2017 Pittsburgh Pirates Preview – Crafting the Best Pirates Batting Order

How Will the Pittsburgh Pirates construct their everyday batting order in 2017? The possibilities are vast.

The Pittsburgh Pirates have so many possibilities in constructing their lineup…actually, I’m getting ahead of myself.

To better understand the timing of this piece, I must go back less than 48 hours before when it was finally assembled.

While hosting an afternoon radio segment, I broke down what my idea of the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ideal lineup looked like. Since that time, my mind has changed and (full disclosure) may change again throughout the course of the season depending on changing circumstances. I know this sounds like I’m hedging, but allow me to explain why.

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After scouring through numbers, double and triple-checking splits and going back and forth between different combinations of names, I have realized that despite lacking a prototypical leadoff hitter, a classic definitive cleanup hitter and a mix of skill sets that invoke both the “Deadball” era of baseball as well as the modern one, what makes this Pittsburgh Pirates lineup unique is not its collection of big names or an abundance of one trait, but its versatility.

Once you understand this lineup is not built to be ideal, you begin to appreciate the many other things it can be and that perceived weakness becomes, indeed, a strength.

Note: though it is common practice among MLB managers to produce a different lineup versus left-handed and right-handed pitchers, we stick to a more or less agnostic lineup in this analysis.

During that radio segment, I rolled out a theory with this Opening Day lineup

1. Starling Marte
2. Josh Bell
3. Andrew McCutchen
4. David Freese
5. Gregory Polanco
6. Francisco Cervelli
7. Josh Harrison
8. Jordy Mercer

The thinking behind this lineup card was based on four factors: the confirmation by Pittsburgh Pirates manager Clint Hurdle that McCutchen will be the team’s no. 3 hitter, the early success Bell had in that spot after being called up from Triple-A Indianapolis last season, Freese’s success at the cleanup spot last season and the performance of Polanco, Cervelli, Harrison and Mercer in the bottom half of the order in the first five games of last season (a combined .310 batting average, .424 on-base percentage and 14:13 strikeout-to-walk ratio).

Since then, I’ve revisited that lineup and come up with something different, based largely on the best performances by batting slot during each player’s individual career. It also allowed me to construct alternative lineups as well. But the biggest discovery was understanding where each hitter could thrive if the batting order ever needed to change – which we all know is inevitable over the course of a 162-game season.

It allowed me to come up with a new Opening Day lineup that also accounts for the likely absence of Jung Ho Kang, and it also helps set a rough sketch for an alternate lineup as well, just in case Hurdle felt like tinkering with some things.

1. Harrison, 2B: I was previously in the camp of people who believed this spot made no sense for him, given his high contact production and the perception of him eschewing the base on balls. But the truth is his best numbers in his career have come from the leadoff spot: .308 batting average, .344 on-base percentage, .451 slugging percentage. To go even deeper down the sabermetric rabbit hole, his weighted on base average – a highly regarded measure of a player’s offensive ability – is .346, eleven points above the high watermark of the 2016 National League average (league average wOBA rises and falls from year to year given offensive totals). Harrison as a leadoff hitter is an example of our eyes telling us one thing, but performance telling us another. But if one still couldn’t be persuaded, hitting seventh is the next best option for him (.301/.334/.423). One thing is for certain: the Pittsburgh Pirates need Harrison to look more like his 2014 version.
2. Bell, 1B: This was probably the easiest decision of all to make, given he had 107 of his first 152 Major League plate appearances in this slot, and once most of the other players’ ideal spots had been figured out, he slid right into place. There is still much to be determined about which spot really works best for him given such a small sample size, but given his patience and power potential, if it ain’t broke…
3. McCutchen, RF: Whether it was his thumb, or it was mental, or he just flat-out didn’t like it, the McCutchen at no. 2 experiment didn’t work last year (.237/.317/.402) as opposed to the great volume of work he has created hitting third. For Hurdle to remove all doubt early and put McCutchen back in the third spot was a wise move to not only ease Cutch’s concerns, but lay the foundation for the lineup this season. Once this stone is in place, the rest are more easily built around it.
4. Marte, CF: Remember what I told you about this team not having a classic cleanup hitter? Well, if you must determine one by process of elimination, it doesn’t take long to figure out Marte is the guy. His .330/.382/.497 slash numbers in the 4-hole, along with a .378 wOBA make this decision too easy. While he has value as a leadoff hitter and his improving pitch selection makes it even more attractive, he’s most effective in this spot with this roster.
5. Polanco, LF: Of all the spots in this order, this is the only one that is based solely on a leap of faith. He only has 28 career plate appearances hitting fifth (24 of them came last season), and the lone bright spot of such a small sample size is a 5:3 BB/K ratio. We discovered last season his ideal spot is hitting third (.325/.372/.553 in 137 career PA), but since that one is already taken, we had to put him somewhere, right?
6. Freese, 3B: This was a relatively easy choice since his career numbers say he could hit either fifth (.266/.326/.423 in 1088 PA) or sixth (.286/.358/.423 in 957 PA) and probably be fine, but the extra 20 points in batting average, 30 points in on-base percentage and a .346 wOBA hitting sixth as opposed to .328 hitting fifth make it a little bit clearer. He also makes for a suitable no. 3 alternative (.841 OPS, .369 wOBA in 157 PA) when McCutchen takes a day off.
7. Cervelli, C: When it comes to the bottom of the order, he’s the most interchangeable. The Pittsburgh Pirates have not seen him as such, but it’s true. He could hit anywhere between sixth and ninth (at an American League ballpark) and you would get the same results: a very selective hitting eye that draws walks, a liner in the gap every now and then and he’ll grind out plate appearances (3.98 pitches seen per PA hitting seventh). In 2015, nearly half of his starts were in the seventh spot, and he acquitted himself well (.299/.366/.428, .348 wOBA). We could go on about his general lack of power, but hitting that low in the order, it’s a red herring.
8. Mercer, SS: It seems really unfair to stick him at the bottom, given his best spot in the order is probably second (.326/.362/.510, .379 wOBA in 257 career PA), but if Bell falters in that spot, that could open a chance for Mercer to move up to where he’s best served. We also saw how effective he was even leading off against left-handers last season. But the truth is Mercer had the best offensive season of his career in 2016, and he started more than half of those games hitting eighth. His .331 on-base percentage while hitting eighth last season was also the best of his career, considering he had more than 700 plate appearances in the previous three seasons in the same slot.

Besides having laid out the virtues of each player in their given batting position, the hidden element that will help Clint Hurdle scratching out a lineup card daily is the ability of several players in this group of eight to excel in more than one spot in the order. He could easily slide players like Marte, Freese and Mercer up in the order, or Harrison and Bell down and still have a good combination that could provide peak level production. That alone could cause this lineup to look different throughout the season, but with a very versatile bench group such as Adam Frazier, John Jaso, Phil Gosselin and Alen Hanson, it will also be easier for the Pittsburgh Pirates to adjust to nearly every situation that could happen between the beginning of April and the end of September.

Josh Taylor is an award-winning sports broadcasting personality appearing on KDKA‘s sports coverage and programming. Josh can currently be heard on 93.7 The Fan and seen on KDKA and The CW networks.