Pittsburgh Pirates: Andrew McCutchen Next Up in Right Field For Pirates
With the move from center to right field, Andrew McCutchen joins an impressive trio of right fielders in Pittsburgh Pirates history.
The Pittsburgh Pirates recently announced that they would change their outfield defensive alignment next season. It’s not often you see a team take the same three starting outfielders and move them all to new positions from one year to the next, but the Pirates are doing just that.
Andrew McCutchen has been the Pirates center fielder since June of 2009. He’s the team leader in the clubhouse and has been their best player over the last eight years, but struggled for the first time in his career in 2016. Not only did he have his worst season with the bat, he also graded poorly on defense.
The Pittsburgh Pirates have been on the forefront of using statistical analysis to help their low payroll team compete with the big spenders. Their analytical team is behind this positional change for the three Pittsburgh outfielders. The new alignment will be Starling Marte in center, Gregory Polanco in left, and Andrew McCutchen in right.
Starling Marte has been the team’s regular left fielder since 2013 and has been very good there. He’s won two straight Gold Glove Awards and has a career UZR/150 of 13.7. The Pirates are moving him to center field. He’s only played 443 innings in center field in five years but hasn’t been very good there (-11.8 UZR/150).
Gregory Polanco has been the team’s right fielder the last two years. Polanco is a 6’4” gazelle whose legs seem to make up 70 percent of his height. He played 52 innings in left field in 2015 and 202 innings there last year. It’s a small sample size, but Polanco’s UZR/150 in left field is 13.9, which is very good. It’s actually better than Marte’s league-leading 11.6 UZR/150 last season, when he won the Gold Glove.
Andrew McCutchen will move to right. He’s never played anywhere but center field in his major league career, so this will be totally new to him. The Pirates are hoping the new defensive alignment will help their outfield defense. Last year, Pittsburgh’s outfield was 25th in baseball in UZR.
One interesting aspect of this move for McCutchen to right field is that the team has had two of the 10 best right fielders in the history of baseball and another who was a dominant player in the 1970s. Hopefully, McCutchen will follow in the footsteps of the previous greats who have patrolled right field in a Pirate’s uniform. Let’s take a closer look at these Pirate right fielders.