Stealing First Base

Well, this is a weird blowout watch to write. A double header, both games blowouts, both won by the opposite team.

The first game was a typical Pirates vs Brewers blowout loss. Starter (This time, Jeff Karstens) pitches well, offense can’t score, bullpen lets the game get blown wide open. We’ve seen this exact game play out against the Brewers enough times that I don’t have to recap it for you.

The second game was a great illustration of why bunts are stupid and Major League hitters should be able to swing the bat. With a 2-2 tie in the seventh, Garrett Jones started the bottom of the inning with a single. What’s the obvious Clint Hurdle move here? Why, a bunt, obviously! Matt Diaz squared up, but he ended up getting hit by a pitch instead and reaching base. So now there’s men on first and second. Even better time for a bunt, says Hurdle! But instead, Josh Harrison fouled off two bunt attempts and proceeded to hit a double instead. Men on second and third, McCutchen up, and he walks while Matt Diaz scored on a passed ball. Jose Tabata doubled, Xavier Paul singled him home, Neil Walker walked, Ryan Doumit got an RBI single, and with the Pirates batting around Jones hit a sacrifice fly and Walker scored on a wild pitch.

After the second game, we got this awesome quote from Zack Greinke. Sucket, Hurdle.

I didn’t want to rush this post, because I wanted to get all my thoughts together about the Pirates demoting Pedro Alvarez when Jose Tabata was reinstated from the disabled list.

It’s not exactly controversial to say that Alvarez hasn’t hit well in the Majors this year. There’s no measure by which he’s played even acceptable baseball, much less good baseball. Many Pirates bloggers – including myself – had made calls to hold of on calling him a bust just yet (which I still stand by), but it’s looking increasingly likely that he may be just that.

It appears that the biggest mistake the Pirates made was promoting Alvarez at all. I’m guilty of calling for him to be promoted, but the team switched positions almost overnight from “he needs to show more consistency” to “we have a need at the Major League level and we’re promoting him even though he may not really be ready yet.” That’s not the best way to go about handling the guy with the highest power ceiling in the system – if you think he needs more seasoning, fine, but don’t say that and then call him up only to send him back down. Yanking prospects back and forth tends to hurt their careers.

In all likelihood, Alvarez is going to go down to AAA and rake. He’s done it there before, and he’s shown he has no problems hitting AAA pitching. However, this isn’t about the numbers. He needs to make some serious adjustments to his approach if he’s going to have success at the Major League level, and if he has to do that, it’s probably better that he works it out against AAA pitching.

In an ideal world, the Pirates could go back in time and not promote Alvarez in the first place. Getting sent back down may prove to not be the best option for him. But this isn’t an ideal world, and it looks for the moment like it’s the best of two bad choices. Alvarez clearly isn’t doing what he needs to do in the Majors, and perhaps putting him in an environment where there’s less pressure on him will allow him to work on the things he needs to without feeling like he’s letting his teammates down.

Sorry for the late recap here, everyone. I spent the day mostly with my wife and I missed the game. From what the box score and my Twitter feed told me, it basically went thusly: Jose Tabata homered, Paul Maholm pitched well, Brad Lincoln did not, neither did Daniel McCutchen, Pirates lose.

Only a few minutes after midnight, the news broke over Twitter that the Pirates had signed Gerrit Cole. That was to be expected. Cole had nothing to gain in his baseball career by going back to school. With him in the system, the Pirates now have three potential aces in Cole, Jameson Taillon and Luis Heredia.

What was bigger news, however, was that the Pirates also signed second round pick Josh Bell. Bell was rated the best corner outfielder in the draft and projected to go in the middle of the first round, but he fell to the second largely because teams didn’t think he would sign.

The big news is Bell, really. His $5M signing bonus is the largest in draft history for a second rounder, he’s an impact bat with lots of power potential, and after he sent out a letter to all MLB teams telling them not to draft him, he a hard player to get. By taking the risk, the Pirates ended up with two first round talents in the same draft.

Cole got an $8M signing bonus, the largest in draft history, and Bell’s $5M along with other over-slot bonuses paid to later round picks, the Pirates have spent an announced $17.5M on bonuses in this draft, more than any other team in MLB history. This was an essential strategy, as it may be the last year the team is able to do something like this – many in baseball believe that MLB will go to a hard slotting system next year that will give all players standard contracts with the money paid based on when they were drafted.

What’s often overlooked in this discussion is that Cole signed a minor league deal. For those unfamiliar with MLB contract structures, the difference here is simple: a minor league deal favors the team. A Major League contract immediately adds a player to the 40-man roster and starts using option years. This is pretty customary for top five picks, as agents can push the “He’s going to make it to the Majors quickly anyway” angle and GMs really have nothing in their pocket to say “No he won’t.” With Cole on a minor league deal, the team can delay adding him to the 40-man until he makes the Majors (or spends enough time in the minors to become Rule 5 eligible, in which case he’s probably not the pitcher we’d hoped for) and preserve that flexibility for longer. To get a first overall selection represented by Scott Boras on a minor league deal is a major coup for the Pirates, one that will likely play second fiddle to the Bell signing.

With all said and done, the team ended up signing 24 players from the 2011 draft class, including all of their top 10 selections. With the results in, it’s hard to call this draft anything but a huge coup for the Pirates.

Robbie Grossman is on pace to have a pretty unique season in high A for the Pirates. He’s on pace to finish the year with 100 walks and 100 runs, which would make him the first player to do that since Nick Swisher did it in AAA for the A’s.

There’s been a lot of talk about Grossman’s resurgence this season and what it means for his prospect status. The general consensus is that he’s not a top prospect, but that his plate discipline this year has made him an intriguing prospect to watch anyway. He’s not too shabby in other areas either, as he’s hitting .286/.418/.427 this year.

One thing is for sure: it’s unusual to see a 21 year old with the kind of plate patience that Grossman has. Usually players in high A are guys with tools that need to work out things like discipline.

That’s not to say that Grossman doesn’t have tools. He’s got speed, can play the field well (CF in Bradenton, but he’d likely be a corner outfielder in the Majors), and has a pretty good arm.

So why isn’t he a top prospect?

Well, firstly, he’s repeating a level, and that’s always enough to bring a player down a peg.

Secondly, he hasn’t shown much ability outside of getting on base. He’s had problems making contact in his minor league career so far, posting low batting averages and high strikeout rates. Although he’s brought down his k-rate every year, it’s still not at a very comfortable level.

Furthermore, Grossman was seen as a guy coming out of high school that could develop power. That has yet to happen, making him a pretty one-dimensional player that can walk and hit a little bit, but can’t do much else. Those guys typically don’t make it past AA (Jeremy Brown of Moneyball fame being the most famous example.)

However, there’s hope for Grossman.

He’s been better at making contact and avoiding the strikeout this year, an encouraging trend if it continues. He’s still only 21 and was considered a very raw player out of the draft, so it’s quite possible that the trend could continue as this is the year he’s started to put it together in pro ball.

But what about that power?

That’s where I see people looking at Grossman the wrong way. Talking about him kind of reminds me of the way people talked about Jose Tabata coming up through the minors – he was a guy that was supposed to develop power, but never really did, and that was disappointing…until people realized he was great at getting on base, playing defense, and stealing bases. All of those things are areas that Grossman performs well in too.

Now, I’m not suggesting Grossman is as good a prospect as Tabata was. At Grossman’s age of 21, Tabata was in the midst of his rookie year in the Majors. Grossman is in high A. A lot of that has to do with Tabata being a Latin American prospect and starting to play professionally at 16 years old, but a lot of it also has to do with Tabata performing better than Grossman. However, the focus has been the same. People had been so down on Tabata’s lack of power that nobody really noticed that he put up eye-popping OBP numbers and could steal bases efficiently until he was knocking on the door of the Majors in AAA putting up a .373 OBP with 25 steals.

Maybe Grossman will never be a guy that mashes 30 homers and walks a lot. But if he can continue his level of play, he can still provide a lot of value as a guy who can get on base and perform as a good leadoff hitter. There’s a lot of value in that, especially for a sixth round pick out of high school.