After there was some talk a couple weeks ago about the Pirates maybe sort of kind of wanting Pedro Alvarez to play winterball this year, it looks like the third baseman isn’t going to go south for the winter unless he goes to the Dominican for a stint at the end of the Dominican Winter League. I haven’t looked too closely into the reaction, but it appears that Pirate fans are doing what they usually do when Alvarez is involved: get angry with the guy and question his work ethic.
I’m of two minds here. If Alvarez is going to come back from his lost season, then I think we have to hope his struggles are mostly self-imposed. You can watch him in the dugout get down on himself when he struggles, you can see him in the box out-thinking himself when he’s in a slump and that makes things worse. I’m no coach of psychologist, but it seems to me that the best way to fix that problem would be to go south — away from friends and coaches and cameras and Pirate fans — and just get into the box and hack away and find a groove. If Pedro’s problems really run deeper than that, which is to say that he’s just terrible at recognizing pitches at the big league level, ino amount of winter ball will help him. I’d like to see him play some over the winter to keep swinging in game situations, to make up the at-bats he lost to his injury. Hey, we know he didn’t do it last year, so changing things up this winter can only help, right?
The thing is, the guy’s still a human being. He got married right before spring training, he spent a big chunk of the year bouncing between the minors and Pittsburgh, plus he was on rehab assignments. If the guy wants to spend the winter working out in the States, going to the batting cages, watching film, and spending time with his wife, I think it’s really hard to blame him for that. I can’t say I wouldn’t make the same decision if I were in his shoes. And hey, maybe a winter not thinking about all of the things that have vexed him will help with a hard reset in spring training. I don’t really know. I’m not sure anyone knows exactly what the guy needs, to be honest.
In slightly more encouraging news (that’s a couple days old by now, mea culpa), Kristy Robinson is reporting that it looks like Gerrit Cole will be pitching in the Arizona Fall League this year. There’s always quite a bit of consternation when top prospects wait until August 15th to sign, but in Cole’s case I’m perfectly fine with this timetable. He’s had some time to rest his arm after his college season, he’s throwing in the instructional league now, and he’ll log some innings in the AFL next month. This is pretty much exactly how the Nationals handled Stephen Strasburg two years ago, and obviously his development wasn’t arrested much. Hopefully, Cole will throw one or two games on the MLB Network this fall so that we can all get a look at him.
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