What's below was supposed to be the first of our revived Midweek Reader series, the result of extensive interviewing, most of it conducted in Florida at the Pirates' spring training. Rather than attempt to rewrite material that the coronavirus pandemic has rendered mostly outdated, I'm publishing it here today, unedited, as it'd been set to run 10 days ago:
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BRADENTON, Fla. -- "Oh, that's firm! I like it!"
It was mid-February, first formal workout at Pirate City for the pitchers and catchers. The pitcher was Nick Burdi. The catcher was Luke Maile, the one exclaiming upon receipt of a fastball that ... well, there's firm and then there's triple-digits. Burdi wouldn't officially register 100 mph until Grapefruit games began, but the prodigious pop of Maile's mitt in the moment strongly suggested this was right in that range.
And yet, of the two, it's Burdi who keeps cool, just waiting for the ball back. It's Maile, very much the swaggering sort, chirping up a storm. He does that sort of thing a lot, carries himself with confidence bordering on cockiness.
"I know what I can do, I know what I bring to a team," Maile would tell me later that afternoon. "I think you've got to be that way, whether it's in baseball or in life. I know what I can mean for the Pittsburgh Pirates."
Funny, but one would never guess this was some 29-year-old journeyman catcher with a .198 career average and 42 total extra-base hits over 606 at-bats over parts of five summers with the Rays and Blue Jays.
What makes him a big kahuna around here?
Simple: He defends.
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Among the myriad pronounced differences between Ben Cherington and his predecessor as the Pirates' GM, Neal Huntington, is that he isn't remotely interested in sharing with anyone how smart he is.
I respect that, but it's an adjustment.
So when Cherington acknowledged to me a "conscious" awareness of the need to improve defensively in acquiring certain players this offseason, he hardly took it too far.
"I think we wanted to improve our defense, and that probably influenced some of the players we pursued," Cherington replied when I asked if there were any master Moneyball-type plan at work. "I don’t think it was about capitalizing on an undervalued part of the market. I think most or all teams value a run scored and a run prevented appropriately, so I don’t think our free-agent signings represent a Moneyball-type approach but more so just a desire to improve defensively. We know, in order to win in Pittsburgh, we'll need to be good at scoring runs and good at preventing them and I believe we'll make decisions over time that reflect our desire to be good at both those things."
OK, new guy. Downplay away.
But here's what I say: When Cherington needed to find an outfielder to replace Starling Marte, he could've chosen a bat who'd help replace some or even all of the offense at roughly the same price he'd pay for Jarrod Dyson, an all-glove, little-hit center fielder. When Cherington needed to find a catcher or two, he first anointed Jacob Stallings one of those because of his work behind the plate, then added Maile for -- obviously -- the same reason. And when Cherington and his new manager, Derek Shelton, get to choosing a third baseman for the long haul, I'd lay odds that it'll be Ke'Bryan Hayes, a three-time Gold Glover in the minors, over Colin Moran.
Heck, even if the Pirates wind up waiting on Hayes' bat in Class AAA, as I'm expecting, they've got Erik Gonzalez out there at third pushing Moran solely because of his glove.
What's more, for all the individual attention being prescribed for pitchers and hitters, the collective emphasis under Shelton has been on fundamentals. Shelton's a product of the Minnesota system, where the Twins Way has been maybe the most celebrated fundamental model in baseball for decades, and he's brought that aboard -- without using that term, needless to say -- everywhere it's applicable in the field.
"There's something about catching the ball, about throwing the ball, about doing the right thing that says a lot about who you are as a baseball team," Shelton said. "Other parts of the game will fluctuate, and there'll be other fads, but defense can be a big part of what defines you. I've always believed in that."
I've witnessed it myself. No detail's too small. And, as much as Shelton's shown to delegate, he'll pounce directly when he sees something he doesn't like.
"Shelty doesn't overdo it, but he wants it done right," Josh Bell was telling me a couple weeks into camp. "Rundowns, relays, cutoffs, backing guys up ... you'd better do it right."
None of that matters much, though, without the capability. And it's here where my pseudo-cynicism about Cherington's downplaying crests. Because, whether or not he'll fess up to any grand scheme behind his earliest moves, the fact blares out that the Pirates have no greater potential area for improvement, now and for the foreseeable future, than in the field.
The 2019 season was awful, with a 69-93 record that was doubly rancid in light of the epic second-half collapse. But within that, the pitching, which ranged from devastating to Dovydas Neverauskas from July through September, ranked 22nd among Major League Baseball's 30 teams in the catch-all statistic WAR, or wins above replacement player. That still stinks, but their FIP ranking, or Fielding-Independent Pitching, had them at 20th, not all that far from the big-league average.
Similarly, the Pirates ranked 20th in offensive WAR, and this despite Bell, Marte and other prominent hitters being hurt and/or shut down in September. At the All-Star break, they ranked 15th, a hair below the big-league median. And in the simplest stat of all, batting average, they tied for the National League lead at .265, along with the altitude-assisted Rockies and the eventual champion Nationals.
But the fielding?
Better sit down for this: The Pirates' defensive WAR of minus-51.0 ranked dead last, and this by a mindboggling margin behind the 29th-ranked Orioles at minus-32.5. For further perspective, the best such figure belonged to the A's at plus-42.9, and two-thirds of everyone else was within the tight range of plus-10 and minus-10. And that's backed by the more basic numbers, as well, with their 121 errors and .980 fielding percentage both second-worst, ahead of only the Mariners.
Yeah, there's room to improve:
"We can all be better," Adam Frazier told me. "That goes for me, too. We all know how much it means to be sound in the field, and we've all got to work at it."
Frazier's a fine start, a surprising but deserving Gold Glove finalist at second base and, as Bryan Reynolds would chime from the next stall during this discussion, "He should've won it."
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Around the horn. as they say:
CATCHER
Neither Stallings nor Maile has any wish to be anyone's soft spot in the lineup, regardless of how they receive. That's probably important to bring up first here.
"I'd like to think I got better all through the season," Stallings told me of his offense, "and I'm really confident that I'm capable of doing that much more."
"I don't think anyone should be defined by a small sample," Maile said of his offense, "but I also realize I've got to go out there and prove it."
Stallings' stance is easily supported: He slashed .262/.325/.382 with his first six big-league home runs. Of the National League's 24 catchers with 200-plus plate appearances, his .708 OPS ranked 16th. That's not bad. And it was better, for the record, than those of Buster Posey, Matt Weiters, Russell Martin and, yeah, Francisco Cervelli.
Maile's sample, as he indicated, is small ... but not that small: He slashed an abysmal .151/.205./.235 in 44 games with the Blue Jays last summer, and he's lugging a .198 average over parts of five big-league seasons.
Stallings is 30, Maile 29, so they both are probably what they are.
But if that's being exceptional behind the plate, from everything I've heard here, no one will complain.
"With those guys, what they can bring to us as a pitching staff means so much," Joe Musgrove told me. "The confidence we feel on the mound with them back there, with the way they know what we need, the way they study the hitters, the way they control the running game, the way they throw to the right base, the way they block the ball, the way they receive the ball ... I know the pitchers are happy to have them back there. They're going to make a difference."
There's an argument to be made: According to FanGraphs, in 2019, Stallings was the 11th-best defensive catcher in the majors, ninth-best at framing pitches. Cervelli couldn't stay on the field because of concussions, and Elias Diaz ranked dead last in both categories. And people in camp will swear Maile can bring that much more.
The lone certainty in this equation: Anything that helps the pitching will be one whale of an equalizer.
"That's our No. 1 job, as far as I'm concerned," Maile said. "Who has a bigger impact on the game than the pitcher?"
FIRST BASE
Bell's the weak link -- no everyday first baseman anywhere ranked lower defensively -- but he knows he's the weak link, and he sounds sick of it.
"I'm here to get better," he told me. "I'll never stop trying to get better in the field."
Hard as he worked last offseason to address footwork -- which visibly improved -- that's what he applied this offseason to altering his throwing mechanics to more of a three-quarter motion, aiming to cut down on the frequent misfires to second base. That's looked encouraging here, even if the glovework has been much the same.
The positive: If a lineup's got to hide a 37-home-run, 116-RBI bopper anywhere in the field, let it be right where Bell's standing.
SECOND BASE
No individual story related to the 2019 Pirates went less appreciated than Frazier's self-made ascent to Gold Glove finalist. In fact, his teammates strongly feel he was robbed of the prize itself when it went instead to the Cardinals' Kolten Wong, who committed nine errors to Frazier's six.
That's how it goes, though. It's a classic reputation award, voted on by managers and coaches, some of whom would rather walk on hot coal than check a player's Ultimate Zone Rating.
"I was grateful to be a finalist," was all Frazier would say on that. "And I'm proud of what went into it."
Thanks to him, it's a position of real strength.
But wait, what if he's traded?
Kevin Newman waits his turn at the cage in Bradenton, Fla. - DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPSSHORTSTOP
Kevin Newman will play. When a rookie middle infielder bats .308 with 12 home runs, he's a central reason why the Pirates are rightly calling this a building process rather than a rebuild. He's the future, and yet he's already here.
Wonderful, so where will he play?
Newman's 10 errors weren't terrible, but his advanced analytics amounted to a ranking of 25 among the majors' 30 busiest shortstops. And given visibly limited range, especially to his right, the likelihood of some significant leap seems slim. He'll catch what comes his way, and that'll be that.
But ... he's always been a fine defensive second baseman, and his 201 career innings there for the Pirates support that with much better figures and a solitary error. Same was true all through the minors, where it'd long been assumed he'd stick at second.
And ... if Cole Tucker, the fiery first-rounder with the far higher ceiling at short, could break through, that could slide Newman over to second and afford Cherington the option to trade Frazier at what'd be peak value at age 28, particularly if Frazier can find that offensive consistency he's long lacked.
So all of this depends, it'd appear, on Tucker. On his bat, specifically, since the glove will break any ties.
"I'm ready," he told me. "I'm ready to give everything I've got. I've always taken a ton of pride in my defense, and I know I've got to bring more offense. I'm feeling that. I'm there."
That'd be ideal for a bunch of reasons.
THIRD BASE
This one's conditional, too.
Look, I'm not going to bury Moran in the field. Everyone sees it. If not, suffice it to say the only colder performance anyone's had in Pittsburgh at the hot corner over the past dozen years was ... Pedro Alvarez.
Hayes, again, needs to hit in Indianapolis. He's having yet another promising spring at the plate, with even a lot of his outs getting smoked, and it won't matter until he's doing so in real Class AAA games. But defensively, he's been nothing shy of brilliant in the minors, with one American League scout telling me in Sarasota a couple weeks ago he could be the best defender at his position in the National League shortly after his arrival in Pittsburgh.
That's quite the upgrade.
Plus, this kid, like Tucker, lives to play in the dirt.
As Hayes puts it, “A lot of stuff that I do for my defense is stuff an 8-year-old would do. I just do it over and over again until I can do it with my eyes closed.”
LEFT FIELD
Reynolds is a strange case.
Of the 30 players in the majors with the most innings in left, he ranked 18th in Ultimate Zone Rating, which, by the way, is an outstanding catch-all stat. And in this case, neither glowing nor damning for Reynolds.
But I'll share here that, just a couple days before signing Dyson, Cherington had insisted to me that the Pirates' front office felt comfortable with Reynolds sliding to center as a starter. Teams have access to information that outsiders like me don't, and I'll trust he was telling the truth.
I'll also note that Reynolds basically bypassed the Class AAA level and, thus, was still learning on the fly. That showed in a couple of his more glaring errors in 2019, as some will recall, when he flat-out overran routine grounders. That was a 24-year-old being way too eager, and it wasn't a thing more.
When I think of Reynolds' defense, I think of this:
Remember that?
That was Aug. 10, 2019, in St. Louis, and Reynolds would explain to me afterward that he learned that throw from the Pirates' most recent Gold Glover, Corey Dickerson, and that the two practiced it repeatedly just in case the situation arose in a game.
I began reminding Reynolds of this down here and, before I'd finished a sentence, he interjected, "St. Louis, yeah. That was a good one."
Can he be that, too?
"I'm going to keep trying," he replied, understated as ever. "I saw what Corey did to make himself that kind of player. I saw what Adam did here. I can do it, too."
Frazier was seated right next to Reynolds as he spoke, nodding throughout.
CENTER FIELD
Starling Marte was blessed with every tool in the box and, at his best, covered center with the best of them. But, for all the righteous praise he received for his bat in 2019, he'd finish 28th in UZR out of the majors' 30 players with the most innings in center.
Dyson won't hit at all, much less close to what Marte brought. He's 35, and he is exactly what he is, which last year was a .230/.313/.320 non-factor for the Diamondbacks beyond his 30 steals in 34 tries. As they say, you can't steal first.
But defensively, believe it or not, it's reasonable to expect an upgrade.
On that same list of 30 center fielders, Dyson ranked 11th, principally because his elite speed still allowed him to track down everything, even with the extra zip the ball gets in the dry desert air. Marte would appear to have an arm to envy, but the metrics put Dyson's arm -- not so much velocity, but efficiency -- immediately behind Marte's with the 12th ranking to Marte's 11th.
It'd be easy and accurate to suggest Cherington weighed money in replacing Marte, with Dyson arriving on a one-year, $2 million deal that's less than a fifth of what Marte will receive. But Cherington had other options in a similar price range who'd have provided a lot more pop at the plate, and he strikingly chose the glove.
Dyson didn't exactly endear himself to Pittsburgh fans by blurting out what every last-second free-agent signing thinks -- "Ain't too much out there," he described his options -- but he's been warmly received by his new teammates, as much as anyone in the fold, actually. In part because he once plied his trade for the 2015 World Series champion Royals.
“Anybody you talk to who’s been around him or played with him says he’s a quality individual," Shelton said. "That’s something we’re looking for.”
RIGHT FIELD
Sorry, there's no forecasting Gregory Polanco. It's been a couple years since he's been fully healthy and, even if everyone was as convinced as he is that his arm's fine, all that'll be envisioned is his stumbling onto the Wrigley Field grass under that nefarious popup.
If you don't know, don't ask.
Polanco's never quite pieced it all together defensively, other than the cannon, which can be a magnificent thing to behold ... if it's fine. As I type this, no one can be sure. He can tell me, "It feels great. It's perfect," and the Pirates' medical staff can support that. But until he spies that first runner trying to sprint from second to third, as if to tease, there's zero confirmation.
Got nothing for you on this one, sorry.
Overall, questions linger, if not outright doubts. But it's hard to argue against at least the possibility of meaningful overall improvement.
Which could, if you ask me, be really well timed.
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I'm the first to dismiss the relevance of the Pirates' 2020 season as it relates to wins and losses. If they hover around .500, as I see it, that'll have happened as the result of a lot of individual and collective elements getting better, and that'll be fine in and of itself.
This isn't about the now.
But it is about the how.
Let's suppose, for example, that for once, this particular franchise is ahead of the curve.
I know, I know ... as opposed to Huntington, Kyle Stark and company constantly being a year or two behind pretty much everyone in baseball on the latest trends, where it was the launch-angle push that led to home runs, the unprecedented urging of pitchers to throw high to combat that ... you name it, and those guys would show up for dinner just in time to lick the plates.
Giving benefit of the doubt, let's suppose Cherington and his assistant GM, Steve Sanders, are smarter. And from there, let's have some fun and suppose this scenario: The ball will be de-juiced and, thus, the ball will be in play more.
It's anything but far-fetched. At the Winter Meetings in December, a committee of MLB-commissioned scientists, as well as a representative of Rawlings, the official ball manufacturer since 1977, put forth data supporting what we all saw: The big-league record of 6,776 home runs, an incredible 21 percent increase from the previous year, was no accident. The committee put 60 percent of the blame on the ball's seams being tightened, the rest of the launch-angle revolution that's got more hitters swinging upward.
Michael Zlaket, CEO of Rawlings, which is co-owned by MLB, declared at that session, “We have never been asked to juice or dejuice a baseball, and we’ve never done anything of the sort, never would, on our own.”
OK.
Let's assume the data itself is accurate. From there, let's also take the word of those inside the game -- including several Pirates -- who'd swear the juicing effect appeared to abate later in the season, once MLB and Rawlings began to feel the heat. And from there, let's logically extend that 2020 will be a far different summer in this context.
What'd result, theoretically, is a whole lot of hitters hacking for the fences ... and falling short. In that case, someone like Dyson would be a welcome addition.
Now, let's assume that the launch-angle fad begins to fade a little and hitters revert to emphasizing contact. As opposed to 2019, which brought a 12th consecutive season of record-setting strikeouts at 42,823, the second in a row with more strikeouts than hits. In that case, overall defense would matter that much more.
I ran all this past Cherington.
"I'd agree with you that more balls in play may heighten the value of defense," he answered. "But we didn’t pursue anyone based on predictions related to the ball. It was simply about wanting to improve on defense."
Hey, I tried.
I tried this, too, in the same spirit: Since an individual slugger or individual starting ace is exorbitantly expensive to add, might the Pirates under Cherington's watch emphasize defense as a way of leveling payroll imbalance?
"That's a good question," he came back. "I don’t think so necessarily. I think every player is different and brings different combinations of upside and risk. Ultimately, we just need to spend our money on players in a way that brings the most wins over time. On average, skills do peak at different times. Defense tends to be peak earlier in a players career and offense later, though there are exceptions."
To stress anew: This isn't about 2020. Rather, it's about building this team -- or rebuilding, or whatever else anyone cares to call it -- toward the next trend rather than the one that just lapsed.
No, prioritizing defense isn't some pioneering concept as a priority in baseball, and I don't mean to paint it as such. Clint Hurdle preached it every bit as much as Jim Leyland, as Chuck Tanner, as Danny Murtaugh, as every manager back to Fred Clarke.
But man, it can be one hell of an equalizer in modern baseball, with its ridiculously imbalanced economics. The Pirates' 2013-15 playoff teams were better defensively than most might realize. Those 2015 Royals, with Dyson in center, were the best defensive team by a billion miles. The Rays, forever at the bottom of the payroll pool, also have been forever near the top defensively. And to repeat from above, it was the A's at the very top in 2019.
See the pattern?
It's sexier, sure, to spend on that slugger or starting ace. But the same money, it could be argued, brings a bigger difference in runs. All runs count the same, as Cherington brought up, whether they're scored or saved. And, to the latter, whether they're prevented by pitching or fielding. As our beat writer, Alex Stumpf, and I were discussing recently, the Yankees backed up a Brinks truck to bring Gerrit Cole to the Bronx, and even the Cooperstown version of Cole will shave no more than 25-30 runs over a full season. An improved defense can double that at a fraction of the cost.
It's reasonable to posit, I'd say, that defense remains terribly undervalued in the game, even without potential changes to the ball or the game.
Ultimately, though, what'll mean most is whether a culture can be carved from defense.
When I was a child, the Pirates were all lumber and lightning, with the Herculean lineups of Willie Stargell, Dave Parker, Al Oliver, Bill Madlock, Rennie Stennett and many more. But in the same breath, when I think of my favorite players over the years, the ones I'd most admired, they were those who got it done, first and foremost, in the field. Tony Pena, Mike LaValliere, and more recently Martin and Cervelli behind the plate. Kevin Young and Adam LaRoche at first. Jack Wilson and Freddy Sanchez up the middle. Andy Van Slyke, Andrew McCutchen and Marte in center.
I can't imagine anyone would mind, provided actual playoff wins came in the exchange.
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Cole Tucker and fans in Bradenton, Fla. - DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPSOne Grapefruit game means as much as any other, which is next to nothing. But if pressed for what's made the biggest impression on me over a couple tours this spring, it's undoubtedly been the calm, the confidence that, in this beautiful game, still only comes from doing things right in the field.
On one afternoon early in March, Jose Osuna elegantly picked a couple short hops at third, only to have Tucker show him up with a diving grab on a flair to shallow left. And shortly after that, Maile blew up a runner who'd unwisely dared him by dangling between second and third.
"Spring game or not, can't do that," Maile playfully fumed upon entering the clubhouse. "Not on my watch."
Tucker offered a fist-bump, followed by a loud shout across the room toward Osuna.
"Thank you, my brother," Osuna replied softly. "Thank you."
"There's nothing that brings you together in baseball like how you are in the field," Tucker would tell me a spell later. "It shapes who you are, how others think about you, how your opponents respect you."
Maybe this team will have that. Maybe it won't. I don't know about anyone else, but I'm willing to stomach a whole lot about this building process if the right bricks are being used.
