Pittsburgh Pirates Wake-Up Call – Replacing McCutchen

In our daily Wake-Up Call, we get you ready for the day with a complete look at all things Pittsburgh Pirates.

It’s an off day for the World Series, and there hasn’t been much Pirates news as of late (outside of the coaching staff changes), so it’s been a quiet night on the baseball front. So I got to thinking: one of the big storylines to follow as a Pirates fan this off-season will be Andrew McCutchen‘s future with the team. Will he get traded? Or will he return? And if he returns, will he stay in center field next season, or will he move to a corner spot? And will he rebound to his former-MVP form? There are certainly a lot of questions surrounding the 2014 NL MVP. But I started thinking about, if McCutchen does indeed get moved this winter, how would the Pirates replace him in 2017?

We know Austin Meadows will eventually likely occupy a spot in the outfield for years to come. But he won’t be major league ready until mid-2017 at the earliest, so the Pirates would need an immediate, possibly short-term replacement for McCutchen. If he was moved solely for prospects, the Pirates would have $14.2 million to use towards that replacement. And even if the Pirates received major league players in return, the team would likely have at least part of that money to use.

First, the Pirates would look internally. Unfortunately, the Pirates don’t have many options in that regard. John Jaso is set to work out at third base and the outfield this winter, so he could receive time at a corner outfield spot. But he’d likely be best used more in a spot start role and off the bench. Using him as a full-time starter in right or left field could be disastrous defensively.

The other option is to move Josh Bell off of first base. This is an option I could see the Pirates exploring. Bell is better defensively in the outfield than at first base, and the Pirates could replace Bell at first internally with Jaso or David Freese. The bench would suffer, yes, but the lineup might not, especially if Freese moves to first.

Externally, this could motivate the Pirates to bring back Sean Rodriguez and/or Matt Joyce even more, if they aren’t already. One of the outfield spots could be taken on a rotational basis by Rodriguez and Joyce, both of whom were above-average offensively last season. And there are certainly cheaper outfield options in free agency that could work on a short-term basis.

No, I don’t think the Pirates should trade McCutchen this winter. But I also feel replacing him, at least the 2016 version of him, on a short-term basis wouldn’t be difficult or catastrophic. We’ll have a full breakdown on this very topic later this week!

Baseball Talk Around the Web

• The Pirates had two of their prospects make the Arizona Fall League Fall Stars Game: 3B Connor Joe and RHP Edgar Santana. Check out the full roster here.

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