Pittsburgh Pirates: Five Keys to a Hot Start in 2016

The Pittsburgh Pirates have a lot of questions that need answered in order to have a stronger start than in recent years.

It has been well documented the past few years that the Pittsburgh Pirates tend to struggle in the month of April. In the past three years the team has a 37-36 record. That doesn’t seem as bad as one may think. However, compare this to the Cardinals, the only team that has finished on top of Pittsburgh in the NL Central. The Cardinals have gone 43-31 in April since 2013.

However, this April’s schedule looks promising for the Buccos as 23 of the 26 games scheduled are against teams that recorded losing records in 2015. The schedule includes a seven game road trip against the National League West bottom feeders from last season along with 11 games against National League Central foes. Sprinkle in five games against the Detroit Tigers and that is what the Pirates have to look forward to in April.

While the schedule looks favorable, there are still quite a few question marks that are being brought up as the team sets to begin the 2016 season. What is it going to take for the Pirates to start out the season strong and have a better month of April? Well, there are a few things, five to be exact, that I am going to point out.

1 – The offensive production of the left side of the infield without Jung Ho Kang

Kang won’t be in the lineup until mid-April at the earliest. That means a lot of the offensive workload will fall on David Freese and Jordy Mercer. Mercer, who has been a historically slow starter, having a career .185 batting average in April, will have to have his .289 batting average in the Grapefruit League carry over to the regular season.

Freese, on the other hand, is a wild card. While he struggled in April as an Angel, in Freese’s five years in St. Louis, he recorded a .302 average in the month of April. With 11 games against NL Central teams, the Pirates will hope Freese can become familiar with the Central’s teams once again, and put up big numbers against them.

2 – Josh Harrison at second base

Harrison will be starting his first season in what is planned as him being the Pirates full-time second baseman. While Harrison has started 67 games at second base (16 percent of his games started) he seems to be a natural second baseman. In his career at that position, Harrison has a .982 fielding percentage. Compared to former Pirates’ second baseman Neil Walker, Harrison has far more range, however with not playing the position as much, there will still be an adjustment for J-Hay.

3 – First Base Platoon

With the platoon of John Jaso and Michael Morse at first base, there are a lot of questions that surround the first base situation. While both Jaso and Morse are above average OBP players, the question is if Morse will be able to carry the offensive load against right-handed pitching. Morse is have a great spring swinging the bat. He has a .353 batting average at the moment. For his career, Morse is a .276 hitter. In getting more at-bats with the Pirates than he did last season, Morse can put up numbers similar to 2014 when he was one of the key players to lead the Giants to the World Series.

Morse also is a solid option defensively. He has started 189 games at first base and recorded a .995 fielding percentage. Jaso, on the other hand, is a huge question mark. He is playing his first season as a starting first baseman. Put together Jaso, who is learning how to play first base, along with Harrison, who doesn’t have much experience at second base, and there could be a learning curve in the middle of the infield.

4 – The back-end of the rotation

After Gerrit Cole and Francisco Liriano, the Pirates have a bunch of question marks in the rotation. There seems to be up to four pitchers that will take the ball to fill the rotation spots. They include Jeff Locke, Ryan Vogelsong, Jon Niese, and Juan Nicasio. Three out of the four candidates have been having a rough spring. While Nicasio has put up a perfect ERA with 28 strikeouts over 15 innings, the other three have been less than stellar. Niese, who looks to be the Pirates’ third starter, has a 9.82 ERA and a .289 opponent’s batting average. Locke has a 6.63 ERA and a .278 batting average against him. Vogelsong has a 6.08 ERA. While the ball won’t travel up north like it did in the mild Florida weather, these pitchers must get their game going and become efficient for the Pirates to be successful.

5 – The back-end of bullpen

With Jared Hughes starting the season on the disabled list, the Pittsburgh Pirates will bring out Neftali Feliz, Tony Watson, and Mark Melancon as the seventh, eighth, and ninth inning guys. The Pirates are looking for consistency at the end of games. All three of these relievers have been tremendous in spring training with Feliz, Watson, and Melancon posting a 2.35, 3.86, and 0.00 ERA respectively. The Pirates need to get the ball to these guys while having the lead in place. The more that happens, the more wins the team will have.

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