What should the Pittsburgh Pirates do with Matthew Joyce?

The Pittsburgh Pirates have 24 hours to decide whether Matthew Joyce will make the club out of Spring Training. Should he?

When the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Matthew Joyce to a minor league deal on February 20th, it was assumed he would compete for the fourth outfielder’s job and compete he has. He has been fairly solid so far in this spring, hitting two home runs, four RBIs, and putting up an .813 OPS.

As an Article XX(B) player, tomorrow is the deadline for Joyce to be informed whether he will make the Pirates’ Opening Day roster and he will either make the team, be traded, or paid $100,000 to accept a minor league assignment. What should the Pirates do?

I’ve heard Orioles are interested in #Pirates OF Matt Joyce. Pirates have Tues deadline to put him on active roster https://t.co/Hl3ueM5qCg

— Rob Biertempfel (@BiertempfelTrib) March 28, 2016

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According to Rob Biertempfel, the Baltimore Orioles are interested in Joyce and if he isn’t going to make the Pirates, the team could potentially work out a deal to send Joyce to the Orioles. What would the potential return be on a Joyce to the Orioles trade? Most likely it would be similar to the cash return the Pirates got for Eric O’Flaherty when he was traded to the Atlanta Braves. Since Joyce has a deadline and can request his outright release, there is very little incentive for the Orioles to put up anything other than cash.

Outside of being released or traded, Joyce could also make the Pirates out of spring training, but should he?

Joyce has the advantage of being a career outfielder, which should give him the advantage in any open competition as most of the players competing for the job lack the experience of Joyce, an eight-year Major League veteran. Joyce has never been a very strong defender during the course of his career, as he’s put up a -2.4 UZR and a -0.8 UZR/150 during his career. So if he was to make the team as an extra outfielder, his defensive skills would be a huge drop off from Gregory Polanco (3.6 UZR and 2.1 UZR/150) and Starling Marte. (25.2 UZR and 12.3 UZR/150)

One the biggest philosophies the Pirates have preached this off-season has been positional flexibility and Joyce has almost exclusively played the outfield during his career. So it is unlikely he’d be able to play anywhere in the infield for any extended period of time. Because of the Pirates’ team concept of bench players being able to play multiple positions, I would not expect Joyce to make the club out of spring training.

Despite not being the most popular player in 2015, Sean Rodriguez could be a a viable bench piece and extra outfielder since his outfield defense during the course of his career has been vastly superior to that of Joyce. Rodriguez has a career 2.9 UZR and a 7.6 UZR/150 as an outfielder. So while Rodriguez isn’t in Polanco or Marte’s class defensively, he provides substantially less of a drop off compared to Joyce. Rodriguez also gives you the added advantage of being able to play pretty much every defensive position outside of catcher, center field, and shortstop.

Is Rodriguez’s defense more valuable than Joyce’s offense? Joyce had the worst season of his career in 2015, batting .174/.272/.291/.564/60 OPS+, but is only one season removed from a very respectable .254/.349/.383/.732/111 OPS+ with nine home runs and 52 RBIs. The question the Pirates need to ask is Joyce likely to bounce back and be more the player he has been during his career or more of the player he was in 2015?

I would expect Joyce to bounce back in 2016, but I do not think he’ll approach a 111 OPS+ and I think given the Pirates’ defense-first concept, Rodriguez could play the role of extra outfielder, coupled with Mike Morse providing enough offense to make up for any of Rodriguez’s potential offensive shortcomings.

Matt Joyce could be a very solid player in 2016, but more than likely he won’t fit into the Pirates’ plans. Given he’ll cost the Pirates $100k to stash him in the minor leagues, I would expect the Pirates to trade Joyce to the Orioles or simply give him his contractual release come tomorrow. Veteran players sign with teams during spring training and play the regular season with different teams pretty much every season, so there was always a chance that Joyce would never factor into the Pirates’ regular season plans. Whatever happens, the Pirates have less than 24 hours to figure out where Joyce will be playing come April 3rd.

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