For whatever reason, the catch-phrase “Trust the Process” never quite caught on with Neal Huntington’s rebuild of the Pirates in the way that it did in Houston with Jeff Luhnow’s work or in Kansas City with Dayton Moore. For the most part, Pirate fans were skeptical of Huntington right up until the Pirates clinched their first playoff spot in 20+ years in 2013. Since then, each ensuing year follows a crazy trust roller coaster in which Pirate fans freak out over the club not spending enough money over the winter, only to watch the Pirates make the playoffs again as the next summer winds down.
It’s relatively tempting to treat these two things as interdependent. The Pirates make the playoffs, so they must be spending enough money. The Pirates can’t win the division, so they’re obviously cheap. The reality, as always, is much more complicated. Most of the last four Pirate winters take on a pretty apparent pattern. The Pirates focus in on a particular roster spot or two and go out and acquire a player they like (Francisco Liriano 2x, Francisco Cervelli, Russell Martin, probably Jon Niese in this winter’s case) via trade or relatively inexpensive free agency. Then the Pirates buff out their infield depth and fill their bullpen and the fringes of their rotation, while flooding the bullpen with electric high-upside arms that have been abandoned by their previous teams for whatever reason. The end result is the Pirate team that we’ve seen more or less since their furious drive for the playoffs in 2014 began: the offense is anchored on their two around their two star outfielders (McCutchen and Marte), along with a rotating cast of useful infielders and a solid catcher that gets on base a lot with a bit of pop. The rotation has Gerrit Cole at the top, followed closely by Francisco Liriano, and the bullpen is deep enough to bail out whoever it is that follows them. The team has holes (usually in the rotation), but the also have a bit of financial flexibility to address problems that crop up during the season as the trade deadline approaches (an infielder after serious injuries to Jordy Mercer and Josh Harrison last year, a last second JA Happ acquisition after AJ Burnett’s injury, etc.) in a way they might not otherwise be able to if they’d spent more money over the winter.
It’s not an accident that this formula works. In writing about the second annual uproar over the sabermetric community’s projections of the Royals, Jeff Sullivan noted that the Pirates have beaten their projections by even more than the Royals have over the last three years, and that the Pirates and Royals rank first and second in baseball in bullpen win percentage added over the same timespan. I wrote about this basic idea a couple of weeks ago; for all of our skepticism about a rotation with Jeff Locke, Ryan Vogelsong, and (to some extent) Jon Niese in it, the Pirates did an excellent job of hiding Morton and Locke down the stretch with their bullpen last year, and their bullpen has a chance to be even better in 2016.
While this off-season followed the same general tone as the three that preceded it, there’s one notable difference: the Pirates jettisoned three ostensible starters this winter in Pedro Alvarez, Neil Walker, and Charlie Morton. It’s easy to defend each of these moves on their own without any sort of mental gymnastics. Alvarez’s defense at first base was historically atrocious and because his bat has remained static it’s not enough to compensate for his glove. Walker is getting older and his 2015 was worse than his 2014 in a few ways that look like bright red flags, while Jon Niese looks like a solid Ray Searage project and fills a need. Morton pitches well as a mid-rotation guy when healthy, but it seems like 90% of the time he’s either hurt or about to be hurt.
On the whole, though, the Pirates got rid of the money they would’ve spent on Alvarez and Morton and replaced them with the substantially cheaper John Jaso and Ryan Vogelsong, while shifting Neil Walker’s money from second base to the rotation. It’s not easy to miss the larger issue here: the Pirates parted with three players in moves that were at least partially motivated by money, kept their same frugal approach to player acquisition, and are still going to see their payroll go up in 2016.
Regardless of the question of whether or not the Pirates can be spending more money (short answer: they almost certainly can be, though I would also add in that I understand why the front office leaves a cushion between themselves and their payroll ceiling at the start of every April), we’re now quickly approaching the time where we need to start to wonder whether the Pirates will need to spend more to stay competitive. Every small market team hits this barrier; you rarely see a team like the Rays or A’s or Brewers stay competitive for a full decade, but rather, they ebb and flow. The Pirates are clearly making moves to try and do better at perennial contention than those teams have (they’re at or very close to the peak of their powers right now, with Tyler Glasnow and Josh Bell in their immediate future and plenty of other prospects still in the pipeline), but at some point it’s fair to weigh that goal against the present.
This year is that point. I understand that it’s Neal Huntington’s job to worry about 2019 and there is, of course, a small part of me that’s happy that he is. I, personally, am much more concerned with 2016, as I’m sure you are, and as I’m sure the Pirates players are. I also want to be clear; I’m in no way writing the Pirates off for 2016. I don’t think they’re engaged in a “stealth rebuild,” the way some Pirate fans/Pittsburgh media types seem to think that they are, and I’d tell you that they’re probably closer to a World Series on this Groundhog’s Day than they have been in any Groundhog’s Day that I can remember. The Pirate front office has, from my perspective, earned quite a bit of trust and while I’m skeptical of some of the things they’ve done this winter, I’m also willing to let it play out on the field before jumping to conclusions. The Pirates are not favorites, though, and there’s a decent chance they’re going to get lost in a top-heavy National League and end up out of the playoffs entirely.
I don’t want to spend all spring bogged down in discussions of the Pirates’ payroll, though, and so with this post launching the WHYGAVS 2016 Season Preview coverage, just know that everything that’s going to go up on the site in the coming weeks is being focused by one question: Is 2016 the year, and why or why not? I’m going to try and stick loosely to the “500 words” conceit from last year, in that I want to stay player oriented and keep posts a generally digestible length (unlike this one, oops), though I won’t set a hard limit and I want to try and tackle some bigger questions as we get closer to the season. There are some larger big-picture questions I’d like to tackle, as well, and a couple other ideas for features I’d like to try out on the site. Also, I’m going to have to defend a thesis in the next month to six weeks or so, and so that will probably complicate things a bunch.
Still, it’s February. Football is almost over and baseball is creeping closer. The Pittsburgh Pirates won 98 games last year and will once put Andrew McCutchen, Starling Marte, Gerrit Cole, Francisco Liriano, and Jung Ho Kang back in black and gold. Nothing is guaranteed, but this is exciting.
Image credit: Doug Pensinger, Getty Images Sport
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