The Pittsburgh Pirates have fan favorite Francisco Cervelli under contract for three more years. His lack of power this season and injury history throughout his career have this writer concerned.
Right after the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Francisco Cervelli to a contract extension back in May, I opined that this signing justified not throwing a ton of money at the departing Russell Martin. At the time of Cervelli’s signing, he was having a great year while Martin was in the middle of a horrible offensive stretch.
Well, like many politicians during this election year, I have changed my opinion on the deal slightly. While I still believe signing Cervelli was a good move at the time, his lack of power and oft-injured status makes me question how well this deal is going to work out.
Was 2015 an Outlier?
2015 was the first season that Cervelli played in more than 100 games, 130 to be exact. So it makes sense that this also represents his best year offensively, as he slashed .295/.370/.401. He also had seven home runs, 56 runs scored and 43 RBI, all career highs.
In fact, in his nine year big league career, Cervelli has just 17 home runs in 1,616 plate appearances. Not good numbers, but Cervelli has never been a power hitter. His ten extra base hits this season show that.
One reason that Cervelli’s power numbers are down even by his standards this year is because of the injury to his hamate bone in his left hand. This injury is known to sap power and can take some time to recover from. As recently as just a few weeks ago, Cervelli admitted that he would be playing in pain the rest of the season.
Mounting Injuries Creating a Mountain of Concern?
The amount of injuries that Cervelli has to deal with is what is concerning.
[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”#000000″ class=”” size=””]Cervelli has just 17 home runs in 1,616 plate appearances.[/perfectpullquote]Before coming to the Pittsburgh Pirates, he had to deal with broken bones and a concussion while the back stop for the Yankees. Obviously some of these injuries can be considered unlucky, but it definitely seems like Cervelli has to deal with injuries more often than his catching contemporaries.
Consider this: Cervelli signed his three year extension on May 17th and since then the Pirates have played 100 games. In that same time span Cervelli has only played in 51 of those games.
The hamate bone injury cost Cervelli 31 games while other bumps, bruises and days off have accounted for the others.
Obviously a starting catcher cannot be counted on to play 162 games, the position is just too demanding. But a starting catcher should be able to stay healthy to catch well over half of a team’s games. And if he isn’t capable of staying healthy for a full season, then perhaps that money could have been better spent on other resources.
Cervelli Shows Culpability
But to be fair to Cervelli, he did acknowledge that the hamate injury came at a bad time since the team had just given him a lot of guaranteed money. It’s not often that you hear an athlete say something like that, so it is refreshing to see a player with the character to address the situation.
Cervelli has always been a defense first catcher, and even this year he has slipped a little behind the plate. Of catchers across the league with a minimum of 600 innings caught, Cervelli has allowed the fourth most stolen bases (56) and ranks 20th in fielding percentage (.990). In terms of defensive runs saved (DRS), Cervelli is tied for eighth in the league with an even zero.
I hope that I am wrong in my thinking that the Pittsburgh Pirates rushed to sign Cervelli to an extension. Hopefully Cervelli proves me wrong like Sean Rodriguez did after I suggested his signing was unnecessary due to other moves that were made.
However, in Cervelli the Pirates have a catcher who will be 31 next season and missed a significant portion of these season to injury, so there should be some concern on management’s part.
Photo Credit- Steven Yates – Flickr Creative Commons
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