After waiting and waiting and waiting for some real, honest to goodness prospects to come through the Pirates’ system, it’s finally starting to happen. Andrew McCutchen debuted last year, Neil Walker’s restored his prospect status a bit this year, and Brad Lincoln and Jose Tabata are going to pull on Bucco uniforms for the first time tonight in DC. So what can we expect from the two newest Pirates in the near future?
Let’s start with Lincoln. After it was announced that Strasburg would debut against the Pirates, there was a pretty big push from Pirate fans and some media types to put Lincoln out there against Strasburg in an “our guy against your guy” kind of thing. I hope now that the Strasburg debut has come and gone, we can all see why it was a little bit foolish to want that. Brad Lincoln is not Stephen Strasburg, and he’s not particularly close. Last night’s game was an incredible baseball event with a huge crowd, cameras, security, national scrutiny, and an otherworldly young pitcher with some of the filthiest stuff I’ve ever seen. As much as Lincoln may have wanted to start opposite him, it wouldn’t have been particularly fair to throw him right into that fire.
Lincoln is probably as or more talented than any pitcher currently in the Pirates’ rotation, but that doesn’t really say much. He’s most likely headed towards a career as a #3 starter, but if he can maintain his velocity a little closer to the mid-90s (he’s capable of getting there but will probably sit in the lower 90s) and develop his changeup a bit, he could be a #2-type guy thanks to his curveball. He’s not there yet, though. In Triple-A, he’s struggled with lefties and gives up a lot of flyballs that might be homers his first couple times through the National League.
That sounds like I’m down on the kid, but that’s not the impression I’m trying to give. Since his 2008 return from Tommy John surgery he’s gotten better at every level and in his last few starts this year have been flat-out dominant in Triple-A. He’s getting better and he’s ready for this promotion. I think that down the road, he’s got a good chance to be the pitcher that we all keep hoping against hope that Ross Ohlendorf will turn into. But he’s not that pitcher now, and throwing him into the frying pan against Strasburg would’ve been unfair.
Tabata was one of the most pleasant surprises of the spring when I went down to Bradenton in March. I saw him play in Durham last summer and was impressed with his swing. In a lot of ways, he reminded me of the Andrew McCutchen I saw in Durham the summer before; an undersized guy with a great swing that wasn’t hard to see playing well in the Majors. But I was also surprised at his build. He was, frankly, a little chubby and given his short stature didn’t look quite like you’d expect a top prospect to look. The guy I saw in Bradenton this year was drastically slimmed down and just looked like more of a baseball player.
To date in Indy, he’s having his best minor league season in Triple-A. His average is up, his OBP and walk rate are better, and he’s flashing more power than he has in the past. Like McCutchen, his minor league numbers don’t matter as much as the fact that he’s making progress. Since McCutchen’s call-up, he’s been much better than his numbers at any minor league level because he’s a young player that’s simply getting better. I think Tabata is capable of a similar sort of progression. He’s not nearly as advanced as McCutchen was when we called him up last year and so I’m not saying that he’s going to come up and light the world on fire like ‘Cutch, but it’s worth remembering that he’s young than ‘Cutch was when he got his callup (and this is a bone of contention of mine: he’s not allegedly younger; he’s listed as 21 on his birth certificate from Venezuela, which is not nearly as unreliable as the Dominican Republic as far as these things go, and thus far no one has anything other than anecdotal evidence that he might be older than he’s listed and while that might be true it’s unfair that people are now just kind of assuming he’s not 21 because some people don’t think he looks 21) and not quite as advanced, but he’s still making very good progress and like Lincoln, he’s earned this promotion.
It’s worth reiterating that it’s unreasonable to expect these guys to come up and be Andrew McCutchen, because ‘Cutch has established himself as a top tier center fielder within a year of his callup and there just aren’t many guys that can do that. But they’re good, young prospects and hopefully they’ll both do nothing but get better in the coming months and years. I’m excited for tonight, and if you’re a Pirate fan, you should be too.
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