Don’t let one lousy start from Mitch Keller fool you. The Pirates have actually been playing pretty good baseball. It’s been enough to produce a .500 record (12-12), which is far better than how they fared in 2020 through the same number of games (7-17) and surpasses even the wildest expectations.
There have also been some encouraging individual performances. Richard Rodriguez has allowed just one hit, no runs and a walk in his first 10 appearances. Adam Frazier has hit .301 with an OPS of .791, while nobody in MLB has more RBIs from the cleanup spot than Colin Moran (16, 17 overall).
Team-wise, the Pirates are doing some stuff right now that’s repeatable. Their bullpen has been the second-best in MLB (1.53 ERA) since April 13, they’ve made just two errors over the past 83 innings, and their starting pitching has shown signs of improvement.
But the encouraging start should not — and will not — detract from the big-picture goal of the 2021 season for the Pirates, which should be laying the foundation for whenever their window of contention truly opens in a couple years.
That’s not to say they should lose on purpose. They’re professional athletes, and there’s nobody who signs up for this line of work who’s willing to potentially sink their careers all for an employer’s future they will never see. It’s more about focusing on individual performance and what to do whenever such things become marketable.
So, through about 15% of the season, the million-dollar question facing the ball club seems to be this: Do the Pirates get excited because they’re flirting with .500 in a bad division, or does general manager Ben Cherington strip any shred of emotion from his decision-making process and focus on the future?
Here’s an easy suggestion: Bet the latter.
The way things are going now, Cherington might be awfully busy in June and July. Rodriguez, Frazier and Moran — who are all in the thick of the arbitration process — figure to attract interest. Ditto for left-hander Tyler Anderson, a free agent acquisition in the offseason who has pitched to a 3.38 ERA with 26 strikeouts against just eight walks through five starts.
If Trevor Cahill’s performance normalizes and he looks more like he did last weekend in Minnesota — one earned run allowed over six innings — then perhaps he could also pitch his way out of town, netting one or two more young prospects with some upside.
Although it’s probably a little early for this sort of stuff to happen, Cherington should treat these guys with varying degrees of urgency. Anderson and Cahill are on one-year deals and thus profile as obvious rentals.
Frazier — along with Chad Kuhl, Erik Gonzalez and others — will enter his final year of arbitration next season, meaning it’s not time yet, but it is getting there. Also, as Cherington discussed this offseason relative to the Josh Bell and Joe Musgrove trades, the Pirates need to weigh years of control against predictive performance and the risk of regression or injury.
The latter two likely won’t matter with Frazier, who outside of 2020 has been consistently productive and healthy, but the club control would lessen. Also, it doesn’t hurt that his rate-based offensive stats are well-above their career levels.
They can be even more scrutinizing with guys like Rodriguez and Moran, who only started the arbitration process this offseason.
The concern with Rodriguez could be his age — he’s 31 — but it’s hard to imagine that outweighing a 0.19 WHIP. If he’s able to replicate his current performance, there’s zero doubt contending teams will look at him to bolster their bullpen for the stretch run.
Given the Pirates’ preference for lower-level, high-upside prospects, it’s also hard to imagine them encountering a sticking point like Neal Huntington did with the Dodgers in 2019, where he held out for two of Los Angeles’ top three prospects and instead wound up stuck with an inmate.
It might make sense to wait and see on Moran, who produced a .797 OPS in 2020, led the Pirates in home runs (10) and tied for the team lead in RBIs (23). In fewer than half as many games this season, Moran has already knocked in 17.
The Pirates could only be scratching the surface here. At 28, it’s also not crazy to think that Moran sticks around longer-term. It could depend on his asks and interests, as well as how the Pirates feel about Mason Martin, their top first-base prospect.
A strong start combined with a lousy division has created plenty of opportunity to dream, to think thoughts of not messing with a team that has proven something and deserves to stick together. Waiting it out is fine. There’s always a chance the Pirates could defy every conceivable odd. Plus, it’s really hard to see Cherington fielding a knock-your-socks-offer for anyone in late April.
But the big-picture point here is that nobody should let 24 games of fun baseball muddle the ultimate goal of building a sustainable winner. Cherington came here to do a job, and that doesn’t include placating players or operating on some sense of false hope.
The only way for the Pirates to mold this season into anything long-term — and use 2021 as a true pivot point — is to strip out all emotion and make whatever decisions are best for the future of the organization.
