In our latest Pittsburgh Pirates Point, we wonder how much track record should matter when evaluating a player’s recent poor performance.
Tyler: Track record is an important concept when evaluating any player, and it should give a player lots of leeway if his performance drops. For one, most players that have a track record of success in the majors are usually signed to bigger contracts. In this case, a team has real money tied to the player. By this I mean it’s difficult to dump a player for poor performance if the team has a lot of money tied to him. This money earns the player additional time to rebound. We see this situation with guys like Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols, who have un-tradeable contracts that once looked okay because of how well they had performed to get those deals.
Second, a team doesn’t want to make the mistake of getting rid of a player too quickly and then see that player rebound and be successful for another team. The Pirates haven’t had many cases of this in recent years, but we have seen it work in the Pirates favor. Guys like Francisco Liriano and A.J. Burnett were let go or given away by other teams, and re-found success with the Pirates. I’m sure over the past few seasons the Twins and Yankes would have liked to have Liriano and Burnett back.
But teams can give up on players without a solid track record and not receive as much backlash if that player goes on to be successful.
Aaron: Currently there are two Pirates who are concerns and who have track records. Those players are Francisco Liriano and Andrew McCutchen. With both of them there are reasons to be worried they won’t rebound to their previous statistics. At some point in time you have to realize this and make preparations to move on and find other players to replace them. What sort of evidence in their current stats can indicate they can come back to form?
Tyler: There are numerous reasons to stay the course with both Liriano and McCutchen. For one, McCutchen has shown the ability to get hot in a hurry. If he can get hot, watch out. I honestly believe all it will take is a hot streak to get McCutchen going again. Liriano is a different case. It seems as though confidence is holding him back. This is actually a good sign; it’s not as if he’s broken mechanically, which would be a much more difficult fix. If Liriano has a good outing where he’s locating his slider and striking out batters, I think some of that confidence will return. Maybe this won’t happen unless he faces a bad team, but I certainly think it’s possible.
What do you see in Liriano and McCutchen that makes you think they won’t rebound?
Aaron: I am with regarding McCutchen. I think he has some more ability to bounce back to his career numbers because he shown a baseline and regression to that baseline is possible. What bothers me about McCutchon is his thumb and how that is going to affect his swing and offensive ability.
However, Liriano’s history is a lot more checkered and I have less confidence about his potential to turn around to what we have seen since he has become a Pirate. There have been some bad seasons from him and I think that it is possible we are seeing one this season, if not an outright bad season then a sub-par season.
Tyler: In the end, for a small market team like the Pirates, contractual status and past history will always be a factor when deciding the future of a player with the team. This holds true for both McCutchen and Liriano. Hopefully the two of them both rebound sooner rather than later.
Image Credit – Daniel Decker Photography
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