For the 2017 Pittsburgh Pirates to rebound after a down year, they will need even more flexibility from their manager.
Current Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle knows a bit about flexibility when it comes to baseball’s ever-changing dynamics.
As expertly recounted in Travis Sawchik’s ‘Big Data Baseball,’ After being let go by the Colorado Rockies, Hurdle’s time at MLB Network enlightened the notoriously old-school skipper. When hired by the Pirates, he brought with him a newfound respect for deeply analytical concepts such as defensive shifts.
Once the talent level matched the club’s analytical ambition, the results started to show. From 2013 through the 2015 season, the team had the second most wins in baseball.
Then, 2016 happened. And now, Clint Hurdle will need to show a different kind of flexibility.
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A Player’s Manager
Hurdle has cultivated a reputation as a “player’s manager.” This has benefited the Pittsburgh Pirates in numerous ways throughout his tenure. Heading into 2017, Hurdle may have to take a different tack.
He has already started to do so in moving Andrew McCutchen to right field. It did not hurt that Hurdle had a veritable mountain of data showing that Starling Marte belonged in center field. More to the point, it certainly did not hurt that Hurdle had cultivated a strong enough relationship with McCutchen over the years to deliver that message. In this way, Hurdle maintained his reputation as a player’s manager, giving McCutchen every opportunity to show that he could still handle centerfield before ultimately making the move.
Going forward, Hurdle might have to get to that point more quickly if he should find himself in a similar situation. Hurdle is loyal to his established players, but that should not come at the expense of the club’s performance. Hurdle’s message still has not gotten stale – it is clear that his players by and large still love to play for him – but a firmer hand could yield firmer results.
A Quicker Trigger Finger
This means not sticking with John Jaso during his lengthy 2016 slump – when nothing in his history to that point showed that he was capable of easily breaking out of it. This could mean exhibiting a quicker trigger finger in making batting order changes if something isn’t working.
If we turn specifically to the Pittsburgh Pirates bullpen, we find an area where Hurdle can show the most flexibility. As we talked about yesterday in our Wake Up Call, general manager Neal Huntington has alluded to a different type of bullpen usage for the 2017 season.
Other than the 8th and 9th inning guys – Daniel Hudson and Tony Watson – of course. Huntington said that those two are “as set as set can be” in their roles in a radio hit with ESPN Pittsburgh’s David Todd. Though Huntington did say that the bullpen arms before those two were “transitional,” his words still stung those hoping to see Hurdle approach the closer’s role “from scratch.”
With the understanding that no decision like this is truly made in a vacuum, Hurdle will have a huge opportunity to show his flexibility should Watson falter in the season’s early-goings. From Huntington’s words, it also appears that Hurdle will be able to show a new approach to bullpen usage before the 8th inning by pitching his best arms against the other team’s best hitters.
That half-measure may not be enough for a club that must maximize the contributions of every single arm in that relief corps to be effective and return to the weapon it once was.
Looking at the 2017 Pittsburgh Pirates as a whole, it may take most – if not all – of its personnel to perform at high capacity to rebound from a 78-win season. Some will need to trust in their ability.
Some still will need to adapt, and adapt quickly. For a game that has a hotly debated pace of play that some consider slow, it can evolve surprisingly fast.
Hurdle has the speed to keep up. Now more than ever, he’ll have to show it.
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