. Polanco’s contract will begin in 2017 and has two options worth $12.5 million and $13.5 million plus incentives that could bring the total value of the contract to 7 years and $60 million.

For those keeping score, this is remarkably close to the 5-year, $32 million contract that our own Kevin Creagh predicted earlier this year. For those uninterested in trivial self-congratulations, this represents another significant investment into a young outfielder that could potentially turn into a bargain for the Pirates in the future. And for a team obviously committed to operating on a shoestring budget, moves like these are crucial if the Pirates hope to maintain success through the rest of the decade.

Pirates general manager Neal Huntington touted the move as one that was beneficial to all parties, and he’s not wrong. It’s likely that nobody reading this article will ever earn $35 million, so for us to quantify a person making this much money as “underpaid” is, on the surface, kind of ridiculous. But considering the comically large amount of money that regional and national television networks are funneling into Major League Baseball, this contract could easily turn into a bargain for the Pirates.

“The agreement will provide Gregory with incredible financial security and the club with the ability to build around Gregory as one of our core players for years into the future,” Huntington said.

Now, it’s entirely possible that five years from now we’ll all be talking about Polanco’s contract in the same way that we talk about Andrew McCutchen’s and Starling Marte’s. Both of Pittsburgh’s other star outfielders signed long, affordable contracts that have not only paid for themselves but appear to have significantly shortchanged the two best Pirates players.

Could Polanco’s deal be similarly financially beneficial to the Pirates in 2023 when Polanco turns 32 years old? The Pirates surely hope so. And, if it does turn out to be a similar bargain, the Pirates deserve a lot of credit for making Polanco feel at home. When his contract was officially announced, Polanco expressed his commitment to the Pirates and the city of Pittsburgh.

“I want to thank the city for making me feel at home,” Polanco said. “I love to be here, so I decided to sign here.”

Firstly, after decades of Pittsburgh being the baseball equivalent of Chernobyl, it’s still reassuring to hear a player refer to Pittsburgh as a desirable destination. From watching the Pirates, it’s obvious that this team is quite good. But it wasn’t long ago that Jason Kendall greeted new Pirates by saying, “Welcome to hell.”

Secondly, the people within the Pirates organization were instrumental in turning Polanco from the lanky 17-year old they found at a baseball showcase in the Dominican Republic into the toolsy youngster who Joe Sheehan once called, “A more polished Yasiel Puig.” Polanco was being showcased as a pitcher, but Pirates super scout Rene Gayo liked him more as an outfielder and the Bucs brought him through their state-of-the-art baseball school in El Toro, D.R on a $150,000 gamble that has already paid off brilliantly.

For Polanco, $35 million offers plenty of insurance that he and his family will be set for life. While someone like Gerrit Cole, who was drafted first overall and received an $8 million signing bonus, can afford to look forward to the $200+ million contract offer that could be waiting for him in free agency, Polanco didn’t really have that option. There was a chance that he could make more money entering free agency as a 29-year old, but millions upon millions of guaranteed dollars really alleviates a lot of pressure.

And it’s important to recognize that even though Polanco is talented, he hasn’t exactly set the world on fire in the major leagues. Comparing McCutchen and Marte to Polanco is convenient, both of those players were significantly more established whenever they signed their contracts than Polanco was when he signed his.

McCutchen was a bona fide star by the time he signed his six-year, $51.5 million contract in 2012. According to Fangraphs, McCutchen accrued 12.4 WAR before he signed that contract and has added an astounding 28.1 WAR since then. If one accepts that a single win above replacement is worth $7 million, then McCutchen has already produced $283.5 million worth of value and still has one guaranteed year and one option left on his contract. Marte had barely more than a season’s worth of games under his belt when he signed a six-year, $31 million deal in 2014 but had already posted 5.8 WAR. And, advanced metrics aside, Marte’s speed and elite defense provided him with an incredibly high floor.

Polanco’s numbers simply aren’t as good. After a feverishly hot start to his major league career in 2014, Polanco suffered down the stretch and eventually lost his starting job to Travis Snider. The youngster was gifted the job in 2015 when the Bucs traded Snider to Baltimore, but he again stumbled out of the gate. Polanco hit just .237/.315/.338 during the first half of last season and was legitimately one of the least productive right fielders in the National League. He turned things around and had an extremely productive July and August last season, but his .701 OPS, 94 wRC+, and 2.3 WAR make him one of the least productive position players to sign a pre-arbitration contract extension.

While these numbers surely came up during Polanco’s contract negotiations, the Pirates signed him because of his raw athletic ability. Polanco oozes potential. In fact, the Pirates offered him pretty much the same contract that he just signed before the lefty even debuted in the major leagues. In 2014, after Polanco had torn through Triple-A and before he rode a tidal wave of fan-fueled hype to the major leagues, the Pirates reportedly offered Polanco a ten-year contract worth up to $75 million. Polanco and his agent declined and, to their credit, signed a similar deal less than two years later.

But the Pirates are clearly betting on the future, and it’s a pretty safe bet. Polanco currently has 230 lbs. of muscle packed onto his 6’5” frame and continually shows room for more physical growth. His long legs allow him to cover a lot of ground in the outfield and his cannon arm rivals Marte’s rocket launcher in left. And, really, what are they risking? A fortune for most people is merely a drop in the bucket for an MLB franchise, even notorious tightwads like the Pirates. If everything works out and Polanco becomes an above average player, the Bucs recoup great value from the deal. If he turns into Jose Tabata: Part Deux, whatever. A team obviously doesn’t want to whiff on a $35 million investment, but that kind of money isn’t going to ruin a franchise.

So far, the Pirates seem to have made a pretty good investment. In the early stages of the 2016 season, Polanco has been the epitome of Pittsburgh’s newfound patient plate approach. Polanco has drawn walks in 21 percent of his plate appearances, up from 8.4 percent the year before, and has only struck out eight times. It’s early in the season, but Polanco is waiting for his pitches and, when he gets them, he’s hitting them hard.

Polanco is currently playing with confidence, just as he was last season after manager Clint Hurdle reassured him that he wasn’t going to be sent to the minor leagues as a result of his slow start. And considering his newfound job security, there is little to indicate that he will lose this confidence anytime soon.

Seeing McCutchen at the plate is a good thing.
Photo by USA Today Sports

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ willingness to explore progressive tactics to gain competitive advantage over large market teams has helped them make the playoffs three years in a row. If spring training is any indication, this season’s Pirates team will be no different. The Pirates have hired a new assistant to the General Manager focused on improving team fitness, they have eschewed much of their power for on-base percentage, and they have moved their best player, Andrew McCutchen, from his familiar third spot in the batting order up to second.

One of the primary goals of advanced statistics is to provide alternatives to baseball’s status quo. Within the more than one hundred years of baseball history, there is an underlying tradition that all too frequently goes unquestioned. There are so many things in baseball that are the way they are because they’ve always been that way. Things become automatic because teams are expected to play things by the book.

But this spring, the way that Clint Hurdle has been toying with the lineup might indicate that the Pirates have been reading The Book. That, of course, is referring to the extensively researched volume written in by Tom Tango, Mitchel Lichtman, and Andy Dolphin that baseball stat heads frequently revere as something like a religious text since it was released in 2006.

Traditionally, the batting order has several roles built into each position in the lineup. The top spot of the order is reserved for speedy contact hitters. Second up is the bat control guy, whose sole job is to facilitate RBI opportunities for the heavy hitters later in the lineup. The team’s best hitter slots in at third while the boom-or-bust power sits at numbers four and five. The rest of the players are slotted into the bottom half of the order.

According to The Book, the old school has been doing it all wrong. Tango, Lichtman, and Dolphin argue that the ideal spot in the batting order for the best hitter is number two. The first and most obvious benefit for batting McCutchen second is that the number two hitter averages about 30 more at-bats per season than the number three hitter. McCutchen is the Pirates’ best offensive player by a wide margin, so giving him more at-bats should absolutely be a priority.

Of course, increased at-bats are not the only goal. If that were the case, than McCutchen would have been batting leadoff for the past five years instead of third. Players of McCutchen’s caliber need to be put into situations where they can drive in runs. That is the logic behind the traditional best-player-bats-third lineup construction. But The Book argues that the second and third spots in the lineup offer similar opportunities for production.

For a real world example, take a look at McCutchen’s 2015 numbers compared to the MLB’s best number two hitter Josh Donaldson’s:

Now, there are several variables to consider. Donaldson played for the Toronto Blue Jays, an American League team with a dominant lineup. But the fundamental point remains valid. Donaldson logged nearly as many plate appearances and at-bats in 136 games as a number two hitter than McCutchen did in 153 games in the number three spot. If Donaldson had kept the same pace for 153 games, he would have had 604 at-bats, 44 more than McCutchen.

For years, heavy hitters have been placed further down the lineup to increase their RBI opportunities. Hurdle said that he would be willing to trade 100 McCutchen RBIs for 60 more at-bats from the slugger. But Donaldson’s numbers indicate that a player batting second is not necessarily forfeiting his RBI opportunities.

Donaldson had more plate appearances and at-bats with runners in scoring position hitting from the two hole than McCutchen did hitting third. Even considering the inexact comparison, these numbers show that McCutchen will still frequently come to the plate with runners in scoring position in the number two spot.

Again, those stats are skewed thanks to Donaldson playing within an A.L. lineup that features a designated hitter instead of a pitcher. For a more accurate reading of what an N.L. player batting second as opposed to third might look like, let’s take a look at McCutchen’s fellow N.L. Central superstar Joey Votto. The Cincinnati Reds first baseman is one of the best hitters in baseball. He also split his time in the second and third spots of the Reds lineup last season.

Votto played 16 more games as the number three hitter than he did as the number two, yet all of his counting stats are pretty much equal. Batting second, Votto averaged 3.64 at-bats per game. Batting third, he averaged 3.35. That means that if Votto played 162 games last season in the second spot, he would have had 590 at-bats as opposed to 543 if he were to have batted third for a whole season. Why not give your best players more at-bats?

Another argument that The Book makes against a team batting its best player third is that the third spot in the order is far more prone to coming to the plate with two outs and nobody on. McCutchen found himself in that unenviable situation last season more frequently than anybody in the league other than Anthony Rizzo. Since 2010, McCutchen has come to the plate with two outs and nobody on more than any other player in baseball.

In the past five years, McCutchen has had 742 at-bats with two outs and nobody on base. In that same amount of time, McCutchen has recorded 790 at-bats with runners in scoring position. That means that the ideal outcome of McCutchen coming to bat with runners on second or third base has occurred just 48 times more than the absolute worst at-bat scenario. That’s a pretty significant tradeoff.

Even if one argues that McCutchen fits better further down the lineup, the second spot of the order is certainly important. It is also a spot in the batting order where the Pirates have gotten below average production. Last season, Pittsburgh’s second hitter produced just 86.8 runs created which ranked 11^th in the N.L. and below every other playoff team.

Moving McCutchen from the third spot in the lineup to the second seems like a no brainer. Whatever RBI opportunities that McCutchen might miss by batting third figure to be easily offset by an increase in at-bats combined with a decrease in plate appearances with two outs and nobody on. Even though The Book came out a decade ago, baseball is generally reluctant to accept changes to the tried and true traditions. If this works out for the Pirates, they might end up once again setting a trend.

Crosby’s spark has been re-kindled under Mike Sullivan’s less restraining system
Photo via ESPN.com

At the beginning of the season, Penguins center Sidney Crosby certainly did not play like the best player in hockey. In fact, he was downright pedestrian.  The Penguins captain only notched 19 points in his first 30 games of 2015-16. His uncharacteristically mediocre performance probably played a key role in the Penguins’ decision to fire former head coach Mike Johnston in December.

Since that decision, Crosby’s looked more worthy of the “Best Player in Hockey” label that he had been anointed with years ago. He’s collected 47 points in the 38 games since Mike Sullivan took over as Pittsburgh’s bench boss and is back among the top scorers in the league. While the Penguins are still not a lock for postseason success, or even a playoff berth, it appears that their most important component is back his usual better-than-a-point-per-game track.

So what has sparked Sid? The timing of Crosby’s recent resurgence correlates almost perfectly with Sullivan’s hire, so it’s probable that the new head coach’s system is a better fit for the star center.  After all, with the exception of Evgeni Malkin who generally plays by his own rules, the whole team was less productive under Johnston than they are under Sullivan. Crosby is no different.

The differences between Sullivan and Johnston’s coaching styles are simple, yet significant. Johnston wanted the Penguins to play a systematic, puck-control based hockey game similar to the Juniors teams he had coached previously. Sullivan’s more inclined to let it fly and allow his players to live and die with their athletic abilities.

In the NHL’s current Clutch N’ Grab Redux where players are seemingly able to get away with increasingly reprehensible forms of obstruction, finding a way to separate Crosby from the goons and pests sent to (often literally) hold him down will be imperative.

Speed

What better way to escape the league’s knuckle draggers than by blowing right past them?

From the beginning of Sullivan’s tenure, he has preached that the Penguins need to utilize their speed in order for the team to remain in contention through the end of the season.  The transformation has started in the defensive zone, which has been revitalized with puck-moving defenders. Rob Scuderi was traded for Trevor Daley. Derek Pouliot took over for the injured Ben Lovejoy. Justin Schultz came over from Edmonton and Ian Cole has proven that he’s still productive even though he’s getting a bit long in the tooth.

And, of course, Kris Letang has flourished under Sullivan and now ranks fourth in scoring among defensemen. Thirty-seven of Letang’s 51 points this season have come after the coaching change and Sullivan has given Pittsburgh’s star defender the freedom to push forward with confidence that Letang could get back if necessary.

One of the primary reasons why the Penguins suddenly dangerous defensive corps is meshing so well with Sullivan’s system is that they are not being asked to do too much. Their job is to gain possession in their own zone, make a responsible read, and move the puck forward toward one of their All-World forwards who are racing through the neutral zone.  Unfortunately, information regarding player speed is not readily available. But one doesn’t need fancy radar or advanced statistics to notice a distinct difference between Coach Johnston’s style as opposed to Coach Sullivan’s. Just use the ol’ eye test.

Take a look at Crosby when the Penguins hosted the Kings on December 11th, Johnston’s last game as coach:

The Penguins have churned out dozens of elaborately produced Sidney Crosby highlight films over the past decade, but none of that footage will likely come from the first two months of this season.

It was challenging to find a clip that demonstrated how he lacked that signature burst that so frequently separated Crosby from his competitors. This video shows Crosby, who is one of the better close-proximity scorers in the history of the game, whiff on an easy cross-ice pass, recollect the puck, and drive it right into the neck of Jonathan Quick.  One shouldn’t pick apart this play too much, but it was the culmination of months of uninspired hockey from one of the most consistently exciting hockey players of all time.

Compare that version of Crosby, who was enveloped at the blue line, with this one from February:

Now, this isn’t quite fair. I selected an obviously weak early-season effort by the Penguins and put it up against Crosby’s best goal of the season. That’s not the fairest way to assess the differences between the two systems.  But these are just two examples. It doesn’t take much searching to find the Johnston-era Penguins foregoing scoring opportunities to drop pucks back to the point or just turning the puck over on a poorly executed cross-ice pass. It also doesn’t take long to find several more examples of the Penguins’ high-pressure defense creating quality scoring chances.

Shots

The Penguins’ improvements are not just viewable on video, however. The statistics show that the offense is producing far more shots under Sullivan than they were under Johnston.

Shots under Johnston

Shots under Sullivan (Prior to Sunday’s game against NYR)

Since Sullivan’s hiring, the Penguins have been aggressive and have controlled the game much more effectively than when Johnston was at the helm. They have tallied 178 more shots than they have allowed and those shots have turned into scoring chances.

Here is a graph (courtesy of War On Ice) that illustrates how the Penguins have stacked up against the Metropolitan Division since Sullivan became coach:

They have had more shots on goal and created more scoring chances than any team in the division since December 14th. If it weren’t for Washington’s unparalleled scoring ability, which has been aided by a favorable PDO (essentially the hockey equivalent of BABIP, baseball’s “luck” measurement), the Penguins would be the best scoring team in the division through that time period.

The change in system doesn’t entirely explain Crosby’s return to the top part of the league’s scoring rankings. Most of Crosby’s surge has nothing to do with coaching. There really isn’t much that Mike Sullivan can teach a generational talent like Sidney Crosby.  But something was definitely off with Crosby at the beginning of the season and, for whatever reason, the mid-season coaching change has sparked the former two-time Hart Trophy winner at the right time.

This isn’t the first time this has happened, either. Crosby was similarly despondent within former head coach Michel Therrien’s conservative system before Dan Bylsma took over and loosened the leash a bit. That resulted in a Stanley Cup.

Those are lofty expectations to place on Sullivan and the 2015-16 Penguins, especially now that an upper-body injury will keep Malkin out for the rest of the regular season. They’re not a perfect team, but at least they’re more exciting to watch.