Do the Pittsburgh Pirates need to make a drastic change in their batting order?

The Pittsburgh Pirates’ offense has been lilting as of late. Is it time to make drastic changes to their batting order?

Pirates Offense Versus LHP and RHP

The Pittsburgh Pirates have the fifth best offense in the National League in terms of scoring runs and the third best in on-base percentage.  As is the case with many teams, the lineup is completely different when facing a left handed starting pitcher as opposed to a “typical” righty.  The common view is the Pirates’ starters are predominantly right handed and this leads to better performance against southpaws.  This is true in the case of slugging percentage, where the Pirates, as a team, slug .427 against lefties and only .405 against righties.  Batting average is almost identical just above .260 and on base percentage shows a slight advantage at .346 against lefties and .329 versus righties.  Even though they only register 21% of their total team at-bats versus lefties, they appear to make them count.

More Power and Walks Versus Lefties

Part of the reason the Pirates’ slugging percentage versus lefties is so much better is they hit more home runs off them.  They hit a home run once every 28 at-bats against LHP and once every 40 at-bats versus RHP.  The main contributors to the home run rate are David Freese, Andrew McCutchen and Jordy Mercer who all hit home runs against LHP more often than the team average.   The team as a whole also walks more per plate appearance against lefties, which makes sense given the right-handedness of the lineup against these pitchers.  The difference is quite large though with walks in 11.3% of at-bats versus LHP and only 8.6% against RHP.  This contributes heavily to the difference in OBP.  Right handed Pirate batters do a better job of drawing walks than their left handed counterparts.

Large Platoon Splits

Let’s start by taking a look at the team’s statistics against both types of pitching (as of games played through July 30, 2016)

Some of these sample sizes are so small as to be meaningless.  Still, one can see that many of the Pirates regulars have large platoon splits over a significant amount of at-bats.  In fact, a majority have more than a 60 point difference in their OBP when facing same handed versus opposite handed pitchers as shown below:

Greater than 60 point difference in OBP platoon split

Gregory Polanco

Francisco Cervelli

John Harrison

John Jaso

David Freese

Sean Rodriguez

Adam Frazier (small sample size)

The same comparison can be done for slugging percentage, this time drawing the line at a 100 point difference:

Greater than 100 point difference in SLG platoon split

Gregory Polanco

Jordy Mercer

John Harrison

John Jaso

David Freese

Eric Fryer (small sample size)

Adam Frazier (small sample size)

The Polanco and Jaso platoon factor is well known and Clint Hurdle manages this by sitting them versus LHP, or sometimes batting Polanco in the bottom of the order.  It is interesting to note names that don’t appear on either of these lists.  Starling Marte (good against both), Matt Joyce (good against both), Jung Ho Kung (average against both) and Andrew McCutchen (poor against both).  You don’t really gain or lose too much by playing these four against any kind of pitching.  Joyce’s strong performance against lefties was a bit of a surprise this year and gives credence to those who call for him to be an everyday player.

Impact on Batting Order

This has been an area of debate this year.  Given the daily changes in lineup, it’s obvious that even the Pirates coaching staff can’t agree on a regular approach.  The lack of a true leadoff hitter (one who has a high OBP, low strikeout-to-walk ratio and can steal a lot of bases) means that Clint Hurdle is looking at the numbers and trying to put his best option in the leadoff spot each day.  Often versus left handed pitching this has been Jordy Mercer.   Although Mercer’s splits have been good, he is not a base stealing threat.  There is no great option, but if you narrow it down to base stealers, then you have only Harrison, Polance, Marte and Frazier to pick from.  Against LHP, the best choice is Harrison even though he doesn’t walk a lot.  Against RHP, the best choice is Marte (or Adam Frazier if you ignore the small sample size).

Taking a more traditional approach to the lineup, where the top two hitters are valued more for OBP and the 3 and 4 hole hitters are valued for slugging (or OPS), then the numbers support the following lineups against each type of pitches.

Note that David Freese makes it into the starting lineup for both whereas Jung Ho Kang does not, based purely on 2016 numbers.  Given his numbers, Joyce could be in the lineup as the 3^rd outfielder against LHP instead of McCutchen, but this is not realistically going to happen.  It would be nice to see a larger sample size of Joyce versus LHP to see if his early success holds up.  Rodriguez bats cleanup against LHP and Jaso models as a bottom of the order hitter against RHP.  These may be controversial, but they are supported by the numbers and a little bit of judgment.

Pirates are better versus Lefties

Based on the above analysis, the Pittsburgh Pirates offense is better against left handed pitchers than right handers.  In fact, the above analysis takes into account all left handed pitchers.  If you look only at starting pitching, the contrast gets higher.  The Bucs OBP versus LH starters is .354 versus .325 against right handed starters.  Their slugging percentage is 22 points higher and they hit home runs 30% more often.

For these reasons, Pittsburgh Pirates fans should be excited any time they face a lefty.

Featured Photo Credit – Daniel Decker Photography