I know its semi-old news that Pedro Alvarez was cut by now, but it’s still pretty significant and worth mentioning, I think. I am happy that they waited until I left town to do it, because Alvarez was obviously one of the players I really wanted to see during my time in Florida and he got at-bats in every game I was at.
Spring training results obviously don’t mean a whole lot, but the Alvarez I saw will definitely benefit from some more minor league seasoning. He was actually pretty passive early in a lot of at-bats, which often resulted in him falling behind in the count. He did rip a couple of balls and when he gets a hold of one the ball rockets off of his bat, but that only happened once or twice in the four games that I saw. I’m not at all trying to say he won’t live up to the hype; he has a great swing and honestly didn’t take too many ugly swings that I saw (which I was worried about given his strikeout total last year). I just think that he’s not quite as ready as Pirate fans want him to be at this point in time.
Charlie’s posted a couple times now about the dangers of rushing Alvarez to the Majors, especially given what’s happened to Alex Gordon in KC, and I think it’s an apt comparison. There’s just no reason to rush Alvarez right now. He’ll still be in Pittsburgh plenty soon.
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