Pittsburgh Pirates: 2017 season review and offseason preview
What Went Wrong
Not only did Starling Marte miss half the season because of his suspension, he didn’t play up to his previous standards when he got on the field. From 2013 to 2016, Marte hit .292/.349/.448. This year, he hit .275/.333/.379. It was the first time in his career he was a below-average hitter.
Gregory Polanco was also a big disappointment. Injuries played a big part in his down season. He went from a .258/.323/.463 season in which he hit 22 homers and drove in 86 runs to a .251/.303/.391 season. The Pirates need Marte and Polanco to bounce back in order to compete next year.
At first glance, it might seem like Josh Bell had a good year. He hit .255/.334/.466, with 26 home runs, tying Jason Bay for the most home runs by a Pirate player in his rookie season. The problem was his defense. He rated poorly on defense at first base, which cut into his value. Also, 26 home runs aren’t what they used to be. The bar for hitting at first base is high and Bell’s 108 wRC+ placed him 11th of the 13 first basemen in the NL with enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title. Despite all the home runs, the 94 runs scored and 88 RBI, Bell was a below-average player.
In fact, many of the Pirates’ position players were between replacement-level (0 WAR) and league average (2 WAR). This included Marte and Polanco, mentioned above, along with catcher Francisco Cervelli (0.9 WAR), shortstop Jordy Mercer (1.4 WAR), and third baseman David Freese (1.6 WAR). The Pirates had 10 players with 300 or more plate appearances and only two had more than 2 WAR. The Cubs and Brewers each had four such players. The Cardinals had seven. Even the last-place Reds had five.
The Pirates had solid production from young pitchers Jameson Taillon, Trevor Williams, and Chad Kuhl, but highly-regarded prospect Tyler Glasnow did not pitch well at all. Glasnow has been a top-50 prospect on the Baseball America Top 100 in each of the last four years, including a top-25 ranking in the last three. He had a fine debut in a small sample size of 23.3 innings in 2016.
This year was a disaster at the big league level. Glasnow started 13 of his 15 games, going 2-7 with a 7.69 ERA (6.30 FIP). He walked more than six batters per nine innings and allowed nearly two home runs per nine. It was ugly. The good news is that Glasnow was very good in Triple-A (140 strikeouts and 32 walks in 93.3 innings), so the talent is still there.
In the bullpen, Daniel Hudson had an unusual season. Hudson signed with the Pirates as a free agent last December for two years and $11 million. He finished the season with a 4.38 ERA (4.34 FIP) in 61.7 innings. A closer look at Hudson’s season is revealing. He had four ugly outings in which he allowed a combined 12 earned runs in 1.7 innings (64.80 ERA). In the other 67 games in which he appeared, he had a 2.70 ERA. Looking at it another way, Hudson was terrible in April and August, but quite good in the other four months.