THE CHALLENGES AHEAD
Predictions have them losing 100 games (or more). Yet there will be successes and triumphs along the way. The question: What will they look like?
Smiles and optimism permeated Pirate City just 12 months ago. Manager Derek Shelton was hired to transform the team culture and create an upbeat vibe, something he did by having players be more intentional with their work while encouraging them to have a little fun. Meanwhile, a busy offseason produced a glimmer of hope, the belief that somehow the Pirates could recalibrate quickly enough to make a playoff push.
What a difference one year has made. When the Pirates hold their first full-squad workout later this week, it will be under vastly different circumstances.
No fans and plenty of masks, for one. But also with more of a concrete sense of who they are — a young, rebuilding club looking to grow this thing from the ground up, a process requiring equal parts patience and hope.
It’s a direction the franchise likely should have taken years ago, and it was crystallized by offseason moves that included designating Trevor Williams for assignment, declining Chris Archer’s option and trading away Josh Bell, Jameson Taillon and Joe Musgrove.
There’s still an excitement to what the Pirates are doing right now, Mitch Keller insisted, but it’s markedly different than what the team experienced last season.
“Everyone was really excited last year,” Keller said. “Just coming in, new regime, Ithink it was their time to see what we had and where we needed to go, what pieces theywanted and all that.
“Coming into this year, I think they knew that they wanted to … they’re not saying it, but rebuild and build for the future. I think we do have a lot of good pieces in the big leagues right now. Myself, Ke’Bryan [Hayes] and some of our pitchers like [Steven] Brault and [Chad] Kuhl are really good. I think wehave a lot of potential to be a really good pitching staff. We have a lot of young guys, and the prospects that we got for Joe and ‘Jamo’ are going to help us in a few years. I think we’re all just really excited about where we’re taking this.”
It’s certainly an odd time to be a Pirates player, coach or fan, with 2023 or 2024 circled as more fruitful seasons. But there are also reasons to pay attention now. Hayes should continue as a breakout star, the Pirates pitching staff could surprise some people, and the National League Central Division isn’t expected to be very good.
There’s also reality. Pittsburgh’s payroll will remain among the lowest in MLB, while pretty much nobody expects these poor Pirates to lose fewer than 100 games, the result of myriad offensive questions and a minor league system lacking major league-ready talent at its upper levels.
But isn’t this baseball? The sport and logic have never really been pals. The Pirates were nearly a .500 club and could smell first place in the division at the 2019 All-Star break, yet the bottom fell out. Why can’t the flip side of that occur in 2021?
“Our goal is still to go out there and try to win as many games as we can,” Jacob Stallings said. “I’m happy for those guys [who were traded], but we still need to go about our work the right way and prepare for the season.”
With that in mind, let’s look at some of the hurdles the Pirates will face in 2021, in addition to a couple of areas where they might be betterthan expected.
Challenges ahead
On the surface, it may be easy to attach an asterisk to the champions of a 60-game season. In reality, however, that was hardly the case. To keep players healthy and the season chugging along, many believed the Dodgers’ path to the 2020 World Series was extremely difficult.
It won’t get any easier in 2021. In fact, even as COVID19 vaccines are being distributed with varying degrees of success, MLB knows that it’s hardly out of the woods.
The protocols MLB has adopted for 2021 are similar to the previous season, though the league will be more stringent with players wearing tracking bracelets and fines and/or suspensions doled out for anyone who does not follow the rules.
It’s also trying to limit disruptions or outbreaks over 162 games instead of 60, a process that magnifies risk in a hurry when you take 30 teams and remember the amount of travel and movement required to pull off a majorleague season.
“It might have been a little easier to adhere to the protocols during a shorter season,” Stallings said. “The longer season will definitely be more challenging.”
Spring training will be the real truth serum, Stallings said.
While MLB capped camp rosters at 75, there also will e scores of new faces in camps across Florida and Arizona, with those players generally onthe younger side of the age spectrum and more likely to cut corners if not properly policed by veterans.
“A lot of these guys didn’t go through this stuff last year,” Stallings said. “We’re going to have to help them do this stuff and help them get throughit.”
On the field, it’s no secret that the Pirates have concerns. Their 2020 OPS of .641 was last in MLB, while they also hit .220 as a team, which was 28th. They led the National League in errors (47) and lost 22 of 28 games away from PNC Park.
In terms of individual performances, they’ll need bounce-back years from several players. Bryan Reynolds and Kevin Newman combined for just 0.2 Wins Above Replacement, per Baseball Reference, which represented a drop of 7 b WAR fromthe previous season.
Gone are their past two opening-day starters
(Musgrove, Taillon), in addition to a middle-of-the-order bat in Bell. Gregory Polanco hit just .153 and struck out 37.4% of the time, while their only two regulars aside from Hayes with an OPS over .700 were Colin Moran (.797) and Stallings(.702).
“I think the 60-game season brought some pressure that nobody was used to,” Stallings said. “If you get off to a bad start, you’re trying to climb out of it the whole way. It’s really challenging.
“A lot of the guys who struggled were young. They’re too good of hitters to not [bounce back]. I really don’t have any concerns about those guys.”
This Pirates team will also feature plenty of new story lines to monitor. One involves the three-man battle for the starting shortstop gig between Newman, Cole Tucker and Erik Gonzalez. Another will be Moran as the primary first baseman and howhe handles that.
A third centers around … well, center field, and whether Anthony Alford or Brian Goodwin (signed to a minor league deal with an invite to big-league camp) can earn a regular role.
All around the diamond, and for the first time in several years, there should be plenty of competition for spots, another sizable departure from what the Pirates thought about their roster entering the 2020 season.
“The competition last year was more me learning our players and learning our group,” Shelton said. “This year, having a good idea of the people we brought in or the people who were here, there are some open spots in terms of what we’re building and how we’re building it.”
Thinking positive
While the Pirates have plenty of position players eyeing bounce-back seasons in 2021, their most popular one will look to build on his incredible MLB debut, a fairy-tale first month that quickly thrust him into the face-of-the-franchise discussion.
Hayes, 24, hit .376 with 5 home runs and 11 RBIs in 24 games. By far the Pirates’ most interesting player, one who also flashed a flair for the dramatic, Hayes ranked fourth among all MLB hitters (minimum 75 plate appearances) with a 1.124 OPS. Meanwhile, his .442 on-base percentage was sixth.
The second-generation talent nicknamed “Young Hayes” finished the season riding an eight-game hitting streak (while hitting .516), hit .314 with two strikes (best in the NL) and collected hits in 20of 24 games. In 68 defensive
chances at third, Hayes played Gold Glove-caliber defense and made just one throw in gerror.
Soft-spoken and humble, Hayes has kept a low profile this offseason, committing himself to hitting, fielding and lifting while showing he’s more interested in production than talking about himself or taking some sort of victory lap.
But whether he wants to admit it or not, Hayes has become a focal point of the Pirates, the guy fans will pay money to see and someone pretty much everyone expects to represent them at the MLB All-Star Game in Atlanta.
“This kid is extremely grounded,” Shelton said. “The only place we have to temper expectations is externally. Everybody is going to say he came in and played 24 games and did this or that.
“We expect Ke’Bryan to go out every night, have consistent at-bats, play good defense and go from there. We don’t expect him to be a world beater or anything in that regard. We just expect him to be himself. And I fully expect him to do that.”
As exciting as Hayes might be in Year 2, if the Pirates are truly going to surprise anyone — simply avoiding 100 losses might qualify — they need their pitching staff to take a couple of steps forward, especially the starters.
That group pitched to an MLB-low 1.94 ERA with 78 strikeouts over the final 13 games of 2020. It’s obviously unreasonable to expect that over 162 games, but that group, if it produces, could provide a sliver of stability.
The success of the rotation should start with Keller, an ace-in-waiting-who closed the
year with 11 innings of no-hit ball spread over two starts. Keller tweaked his delivery this offseason to establish more rhythm, and his fastball has ticked up 1-2 mph.
Brault (2.53 ERA as a starter) and Kuhl are the veterans of the group and have shown flashes of dominance. But injuries have prevented them from pitching well over an extended stretch. Despite having just nine MLB starts under his belt, JT Brubaker will have to grow up fast. Lefty Tyler Anderson was their only major league signing this offseason.
The bullpen will be anchored by dependable veterans Richard Rodriguez and Chris Stratton, with spring training used to solidify other roles. Kyle Crick and Michael Feliz have held highleverage roles before. There are also some young, live arms. Expect a heavy rotation of guys between the majors and Class AAA Indianapolis.
More than anything, though, the Pirates would be helped by a continuation of the improvement they saw over the final month of the 2020 season, when their pitchers sliced more than a run over their collective ERA, and the starters shined.