Welcome back, baseball fans. The Pirates concluded their 2017 season Sunday at 75 wins and 87 losses, and this mailbag will conclude the Stephen J. Nesbitt version of the Pirates mailbag. I am shifting into a new role at the Post-Gazette, one which is explained in further detail below. Stick around and read past the Pirates prognostications for a few tales from the baseball beat.
Here we go.
Jeff: What free agents are a good fit here, and can payroll be increased so we're close to average?
Stephen: A whale of a question with which to start the offseason, Jeff. Let’s begin by addressing the second half of your question. I do not have access to owner Bob Nutting’s financials, so I do not know whether the payroll *can* increase, only that it must if the Pirates plan to significantly impact their roster with free-agent acquisitions. So far, they have shown no indication they intend to do so. Recently, the largest and longest contracts the Pirates inked with free agents were to re-sign them — Francisco Liriano (3 years/$39 million), who was hamstrung by a qualifying offer, and Ivan Nova (3/$26M). Over the past five winters, their other free-agents adds were one- or two-year deals, none more lucrative than the $8.5 million per year given to Russell Martin (2/$17M) and A.J. Burnett (1/$8.5M). The Pirates are more likely to try adding talent via trade, often buying low, and attempt to retain it with a contract extension or a multiple-year overture in free agency. The average opening-day payroll in 2017 was around $135 million. The Pirates operated closer to $90 million. I don’t expect they will erase that gap this offseason.
It is safe to scratch the big-name free agents, the types who tend to pursue long and lucrative contracts, off your wish list.
And there are many in this bumper crop free-agent class. Among the top-end pitchers are Yu Darvish, Jake Arrieta, Johnny Cueto (if he opts out), Masahiro Tanaka (if he opts out), Lance Lynn, Alex Cobb and relievers Wade Davis, Pat Neshek, Greg Holland (if he declines option), Brandon Kintzler and, hmm, Juan Nicasio. The hitters are headlined by Royals trio Eric Hosmer, Lorenzo Cain and Mike Moustakas, plus J.D. Martinez, Jay Bruce, Todd Frazier, Justin Upton (if he opts out), Zack Cozart, Carlos Santana, Colby Rasmus and Logan Morrison.
Pause for a moment and consider reality. The Pirates don’t have many holes opening in their roster this fall, and they don’t have a payroll which allows them to upgrade significantly. In all likelihood, the team will look very familiar come opening day, with a couple new faces here and there, and if it plays itself into contention come the trade deadline, upgrades could come then.
If the Pirates hold onto their bigger pieces this offseason — Andrew McCutchen, Gerrit Cole, Josh Harrison — their weakest positions are catcher, where all three options showed poorly offensively this season, shortstop, where Jordy Mercer is steady defensively but below-average at bat, and third base, where Jung Ho Kang’s absence forced David Freese into a full-time job in which he performed admirably but was overused. The Pirates aren’t likely to pursue a free-agent catcher since Francisco Cervelli still is under contract through 2019. Mercer will reach free agency after the 2018 season, and Kevin Newman is at Class AAA Indianapolis waiting his turn. At third base, should Kang not return, the Pirates aren’t going to pay top dollar for Frazier, and probably not for Moustakas and Walker either. Eduardo Nunez could be closer to their range.
As for fit, the Pirates might consider adding a veteran for the bench, providing they are OK not starting every day. Jose Bautista, Carlos Beltran, Curtis Granderson and Matt Holliday fit that mold, though none are coming off particularly impressive seasons. Howie Kendrick, Carlos Gomez and Austin Jackson played well enough to earn an everyday opportunity somewhere. Jon Jay, Eric Sogard and Cameron Maybin have utility and should be affordable. But the Pirates also have utility men Sean Rodriguez and Adam Frazier ready to bounce around the field, so perhaps they won’t add a veteran at all. It really is anyone’s guess. My guess is the Pirates have the usual adding and subtracting of bullpen arms in the offseason, and their free-agent activity will be noteworthy only if they trade Harrison or McCutchen. They could add another starting pitcher, however there’s a logjam there already — even if it’s an underperforming logjam — so I think they would rather try out Tyler Glasnow longer than go get Doug Fister in free agency.
John: Who is most likely the players cut at the end of the season?
Stephen: John Jaso may sail into retirement, and Joaquin Benoit will be a free agent. I expect Wade LeBlanc and Chris Stewart will be non-tendered in early December. That’s about it.
Erik: As this season winds down it seems like it's a forgone conclusion that the Pirates will either trade Andrew McCutchen during the offseason or by next year's trading deadline. Has there been any talk at all about the Pirates and Cutch discussing an extension beyond next season? Do you think the Pirates assume that they won't be able to afford him or are they afraid that he'll have another season like last year?
Russell: How likely will it be for the Pirates to sign Cutch past this option that they have coming up for the 18 season? Hope he stays.
Jeff: What are the chances Cutch sticks around?
Stephen: As far as I know, there have been no substantial discussions between the Pirates and Andrew McCutchen’s camp about a contract extension. Not recently, at least. I expect the sides understand each other’s stances. From McCutchen’s perspective, he’d probably like to get a deal similar to what he’s likely to receive in free agency — a handful of years, and many millions. From the Pirates’ perspective, does it make sense to commit about a quarter of your payroll to a single player, paying for his post-prime years and an almost inevitable decline?
Neither is wrong. A deal would take major compromise from both sides.
Mark: Is Cutch passing the torch to Josh Bell?
Stephen: From one face of the franchise to the next? I think so.
Tom: Marte and Polanco...are their long term contracts going to ensure the Pirates are mediocre in the #future last hashtag of the season.
Stephen: Yikes. Well, Tom, I think it’s reasonable to say Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco’s extensions, which go through 2020 and 2021, respectively, will either ensure the team’s mediocrity or be a big reason why they succeed in the next several years. It all depends how they pan out. If the Pirates are stuck with 2017 Marte and 2017 Polanco, that’s a problem. If Marte returns to his 2016 form and Polanco finds health and a clue about hitting breaking balls, they’ll be worth every penny of the extensions. They both need to be part of the solution next season.
Ralph: In your 4 years of covering the @Pirates, what has been your favorite memory/story?🤔
Stephen: As promised, here’s the skinny. As of this week, I’m officially an enterprise sports writer at the Post-Gazette. What that means, in short, is stepping away from the baseball beat to search for great stories across the Pittsburgh sports spectrum — about the Steelers, Penguins, Pirates, colleges, WPIAL, Little League, people, places, mementos, memories — and tell them to you. Profiles, investigations, long-form features, analysis. Exciting stuff. I’m eager to get going.
It means less of this and this and this, and more of this and this and this.
Three years on the baseball beat, working alongside the incomparable Bill Brink, were a dream. There was only one day of what they call “Buctober,” but there were good times. I saw Max Scherzer’s imperfect game and Rich Hill’s historic one-hit loss. I saw Rodriguez double over left fielder Shelby Miller’s head for a 12-inning win. I saw Erik Kratz homer off Madison Bumgarner in a 1-0 win. What more could a baseball nut ask for?
Three stories that spring to mind, two only tangentially related to the beat.
• The story of this story: In June 2015, I noticed a playing card, the ace of spades, taped above Gerrit Cole’s locker at Nationals Park. I assumed there was an easy explanation for it, but I jotted down “Cole — ace of spades?” in my notepad anyway. Two months later, when asked to write a Cole story to preview the National League wild-card game, I decided that might be a fine place to start: Establish why Cole, a budding ace, had that card at his locker. So I asked a couple relievers, and they were cautious. They knew what I was talking about but wouldn’t dish. I had walked into an inside joke here — an anonymous someone had played a trick on Cole, who still didn’t know who had done it — and the relievers weren’t the right people to let me in on it. I bounced back and forth across the clubhouse and asked 12 guys before whittling the suspects to two: Walker and Burnett. I’d already spoken with Walker. When I went back to him, he swore he wasn’t the culprit. He said only a veteran starting pitcher would have the cajones to pull off that stunt. I asked Jeff Locke. He said he didn’t even know how to play cards. He seemed to recall giving Cole a hard time about something that series, though. Burnett walked by, headed to breakfast, and Locke went with him. But they stopped in the hallway, in earshot, and Locke filled in Burnett on my suspicions. When they returned, Burnett scolded me for thinking he could have done such a thing. Did he? Well, read to the end … Before the wild-card game, an ace of spades card was at my seat in the press box. I think MLB.com’s Adam Berry did it.
• At work, I’m not easily starstruck. You get used to seeing McCutchen in the clubhouse, to seeing Joey Votto and Paul Goldschmidt and Max Scherzer on the other side, and you have a job to do. The one time I was starstruck, truly starstruck, was at the All-Star Game in San Diego last year. Not the All-Star Game, exactly, but the All-Star Legends & Celebrity Softball Game. See, there’s this comedian named Kyle Mooney — started from the bottom on YouTube, now is a “Saturday Night Live” cast member — and he was playing in the game. There may not have been a more minor celebrity there. So I figure, while I’m here, if I don’t try to weasel my way into meeting Kyle, I’ll never forgive myself. My brother, David, would never let me live it down either. As the game was winding down, I left the press box, went down to field level and parked myself in the tunnel. Big hallway. Totally empty. The teams used auxiliary clubhouses, not the regular ones, so I wasn’t sure where he’d come and go. Slowly, players trickle by. Rickey Henderson, Andre Dawson, David Wells, Terry Crews, J.K. Simmons, Jennie Finch, Tim Raines, Landon Donovan. Totally unfazed. I’m a reporter. I waited and waited, and after about a half hour I’m ready to bail. And then there comes Kyle, over there on the left. He was shorter than I expected. Your heroes usually are. He’s walking beside some other guy, bigger guy, and I’m thinking, If he’s with a buddy, I’m not going to bother them. As they got closer, I could tell they just happened to be walking near each other. I went for it. “Hey, Kyle?” Stuck my hand out, introduced myself, immediately forgot everything I wanted to say. I managed to remember one thing: Don’t spit back all his funny lines to him. Ask him about the game. I asked, we chatted about his one at-bat (reached on error), about how he overthrew the cut-off man (the dude didn’t even try, though). Then, nervously, I asked for a photo. Baseball writers, they’re just like you.
Heroes don't wear capes. Heroes wear No. 84 for the National League in the All-Star Celebrity Softball Game. pic.twitter.com/V7W2KnBSio
— Stephen J. Nesbitt (@stephenjnesbitt) July 11, 2016
• The last story is about one of the most absurd things I’ve ever seen. As Berry is my witness, I swear this is true. After the Pirates wrapped up a road series against the Atlanta Braves in late May, Berry and I headed to a sports bar near the Atlanta airport to watch Game 7 of the Eastern Conference final — Chris Kunitz scored in double overtime, remember? We were at a stoplight, after which there was a bridge going over the interstate. I noticed a flash in the rearview mirror. Whatever it was, it was flying. A second later, there it was. A man on a horse whizzed past, riding on the right shoulder, and blew the red light at a million miles per hour. It was an insane sight. Was the horse stolen? Was it safe? Was it supposed to run on asphalt? There was no time for questions. They raced up the bridge, zigging and zagging at top speed through traffic, and down the other side, out of sight. Honestly, I assumed we’d cross the bridge and come upon a grisly scene. A five-lane highway is no place for a horse. Instead, when we crossed over the bridge, we saw, up ahead, the horse and its rider in the left lane waiting to turn into the parking lot of a Mexican restaurant. There was no accident, no grisly scene. There was only a horse preparing for a legal left-hand turn. Berry and I drove past, astonished. At the sports bar, we ate and drank and watched the game. Every few minutes, we’d say, “Was that just me or did you see that horse? In the city? In the turn lane? Mexican restaurant?” We told the bartender what we’d seen, and I don’t think he believed us. He’d never seen a horse around there. OK, we thought, maybe it wasn’t real. Maybe that 3 hour, 12 minute rain delay had us hallucinating. So we settled in and hoped order would be restored. Except, not five minutes later, guess who waltzed into the sports-bar parking lot and walked up to the door?
The horse and its human are at the sports bar now. pic.twitter.com/esYKmNnGMZ
— Stephen J. Nesbitt (@stephenjnesbitt) May 26, 2017
Ben: What's your favorite article you wrote from the beat? Will you miss banter with Hurdle?
Stephen: I’m not sure I have a single favorite story from the past three years. But I’ll tie the two questions together and say one of the stories I was most proud of was ’Note to Self,’ an opening-day feature on Clint Hurdle from 2016. It was one I worked hard on throughout spring training, and Hurdle and his wife, Karla, his parents, his sisters and his friends were extremely generous with their time.
At that point, I hadn’t known Hurdle long, only one year, but I was impressed with how willing he was to share his story — with its scars and its successes — with a young reporter. We met once at a burger joint on Anna Maria Island, and then again in his office at then-McKechnie Field in Bradenton, Fla. He was an open book, and as a writer that’s all you can ask for.
Sure, I’ll miss the banter. Berry and I totaled up in spring training this year just how many hours a year Hurdle spends with the press. Once per day in spring training. Twice per day in the regular season. I don’t remember the number we came up with, but it adds to a couple days every year spent taking questions and answering them. Some are smart. Some aren’t. Hurdle isn’t revealing about most managerial decisions he makes. He’s a heck of a storyteller, though.
I’ll still be around to hear the stories, just not all of them anymore.
To those who made it this far: Thanks for reading along, and thanks for chiming in with questions each week. Of all the reasons the baseball beat is special, the readers are a big part. It’s always great to meet Pirates fans in the wild, like the guys from Dallas who were at Bar Marco last week and invited me, unbeknownst to me, into their selfie. I hope you’ll still follow along on Twitter, and also follow new Pirates writer Elizabeth Bloom. She’s the best. The inbox is always open, so feel free to drop a line any time: snesbitt@post-gazette.com.
Stephen J. Nesbitt: snesbitt@post-gazette.com and Twitter @stephenjnesbitt.
First Published: October 4, 2017, 12:00 p.m.
