This off-season the front office has resorted to trying to increase the number of versatile contact hitters in the lineup foregoing power, due to either their inability or unwillingness to sign a true power cleanup bat. The free agent prices are inflated, and the organization has been unable to sign or draft a successful power prospect. The fans may complain about that, but at the end of the day, it’s hard to question a team only a year removed from 98 wins before spring training even starts.
Josh Bell was once thought to fill that void, but he has only thirty home runs over four minor league seasons, with only seven in 2015 between Double-A and Triple-A, despite posting consistently high run, RBI, and batting average totals. General Manager Neal Huntington hopes to turn around that power trend before he is ready to be promoted at some point this summer, but assuming he is either a late bloomer or has reached the upper echelon of his power ability, what are the Pirates other options?
Of the 2016 Pirates, only McCutchen posted statistics above the averages for the top ten designated hitters in 2015, according to number of appearances. He’s not an option, regardless of the knee issues he faced over parts of last season. Speaking of knee issues, no one is certain how Jung Ho Kang will recover from the severe knee injury he suffered in September. Last year, he showed flashes of the raw power that made the Pirates sign him from the Korean Baseball Organization, and Kang will likely be able to continue the adjustment process to major league pitching in 2016. If he can add to the 15 home runs he had in 2015, he could be a DH candidate later in his career.
Gregory Polanco had 121 strikeouts to pair with nine home runs and 52 RBIs last season. Steamer projects minor increases in his home run and RBI totals and batting average, while equaling his 2015 walk total and lowering his strikeout total in 2016. If Willy Garcia and Austin Meadows are everything they’re projected to be defensively, Polanco could seriously benefit by a move to DH should the NL ever vote to include it.
The Pirates best bet may be Josh Bell. He’s not terrible defensively and certainly can improve on the 16 errors he had 2015 (although he did have only three errors and a .990 fielding percentage after his promotion to Indianapolis). Bell has been a dominant force throughout his minor league career. If he can ever discover the power potential that made him worthy of a record-breaking signing bonus, Bell would be the dominant middle of the order power and contact combination teams drool over. Of course, a move to the DH would have to correspond with Jaso and/or Mike Morse managing to discover themselves at first. Jaso, 32, has been the point of consistency to be expected out of a contact hitter and all the limited power expected of a utility player.
While reviled by fans and players of many NL teams, Wainwright himself said “baseball has to stay doing what it is,” but the designated hitter does pose a solution to both NL and MLB problems. Mozeliak certainly wasn’t happy about the Cardinals losing one of their best players. Other NL teams like the Mets and the Pirates have a lot of young pitchers AND would suffer a heavy loss if one went down trying to beat out a ground-ball with a runner on third or breaking up a double play sliding into second. The wave and the woo birds are two instances of what happens when a game is low-scoring. The designated hitter would be certain to increase run production across the NL. A lot of players complain about the grueling 162-game schedule MLB teams face, and the DH would give an extra position player a day of relative rest. In my opinion, if the NL were to ever adopt the DH, it would be appropriate to increase the roster size to 28 to reduce the wear and tear that is the most frequent culprit of injuries, including injuries to star players that hurts teams, the league, and the owners’ wallets.
The DH is unlikely to come to the NL anytime soon, and if it does, it will be over the continued and vehement objections by Bob Walk, Madison Bumgarner, and others. However, the DH has been good for business in baseball since 1973 in the AL. The DH will never go away either; the MLB players’ association would never permit the removal of a position that has provided such lucrative contracts over the years to its union members. It is likely only a matter of time until commissioner Rob Manfred changes his opinion in favor of the big bucks that the DH and the corresponding rise in offense bring.
Soon, gone will be the days of mediocre hitting pitchers like Charlie Morton and Jeff Locke causing chest pain and exasperation amongst fans of those other Bucs. The DH will one day come to the NL.
MLB TRADE RUMORS READERS: thank you very much for taking the time to read this piece from Pirates Breakdown! If you’d like to read more from our pages, why not start out with our weekly best-of roundup?
//pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js
//
Thank you for checking out Pirates Breakdown! Please follow us on twitter and jump into the hot stove conversation with us!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
