The Pittsburgh Pirates’ Team Of The Decade

 

As the end of the 2019 Pirates’ season draws to a merciful close, it’s also the end of another decade of Pirate baseball. As decades in Pirate history go, this one can be qualified as ‘mildly successful’ with three playoff appearances and four winning seasons, which sort of indicates where the bar is at for grading the Pirates.

With TPOP closing its doors after five years, this seems like a good retrospective type of article for us to do in the final week. So I would like to present one man’s attempt to assemble a team of players that represents the best at their position from the individual 2010-2019 seasons. The caveat is that a player can only be used once and can only be slotted in at one position. That position has to be one that they naturally played, so you’re not just taking the three best outfielders; you’re taking the three best at each individual position.

Some positions were much harder to select than others, which is an indictment on how poor the Pirates have been at some spots this decade. Without further ado…

1B — Josh Bell (2019)

This was of those positions where there wasn’t a whole ton of competition, but Bell’s performance is a great one on its own merits. After being shut down with his balky groin, Bell’s final 2019 stats of .277/.367/.569 (135 wRC+, 2.5 fWAR) are set. Bell was a tale of two halves — the first half he was a world-destroying behemoth swatting 30 of his 37 homers, generating a 154 wRC+, and positioning himself for down-ballot MVP consideration. That’s all evaporated in the second half, but taken as a whole this was a very good season for Bell.

2B — Neil Walker (2014)

For some reason, Neil Walker was a divisive player to the fanbase while he was here. Some may have overly praised him as the ‘hometown kid made good’, while others held that hometown status against him. To me, he was a steady and reliable contributor to the successful 2013-2015 squads. He wasn’t a star, but he was the type of complementary player that every team needs behind their true stars.

Walker’s 2014 season was the best one during his tenure. His line of .271/.342/.467 (130 wRC+, 4.1 fWAR) was pretty emblematic of his tenure. It was a line that pretty good in average, pretty good in on-base, and pretty good in slugging. His sometimes maligned defense was passable this year, as well. All in all, it was the kind of performance that playoff-caliber teams get from their complementary players and Walker delivered.

SS — Kevin Newman (2019)

If you thought it was difficult to find a good first base performance, try to find one for shortstop during this decade. Kevin Newman made it easier by delivering a surprisingly strong 2019 campaign that stands on its own legs as a good one. The line of .317/.362/.448 (113 wRC+, 2.3 fWAR) is respectable, especially for a rookie. The 10 HR/15 SB blend of counting stats is something that Pirates fans haven’t seen in a long time.

We’ve had our doubts about Newman at TPOP this year, based on his exit velocities and hard hit percentage, but there’s no denying that he has earned the right to be a starter next year, whether at SS or 2B. Newman’s performance still pales in comparison to what other young shortstops are doing around the league, but a thirsty man wandering through the desert can’t be picky about his beverage.

3B — Jung-ho Kang (2015)

I had some legitimate debates with myself over which season was better between Kang’s 2015 or Pedro Alvarez’s 2013 when he launched 36 dingers and catapulted the offense into the playoffs. But in the end, my sabermetric side won out over my emotional side and I went with Kang pre-‘plantar fasciitis’ and pre-DUI-charges-revealed in full.

Kang’s rookie year was sublime — .287/.355/.461 (128 wRC+, 3.7 fWAR) with 15 HR/5 SB. What gets lost in all the gnashing of teeth about Kang is how great his defense was at the hot corner. His Defensive Runs Saved of +4 wasn’t going to get him a Gold Glove, but following up the horror show of Pedro Alvarez’s defense made him look like Brooks Robinson in his prime. Kang also was proficient at shortstop until his meet-cute with Chris Coghlan ended that experiment.

Kang’s career with the Pirates was star-crossed, which makes reflecting back on the 2015 season, when the Pirates had the best team of my cognizant Pirate-viewing life but came up short to the Cardinals, somewhat difficult to re-visit.

C Russell Martin (2014)

This was a deceptively difficult category to select the best catching performance of the decade. It could very easily have been Francisco Cervelli in 2015, but Russell Martin’s 2014 was just too good to overlook. The line of .290/.402/.430 (140 wRC+, 6.5 fWAR) is a fantastic triple slash for any type of player, let alone a catcher. Then add in Martin’s stellar work behind the plate (38.5% caught stealing, +19 DRS, +11.6 framing runs) and you have an extremely worthy choice.

It’s not too difficult to say that Russell Martin is the best free agent signed by the Pirates this decade, either. I’d put him in the mix of all-time great free agent deals for the franchise, too.

LF Starling Marte (2015)

When I initially conceived of this article a couple of weeks ago, I had Bryan Reynolds’ current season penciled in here. It was going to be difficult to leave out Starling Marte for me, but at the time I started gathering notes, Reynolds had a .335/.410/.537 line that was going to get him 2nd in ROY voting and steal a vote or two from Pete Alonso. But in recent weeks, Reynolds has slumped and his line is down to .317/.383/.510. Bear in mind, that is still an amazing season for a rookie that got to Pittsburgh purely by another player’s sheer stupidity.

But now that Reynolds has cooled, it allows Starling Marte to come back in the picture. I went with 2014 Marte, as it represented career-highs for him in average (.291), on-base (.356), walk rate (6.1%), fWAR (4.5), and wRC+ (132). Sure, he’s hit more homers, like this year’s 23, or stolen more bases like 2016’s 47, but this was the all-around best year for Marte. It was 2015 that had Marte’s best defensive year of +24 DRS and 15 outfield assists that resulted in a deserved Gold Glove, but it’s not like he was shabby with the glove in 2014, either.

Reynolds seems to be the natural successor to Marte not only in the LF position, but also in terms of that key complementary player that every team needs a few to win with, but won’t be able to carry a team on his own, like Marte has been forced to attempt to do these last two years. If this is Starling Marte’s final year with the Pirates, he’s earned my admiration for his time here, even if not everyone was able to appreciate his greatness while he was playing.

CF Andrew McCutchen (2014)

Of course McCutchen was going to get the center field slot, but the real question was ‘which season was his best?’ Picking between his 2012, 2013, and 2014 campaigns is like picking who is the favorite of my three kids. If you like HR and average, then 2012’s 31 HR and .327 are for you. If you like fWAR (8.1 fWAR) and his 1st place finish in the MVP, then 2013 is your jam.

But for me, 2014 is his best all-around season. The fWAR was still his 2nd-best at 7.4. The wRC+ was the highest at 168 and his triple slash line of .314/.410/.542 is amazing. This was also the third year in a row that he finished in the top 3 of the NL MVP, getting another 3rd place finish.

So this means that I must also like my youngest daughter the best, too. My wife doesn’t read TPOP anymore, so she won’t see this anyway.

And it goes without saying, I suppose, but McCutchen is also this decade’s greatest Pirate.

RF Gregory Polanco (2018)

With competition strong in LF and faced with a difficult decision on which Andrew McCutchen to select in CF, you would think that RF would be a tough decision, too.

Unfortunately, Gregory Polanco has mostly been a disappointment during his tenure and the rest of the decade hasn’t seen any standout one year wonder.

So Polanco’s 2018 triple slash of .254/.340/.499 (123 wRC+, 2.5 fWAR) is the best of the bunch. Once hoped to be a building block, Polanco has only managed to be a slightly above average player held back by his surprisingly poor defense.

SP1 Gerrit Cole (2015)

In the 2015 season that saw the Pirates win 98 games, Gerrit Cole was the lead sled dog. His 19-8 record was shiny. His 2.60 ERA/2.66 FIP mix showed the performance wasn’t a fluke, resulting in 5.1 fWAR, putting him squarely in the Ace category.

His 24.3% K rate and 5.3% BB rate were both well above average and everything the Pirates wanted to see when they drafted him #1 overall. It all resulted in a 4th place finish in the NL Cy Young race that year, only because Jake Arrieta, Zack Greinke, and Clayton Kershaw all turned in ridiculous seasons that year.

SP2 A.J. Burnett (2013)

If this hypothetical rotation was based purely on impact that the pitcher made on the franchise during this decade, Burnett would be the #1, no question. The Yankees gave up on him after the 2012 season, so the Pirates scooped up his $16M contract at half price by sending two non-descript prospects back to the Yanks in a rare reverse salary dump.

A.J. Burnett’s 2012 was shinier, but it was his 2013 season that was statistically his best. Yes, his record was only 10-11, but don’t get hung up on that. The 3.30 ERA/2.80 FIP (4.0 fWAR) showed what Burnett’s season could have been. Then add in a very strong 26.1% K rate and average 8.4% BB rate, coupled with a worm-burning 56.5% groundball rate, and you have an ideal pitcher — one that is either striking out batters or getting them to keep the ball on the ground for his defense to turn outs.

The city fell in love with him and he was a grizzled, old-school mentor to some of the younger pitchers on the staff. The City of Pittsburgh even worked with local billionaire Thomas Tull to construct a bat signal for him in his final season of 2015, as he dubbed himself Batman. Top that Yankees.

SP3 Francisco Liriano (2015)

When Liriano originally signed with the Pirates as a free agent in 2013, his debut was delayed until May. But his impact on the team was immediately felt. However, I’d posit that his 2015 season is the best of his Pirates’ tenure. The 3.38 ERA/3.19 FIP mix resulted in 3.3 fWAR.

Liriano has always been a Picasso with the slider and 2015 was no different with a 26.5% K rate that was the highest since his 2006 campaign with the Twins. Liriano has always wrestled with his control, but 2015’s 9.1% BB rate was the lowest for him since 2010. Coupled with his 51.2% groundball rate and you had a perfect pitcher to slot in at #3 here.

SP4 Jameson Taillon (2018)

It wasn’t supposed to be this hard for Taillon. Drafted #2 overall in 2010, he was The Prince Who Was Promised before Gerrit Cole came on to the scene. He was going to front the Pirates’ rotation for years to come and challenge for a Cy Young.

Taillon’s injury history is well-worn territory by this point (and is unfortunately continuing with 2nd Tommy John knocking him out for all of 2020), but for one shining season he put it all together in 2018. Taillon delivered 191 strong innings with a 3.20 ERA/3.46 FIP that produced 3.9 fWAR.

Taillon has not been a prolific strikeout artist during his time to date, as his 22.8% K rate was basically league average. But his 5.9% BB rate helped him limit the damage. It helped fans dream on what the future was going to bring for him. Unfortunately, 2019 happened.

SP5 Trevor Williams (2018)

There were a surprising number of candidates that were available for this 5th spot. But this felt like a great way to reward Trevor Williams’ historic 2nd half of the 2018 season when he only gave up 11 earned runs from July 11th to the end of the season (1.29 ERA over 76 innings).

Williams in his short career has had a knack of delivering shutout performances over his starts, a stat that young padawan Alex dubbed The Williams. Williams compiled 10 starts where he went at least 6 innings and did not give up a run. The overall line in 2018 of 3.11 ERA/3.86 FIP produced 2.7 fWAR and made it look like Williams would be a solid mid-rotation piece moving forward. Williams did it by limiting exit velocity, not by registering huge amounts of whiffs.

Like virtually everything associated with the Pirates in 2019, though, he suffered from injuries and a decline in performance. But that 2018 season gets him in the team of the decade.

***

If you look above at the pitching performances, you’ll notice that all five came from winning seasons this decade. Causation does not equal correlation, but it sure does portend that if the Pirates will be successful in the future, they’ll need to get pitching performances commensurate with their ambitions.

And yes, this was going to have a closer spot. But after what has transpired with he-who-shall-not-be-named, I’m treating this like the Pirates did with this year’s Steve Blass award and just leaving it empty.

If you total the players listed above, you get 52.5 fWAR. Add in 3 more WAR for the bench and 3 WAR for the bullpen and you get 58.5 fWAR. That would translate to roughly a 106-107 win season. Not too shabby.