ST. LOUIS — Jordy Mercer doesn't plan on picking up a bat or glove for at least two weeks once his offseason begins. He'll take his 6-year-old son, Maverick, to school every morning, grab a cup of coffee with his wife, Kasey, and catch up on all that he's missed over the previous eight months.
It won't be until he feels the "itch" that he'll begin to work in Oklahoma City to prepare for his eighth big-league season. This winter will be different for Mercer, though. He's set to become a free agent for the first time in his career, but he's not ready for this season to end.
Mercer, reflecting on his future hours before he went 0 for 3 with a walk in the Pirates' 5-0 loss to the Cardinals Thursday night at Busch Stadium, said he wants to use the final month to prove to teams, particularly the Pirates, he's healthy and his best days aren't behind him. He's done a fine job of making his case since the All-Star break.
"For me, coming off injury, I just want to be healthy," Mercer told DKPittsburghSports.com. "I want to show people that I can still play and be productive. I want to show the Pirates that, too. Ultimately, this is where I want to be. I don’t want to go anywhere. I don’t know any better. I’ve been a Pirate for life. I think that’s the biggest thing for me."
Durability hasn't been the issue for Mercer, though he missed eight games this month because of a left calf strain. The 32-year-old shortstop has appeared in at least 103 games in each of his six full seasons in the big leagues. Still, he wants to eliminate any possible doubts from the minds of front office executives across the league, and he may be accomplishing that with his bat for the Pirates, now 65-69 and 9 1/2 games back in the wild card race.
Mercer's batted .318 with a .408 on-base percentage since the All-Star break. That's raised his season average to .260, his highest mark since 2015, and he's matched a career high with 27 doubles. Still, his .723 OPS is 16th among major league shortstops this season, and he's hit only six home runs in 362 at-bats. However, the underlying numbers show Mercer's driving the ball more than at any other point in his career.
Mercer's average launch angle of 13.3 degrees is a career high, and he's made contact with the barrel of his bat on a career-high 5.3 percent of his balls in play, according to Statcast. His 27.5 percent line-drive rate is also a career high, while his ground-ball rate is the lowest since he made his big-league debut in May 2012.
His extra-base hits and 37 RBIs have helped him post a 97 weighted runs created plus, a catch-all statistic that measures a hitter's ability to create runs while accounting for ballpark factors, for his highest mark in the majors. Driving the ball wasn't a focal point this past offseason, either. Instead, Mercer's credited his experience — more than 2,600 career at-bats — with the extra pop he's shown.
"We still have a month to go, but I’m really happy with it so far," Mercer said. "I'd like to hit the ball over the fence more, but I’m almost at my career high in doubles. It seems like I’m driving the ball more than I have before. I’m just wiser. I’m more experienced. I’m putting solid ABs together, whether I’m getting out or not. I’m just putting really solid at-bats together, throughout the whole year. At first I always start slow, so I really don’t worry about that too much. It’s going to come."
That wasn't always the case, though. Mercer said panic set in four years ago when he first began to struggle in the majors. He pressed because he couldn't stop worrying about his numbers. That led him to make an adjustment with his swing, which only exacerbated his issues. So, Mercer didn't panic this season when he was batting .247 through April and didn't hit his first home run until his 32nd game.
He proceeded to post a .772 OPS in May, followed by batting averages of .292 and .273 in June and August, respectively. There were also lessons to be learned in past offseasons. Rather than taking time off early in his career, Mercer would go straight to the weight room to try to get himself ready to impress the big-league staff the following spring. It did little to help him. In recent years, he's taken time to enjoy fatherhood for two or three weeks before beginning a workout regimen of cage work and corrective movement exercises such as yoga. For Mercer, the goal has always been longevity to prove he can be a productive everyday player well into his 30s.
"It’s all about getting prepared, all about getting ready, especially in spring training or coming into the year," Mercer said. "You just want to be as prepared as possible. You try to maintain that throughout the whole year. When you go through some slumps, you know you’re going to get out of it because you’ve been in those before, so it’s made you a better player. You don’t panic as much. You just kind of continue to go about your work and know it’s going to change."
Still, the Pirates will assess their shortstop options over the next four weeks. They acquired Adeiny Hechavarria, an outstanding defender who is also a free agent this offseason, from the Rays earlier this month to see if he could address their shortcomings on defense. Kevin Newman, a first-round pick in 2015 and their fifth-best prospect according to Baseball America, is expected to remain in the major leagues the rest of the season.
Mercer made $6.75 million in his final season of arbitration, while Hechavarria was paid $5.9 million, yet Hurdle seems to not have any reservations about making a rookie his starting shortstop. He did so with the Rockies in 2007 with Troy Tulowitzki. On the other hand, Mercer served as a backup behind Clint Barmes before taking over as the full-time starter.
"There comes a point in time when you’ve got to pull the trigger," Hurdle said. "I’m just telling you from past experience with a similar situation. You analyze what’s out there in the free-agent market, you look at what you have internally, you look at the depth and quality of your pitching staff, the importance of playing defense, where you can sacrifice a bat if need be to pick up a glove. You paint that picture together."
While Newman had success hitting for a .302 average in Triple-A, he lacks Mercer's pedigree. And experience, Mercer said, is what has him ready to contribute for whomever he chooses to sign with next.
1. Musgrove throwing too many strikes?
Joe Musgrove made history Thursday night, throwing 21 consecutive strikes to start the game — the most since at least 1988, according to Stats LLC. All it took was one ball to send him into a tailspin. Musgrove got behind Harrison Bader with one out in the third, and his next pitch was an elevated sinker that Bader hit for a solo home run.
Musgrove again fell behind, this time to John Gant, the Cardinals' starting pitcher, and tried to buy a strike with a fastball down the middle. Well, Gant, a rookie, also hit that mistake over the wall for back-to-back homers:
"Yeah, at that point in the game I was cruising. I was filling up the zone," Musgrove said. "I felt sharp with all my stuff. I think this was a good learning experience for me because I think I tended to get too comfortable."
Musgrove continued to make mistakes, though. He allowed three consecutive singles in the fourth, and a run scored on a fielder's choice. The Cardinals (75-59) made it 5-0 with Jose Martinez's chopper over Colin Moran's head to drive in two runs in the fifth. Musgrove retired the final four batters he faced before he was removed for a pinch-hitter.
Musgrove threw 17 of 25 first-pitch strikes, and he ranks eighth among qualified starters in the majors in first-pitch strike percentage. However, he struggled to capitalize on two-strike counts in the fifth inning, as Yadier Molina and Martinez both had hits after Musgrove got ahead. His slider didn't have much bite, which forced him to rely too much on the fastball.
He's allowed nine runs in nine innings over his last two starts, raising his ERA to 3.80 in 16 starts. He still pitched through the sixth inning Thursday night with seven strikeouts to only one walk.
"I don’t think I threw 'five runs' bad," Musgrove said. "The two homers, I could have been fine with that. Two bad pitches and move on. ... When I look back at it, it doesn’t really seem like that much damage was really done to me, but five runs were put on the board. I made good pitches when I was in tough situations, but I didn’t execute pitches with no one on to allow guys to get on base, which was a problem."
2. Not much of an offense.
Entering Thursday, the Pirates had batted .235 with only seven home runs and a .636 OPS over their previous 16 games, 11 of which were losses. Their offense was among the best in the NL for much of the season; however, it's now back to being in the middle of the pack. In the majors, they now rank 10th in average (.254), 19th in runs (580), 24th in home runs (132) and 17th in OPS (.728).
That's 26 fewer runs than the Reds. They've been shut out five times this month after they were shutout only five times from March 30 through June 3. It's not for a lack of opportunities, either. They went 0 for 9 with runners in scoring position and left 12 on base Thursday. Again, the Pirates pushed the Cardinals' starter, forcing Gant to throw 30 pitches in the first inning, only to strand the bases loaded when Moran struck out swinging at this fastball:
They stranded multiple runners on base in the first, third, sixth, seventh and eighth innings, including the bases loaded in the seventh. The at-bats have gotten better during the road trip, as illustrated by the five walks. There was even more hard contact, as they accounted for five of the 10 balls in play with an exit velocity of over 100 mph. Four of those were outs, though. Hurdle wasn't discouraged by the performance, despite his offense finishing with six hits, five of which were singles. He emphasized the need for his hitters to trust their current approach, rather than pressing.
"There was hard contact," he said. "It’s not fair. There’s times when it’s not fair. You hit hard balls, you hit them right at people. But you’ve just got to play, man. You play. You can’t hunt hits in those situations. You hunt hard contact. You hunt a good at-bat. You hunt hitting the ball hard where it’s pitched.”
3. Preserving Dickerson next season.
The Pirates will likely monitor Corey Dickerson's workload more next year. After all, Dickerson's struggled since returning from his left hamstring strain and his two hits Wednesday snapped an 0-for-18 skid. The 29-year-old's career OPS in the second half is nearly 50 points lower than his first half, and he batted .241 with a .690 OPS in his final 65 games with the Rays last season.
That could thrust Adam Frazier, who went 1 for 3 with two walks, into more of a utility role, unless the Pirates choose to sign a fourth outfielder. Starting Jordan Luplow to spell Dickerson wouldn't make much sense. Instead, they can use Frazier primarily at second and slide him to left field to open a spot for either Newman or Kevin Kramer, depending on who makes the opening day roster.
Such a plan would create more at-bats for those two young players, while also ensuring they maximize Dickerson's value for the final year of his contract. Plus, Frazier is an adequate defender in left field, saving six runs in 400 1/3 innings there in 2017, and his arm is strong enough for the position, as he showed with this throw to get Martinez after that two-run single in the fifth: