Bucco Fever

Posts Tagged Andy LaRoche

Lineup Construction

May 12

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

I’m just gonna be blunt about this one.  Today’s lineup against the Reds makes no sense.

There is absolutely no reason that Andy LaRoche, one of the teams best hitters, should be hitting 7th.  There is absolutely no reason that ‘Cutch, a prototypical lead-off hitter, should be coming up with 2 outs and no one on as the 3rd hitter so frequently does.  There is very little reason, beyond “tradition”, that the pitcher should be batting 9th (For reference, here is the Pirates “Ideal” lineup.  I used ZiPS(RoS) numbers from fangraphs, except for Duke, where I used career numbers because ZiPS hitting numbers aren’t provided for pitchers).  The Pirates started the season by doing these things.  They were following the math.  Granted, Cedeno isn’t an idea guy to turn the lineup over, but the Pirates personnel isn’t exactly ideal, so they were working with what they had and optimizing run production.  I was happy.  I’m not sure why the moved away from that, I’m guessing it had something to do with Aki’s awful start to the season and all the blowout losses, but whatever the reasoning is has lead to this monstrosity, and I just don’t get it.

I’m not quite sure how the day-to-day lineup is constructed.  My guess is that the front office, Neal Huntington and his team, are providing JR with their input and discussing the math with him, but that he is given freedom to shift things as he sees fit on a dialy basis.  Whatever the system is that leads to a lineup this bad needs to be changed, thats all I’m saying.

</rant>

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2010 Season Preview: Prediction

Apr 5

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

Opening day is finally here, and by the time this posts I will probably be on my way to the North Shore.  I’m gonna have a bit of fun with this one, making a few predictions, roughly in chronological order for the 2010 MLB season.

Before I get into it,  I thought it was appropriate to throw out links to all the previous 2010 season preview posts.

Written back in Janury: Prospects part 1 & part 2

Its probably useless at this point, but for the sake of completeness, here is my “very brief” spring training preview

Probably my favorite of the series, Expectations

And finally, the Pitching & Defense and Offense previews

OK, let’s get to the predictions

April 5th, Today:  The Pirates will start the year off 1-0, getting to Vicente Padilla early and often and the bullpen holds on for a 7-5 victory.

April 28th: The Pirates lose the last of a 3 game sweep in Milwaukee, falling to 10-11 and below .500 for good.

June 3rd: An off day.  Aki Iwamura is traded for a mid-level pitching prospect, clearing the way for Andy LaRoche, off to a hot start, to move to second base and Pedro Alvarez to make his big league debut at home the next day against San Francisco.  Alvarez finishes the season with 22 homers.

June 7th: The Pirates select phenom Bryce Harper second overall in Major League Baseball’s first year player draft.

July 13th:  Andrew McCutchen is the Pirates lone All-Star, as the team crawls into the break 10 games under .500.

July 20th: Brad Lincoln makes his Pirates debut by giving the team their first victory of the season against Milwaukee.

July 31st: For the first time in god knows how long, the Pirates do not make a major deadline deal.

October 3rd:  The Pirates beat the Florida Marline to end the season with 70 wins, good for last in the NL Central, 4 games behind 5th place Houston.  Jose Tabata spends the entire year at AAA, and is not called up as many expected when the season began.

October 4th: In a one game playoff, Aroldis Chapman beats Adam Wainright giving the Reds the NL Central crown.

November 4th: AL wildcard Tampa Bay beats NL West champion Colorado to win the world series in 7 games.

Pirates MVP: Andrew McCutchen

Pirates ROY: Pedro Alvarez

Pirates “Cy Young”: Charlie Morton

NL Cy Young:  Roy Halladay

NL ROY: Aroldis Chapman

NL MVP: Albert Pujols

AL Cy Young: Felix Hernandez

AL ROY: Austin Jackson

AL MVP: Evan Longoria

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2010 Season Preview: Offense

Apr 4

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

So the other day I talked about the pitching & defense, and now it’s time to talk about the other side of the ball.  I’ve seen the claim in more than one place that your 2010 Pittsburgh Pirates could have the worst offense seen in Pittsburgh since the 50’s.  While I haven’t looked into it extensively, I seriously doubt that claim would hold up from a statistical basis.  No matter, there’s lost of people who think this team won’t be good, and they have very good reason to believe so.  That said, I think the offense could be pleasantly surprising if just a few things fall the right way.

For opening day, and probably until Pedro Alvarez is called up or someone gets traded, the lineup is going to look something like this:

1. A. Iwamura, 2B

2. A. McCutchen, CF

3. G. Jones, RF

4. R. Doumit, C

5. L. Milledge, LF

6. J. Clement, 1B

7. A. LaRoche, 3B

8. Pitcher

9. R. Cedeno, SS

Starting at the top, Iwamura is a solid on base guy who should set the table nicely.  Everyone, myself included expect ‘Cutch will only continue to get better and while there’s certainly room to question Jones (I don’t think anyone expects him to keep up his 21 HR, .938 OPS in 82 games pace he set last year), it’s very reasonable to expect he can hit 30 or so dingers and drive in a bunch of runs hitting in the 3 hole.

The next 4 are the real question marks and will make or break this team from a run scoring point of view.  Doumit has proven over the career he can hit the ball well, especially for a catcher, when he is healthy.  The big question is, can he stay healthy for the full 162 game season, or will he see time on the DL once again in 2010.  Lastings Milledge is probably getting his last shot to prove himself as an every day big leaguer.  He’s been saying all the right things this spring, and one of those things he’s been saying is that he’ll be able to hit for more power now that the wrist injury he had last year is fully healed.  Only time will tell of course, but I believe this is the year Milledge finally breaks out.  Clement is probably the biggest question mark of all, having only played 75 career games in the bigs, none of them at 1B.  Based on his minor league numbers, he’s proven all that he can at AAA, and between his power and the Clemente wall in right field, one can at least hope he can be a productive number 6 hitter.  Finally, we come to Andy LaRoche.  Everyone knows what he did last year, and while that was a massive improvement over what he did in ‘08 after coming over in the Jason Bay trade, he still has a ways to go to be where you want your everyday third baseman to be offensively.  Based on his minor league numbers though, there’s reason to believe he could get there, and what he does will go along way to dictating what the pirates do when Pedro Alvarez is ready.  Even if he doesn’t improve over his ‘09 season, he’s a very solid on base guy, and you could do a lot worse for your number 7 hitter.  It’s probably unreasonable to expect all four of these guys to break out to their potential at one time, but if 2 or three of them can, and Jones can maintain 80% of what he put up in the second half last year, the team should be in good shape offensively.

Finally, the Pirates are all set to bat the pitcher 8th and Ronny Cedeno in the 9 spot to turn the order over.  While I like the idea in theory (see here), I don’t like having a career .280 OBP guy playing that role, and would much rather see Andy LaRoche or Lastings Milledge batting ninth.

Moving to the bench, Delwyn Young has been a solid hitter his whole career except when he is expending all his energy pre-game trying to learn to play second base.  John Raynor is speedy and could be a nice pinch runner and defensive replacement.  Ryan Church is a very solid fourth outfielder and Bobby Crosby was the AL rookie of the year in a former life.

With all that said, I’m probably in the minority here when I say this team could be solid offensively.  They aren’t going to be great by any stretch of the imagination, but I really do believe that offense isn’t what will kill this team, but rather the pitching and defense.  And once Pedro shows up, likely in early June, well let’s just say the offense can only get better when that happens, and this team is going to begin to come together for the future at that point.

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2010 Season Preview: Pitching & Defense

Apr 3

Posted by Sean H. Steimer | No Comments

Last season, the Pirates defense was a somewhat surprising bright spot, finishing the year as the best defense in the majors based on fielding percentage and errors. Of course, many of the players who led to that rating, Nyjer Morgan, Adam Laroche and Jack Wilson to name a few, are gone and after their departure last season, the team’s defense took a precipitous drop off. On a per position basis, the Pirates have above average defense at only 2 positions, Aki Iwamura at 2B (1.4 UZR/150 for his career) and Andy LaRoche at 3B (3.9 UZR/152 for his career). Beyond those 2, the defense is either average, below average or unproven* at every other position. The one wildcard tot hat is Andrew McCutchen in CF. Many think his defense will get better, and with his speed and tools it should, but last year his UZR/150 was -1.0, so we can’t just assume he wil be above average defensively this year until it happens. Overall, I expect the defense to be bad this year, and it’s going to be frustrating. Expect the team’s cumulative FIP to be lower than the ERA, and consequently, expect the defense to cost the team several games they should have won.

*In the upnroven category are Lastings Milldege in LF and Jeff Clement at 1B. Clement is there for obvious reasons, but I felt like I needed to explain Milledge a bit. His careez UZR/150 in LF is 10.4, but that’s only over 93 games. Over the larger sample, 298 OF games, more than half of them in CF, his UZR/150 is -10.0. Until the sample size in LF is larger, I’m calling his defense unproven.

On the pitching side, the starting rotation looks like this. Zach Duke, Paul Maholm, Ross Ohlendorf and Charlie Morton return from last year. Daniel McCutchen won the 5th spot from Kevin Hart this spring, but I expect to see both of them start some games this year, as well as 2 guys starting the season at AAA, last years rule V pick Donnie Veal and former #1 pick Brad Lincoln. Of this group, Morton and Lincoln have the highest upside, but both are young. Lincoln especially figures to have some struggles once he gets called up, which will probably happen sometime in June or July. Duke and Maholm are pretty much known quantities to Pirate fans at this point. Neither is gonna blow you away, but both manage to get a lot of ground ball outs and are relatively effective when the defense behind them is good. Unfortunately, as I already said, that is not likely to be the case and they are therefore likely to have some troubles this season. Overall, this group definitely has a lot of potential, but there’s just too much young inconsistency here to expect anything great to happen. They all have the potential to be good, but who steps up will be very telling in how this team moves forward next year and beyond. Behind these guys is a large group of starters at AA and AAA, and in the years to come they will be pushing for spots, so the ones who wish to be a part of the long term answer need to step up now.

While the rotation is mostly the same form last year, the bullpen had been almost completely overhauled. Gone is Matt Capps, Steven Jackson and others. In their place is Octavio Dotel, Brendan Donnelly and DJ Carrasco. I really like what Neal Huntington has done with the Pen and think they will be able to keep this team in a lot of games and hold leads, on the rare occasion they are given them.

Overall, the pitching is going to be good but not great from end to end. The nice thing is that if anyone fails to perform, there is someone behind him at AAA waiting for the opportunity to show their skills. I expect a lot of guys to be given just that opportunity this season, and even if its going to be frustrating at times, it should be fun to watch this team come together and see who steps up. This theme of competition for spots is one I expect to see this year and into next year, and its one I’ll touch on in my offensive preview as well, coming tomorrow.

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