The Pirates just promoted Pedro Alvarez to Altoona. In a way, I can see why they’d make that decision. He has been better in May and June than he was in April. He’s hit 5 homeruns already this month and his OPS is .886 for June. On the other hand, his strikeout rate is very worrying. He’s striking out every 3.4 times at bat and that hasn’t really changed at all in Lynchburg. And he doesn’t walk a lot either. Suggesting to me that he doesn’t have good command of the strike zone. Or the story is that he’s chasing a lot of pitches because those minor league guys are afraid to pitch him and he doesn’t have much patience yet. Of bigger concern is his numbers against left handed pitching. I’m not sure if his numbers against them were good enough to merit his promotion. But then again, I’m not an expert. Just a dude with a laptop and internet access.
When Barry Bonds started out, he struck out more than he walked and that didn’t change until his fourth season in 1989. And looking at Barry’s numbers in the Carolina League in 1985, he had a pretty similar start to his minor league career (good power, low walks, high strikeout). Of course Barry was about a year younger than Pedro and he didn’t strikeout as many times, but Barry went straight from College to pro ball as opposed to Pedro who spent half of his last college year injured and then had basically a year off, filled with contract bullshit and a knee injury. Similiarities, yeah, but I’d much rather have a 21 year old Barry Bonds in my system than a 22 year old Pedro Alvarez. And that’s just based on Carolina League numbers. Of course the reason Barry fell to the Pirates at #6 in the draft was that there were concerns about his attitude and ability to get along with teammates…even then. Considering what everyone’s said about Alvarez so far, I can’t imagine that’s really a problem with him. Of course there’s a big difference between growing up as the son of a major leaguer with similar attitude problems and growing up the son of immigrants in New York City.
Overall, I’m happy that he’s getting promoted, but I just wonder if he wouldn’t haven’t benefitted from more time in Lynchburg. Oh well. Also considering that Altoona will now have Alvarez, Tabata, Gorkys and Moskos. They should start seeing more W’s. Especially if Moskos continues to show signs of improvement, not that the rest of the Altoona bullpen is doing them any favors.
Also Brad Lincoln was promoted to AAA Indianapolis. All I can say about that is that it’s about fucking time. This guy was just absolutely dominating at AA, especially since about the start of May. No reason to keep him down there. 2.28 ERA, 1.08 WHIP, 7.8 K/9, and only 2.2 BB/9. The only thing that would cause concern for the Bob Smiziks of the world is his 1-5 record. I can see his blog entry now: “PIrates promote AA pitcher with 1-5 record!” Insert idiotic rant about how Pirates management is stupid for promoting a guy who can’t win ballgames while ignoring real stats like WHIP, K/9 and BB/9.
But I think that whole stint in Altoona is proof that wins is the most bullshit stat in baseball (after RBI). I mean if your bullpen keeps losing games for ya (leaving a game ahead 3-0 and then your bullpen losses the game 7-3) and your team isn’t hitting well enough to keep you from losing 1-0 and 2-1 ballgames, is that really your fault? No.
Overall, I think that if Indianapolis goes well for Lincoln, he could be up in Pittsburgh in September, although I’m not gonna bet on it. Huntington’s already called up McCutchen this year and if Linconln’s called up you got two of your first round picks starting their free agency clocks at the same time.
McCutchen is freaking amazing. He’s starting to get better at defense, which is nice because the first few games I was a little concerned. But offensively, the guy is a freaking monster. He’s been playing with the big league club for 17 days and he’s had 5 triples already, which is good enough to lead the National League. He’s on pace to have 45 of them in one season, which would break the old record of 36 set in 1912. I don’t think he’ll do that, but he’s the early favorite to have the most triples this year. Also some ROY talk for him as well.
Otherwise, the series in Colorado this weekend, sucked. Big time. Talk about soul crushing defeat.
