BRADENTON, Fla. -- Andrew McCutchen, locked and loaded as ever at age 37, was launching baseballs into the blue-sky landscape ahead of him on this Tuesday morning, boom after boom, left and right, here at the Pirates' idyllic spring home, LECOM Park.
Loved it. Every swing. The entire scene, really.
Whipped out the iPhone to capture it:
DEJAN KOVACEVIC / DKPS
Andrew McCutchen takes batting practice Tuesday morning in Bradenton, Fla.
Living a baseball dream, huh?
It's similar, as I see it, to the emotions I'll experience for the rest of my life upon walking up these steps for the first time every fresh February:
Yeah. Baseball. My first true love in this life.
So between all that and everything that'd follow by afternoon's end ...
Ke'Bryan Hayes' grand slam with the radio call added in the background https://t.co/t0dXVv3sjQ pic.twitter.com/M2CY54U3Ff
— Platinum Ke’Bryan (@PlatinumKey13) February 27, 2024
Don't worry we got it on video. pic.twitter.com/Rh1sruVR4a
— Pittsburgh Pirates (@Pirates) February 27, 2024
... from Ke'Bryan Hayes' 421-foot grand slam, to Bryan Reynolds' 434-foot two-run shot that splashed into a pond beyond the tall scoreboard in center, to a surging-back Oneil Cruz having worked walks before each of those, to back-to-back blasts by prospects Abrahan Gutierrez and Jackson Glenn, plus a bunch of other outbursts in the Pirates' 13-4 blowout of the Braves, there was warm-and-fuzzy plastered all over the canvas.
Enough, I'd say, that it would've been a breeze to bury the one thing that just might hold back this team in 2024 more than any other.
As one scout from another team in attendance would remark to me beforehand, "I look out there, and I don’t know where the offense is going to come from. Everyone’s talking about their rotation, and I understand that. But I see two, maybe three bats that you can really count on for the full season. Cutch is Cutch, too. Otherwise, just too many question marks, you know?"
Yeah, I know, upon rational reflection.
The top three on this day, the same "two, maybe three" the scout singled out, were Cruz, Reynolds and Hayes. In that order. The same order, by the way, they'll be scripted onto Derek Shelton's lineup card March 28 in Miami.
They're the ones the manager applauded most here.
“The whole combination of those three guys doing the things that they need to do to help us win, that's important. Ke' obviously hit the ball hard. Bryan hit his hard. Cruz's walks in front of them were important. So overall, it was very encouraging to see.”
For them, absolutely.
Cruz, a variable as large as his own frame, has looked himself in this fold. No trace of the awful ankle injury that cost him a year, not at the plate, not at short.
As the big boy told me after this game, "I'm good. I'm good."
Reynolds is Reynolds. I'm not sure he'll elevate into superstardom, as he's 29, and his perennial consistency now puts his norm at .275 with 25 home runs and 80-plus RBIs. Which is wonderful. No one would complain about that in a sport that prizes consistency above all.
Anything new from him this year?
"No, not really," he'd reply to my question on that count. "You know me."
Hayes surged over the second half of 2023, thanks to advice from since-fired minor-league hitting coach Jon Nunnally, and he'll be tasked with carrying that into this year.
I asked about that after the slam:
"I just need to keep my work days consistent, be out there every day on the field, being healthy, being available," he'd reply. "From there, it's just taking my prep onto the field and being aggressive."
Wonderful.
And then?
Being exactly that guy who'd ask this after a 13-run tidal wave, I asked Shelton to what extent the rest of his lineup's in flux.
“It's very in flux," he'd reply without hesitation, to his credit. "I think the whole, from probably five down or four down, is in flux. And then when you add Cutch back into it, it changes the whole dynamic also.”
Right. Cutch being Cutch 'n' at. He can slot into any of the top handful of spots, and he'll still amass the best at-bats on the team.
So there's half a lineup.
If this were 1974, Rowdy Tellez and his 6-foot-4, 270-pounds-minus-his-most-recent-fajita frame would be stamped at cleanup. He'd fit the old-school profile all the more if he can replicate those 35 home runs he clubbed for the Brewers a couple years ago ... as opposed to the 13 from an injury-dented 2023.
Talk about a big swing.
"I'm looking for 30 again," he'd tell me. "Here's hoping."
He'll bash righties, but his splits portend a platoon. He might be helped by Connor Joe or Jared Triolo. It's not as sexy as having that everyday Pops-type presence at first, even if nobody apologizes for hybrids anymore.
Next on the safe list would be Jack Suwinski. Maybe.
He homered 26 times, walked 75 times in his first full season in the majors, both of which would be richly encouraging ... if not for the 172 strikeouts, or 1 every 3.1 plate appearances, and how he remained prone to prolonged slumps. There’s a school of thought in the baseball community, I’ve heard, that the Pirates would do well to limit Suwinski's focus to pulling the ball, since that’s the one area in which he’s been consistent, and simply abandon going oppo. But there’s been no indication that’s taken place.
"Nothing new," he'd tell me.
Still, he's the default center fielder.
Don't ask about right.
Josh Palacios would produce one dramatic performance a month worthy of his own Netflix series, but then go poof for the rest, slashing .239/.279/.413 with 10 home runs and 23 extra-base hits over 264 plate appearances. Moreover, he's 27, so it's a stretch to suggest there's much more coming. But he'll have every opportunity to beat out inexpensive trade acquisition Edward Olivares, who's also 27 and had somewhat superior stats at .263/.317/.452 with 12 home runs and 39 extra-base hits in 385 plate appearances.
I love Palacios the dude. Impossible not to. And I love his passion, such as when he beamed on this day in telling me, "I'm ready for this. I am."
But this isn't enough at a corner outfield position, at the risk of blurting out the insultingly obvious.
Second base at least has some ceiling in the equation, thanks to Liover Peguero. And I think so much of this kid's ceiling, both at the plate and in the field, that I won't set this one up with data. He just needs to beat out Ji Hwan Bae, who really can't play second, and Nick Gonzales, who really can't make contact at the plate.
Repeating: It needs to be Peguero.
"I'm working hard," he'd tell me here. "I want that."
That leaves catcher, which might present the most convoluted scenario of all.
As Ben Cherington's made clear more than once now, Yasmani Grandal's making the roster and one of Henry Davis or Jason Delay will stick, though he's done so without declaring Grandal the default starter. That'd give off the illusion that Davis has a prayer here, but I'm not sure he does. My belief, and it's only been fortified here, is that he'll open the season with Class AAA Indianapolis with the stated reasoning that he needs more time to work on catching.
But does he?
I've spoken with several people here who’ve seen no issues with his catching -- plus one who's of the polar-opposite mind that he'll never pull it off -- and that consensus matches what this untrained eye witnessed on this day, in which both Grandal and Davis caught but Davis seemed steadier in several ways. I could easily be mistaken, but not so much these other eyes.
Regardless, they can’t be any doubt that Davis and his 1-1 pedigree would raise the roof of an offense that could use it.
The opener's precisely a month away. Not too late for Cherington to accept some of this and act.
• Thanks for reading my baseball stuff.
• And my appreciation to the audiophiles, as well:
