PITTSBURGH — Corey Dickerson had a weird offseason.

After being named an All-Star last year and finishing with an 115 wRC+, 27-homer, three-win campaign, Dickerson was designated for assignment by Tampa Bay in February. You don’t see that every day. The always cost-conscious Rays did not want to be on the hook for $5.9 million. The Pirates acquired him for Daniel Hudson, minor-league infielder Tristan Gray, and cash considerations. Perhaps the Rays were also concerned about Dickerson’s issues against the fastball.

Last season, no batter swung and missed at elevated fastballs more often than Dickerson. In an age when spin and “rise” are better understood than ever, perhaps the Rays thought Dickerson would be vulnerable to a general trend, to say nothing of specific scouting reports. Maybe the Rays felt this was an uncorrectable flaw. The club eventually acquired C.J. Cron, who offered roughly similar production at a cheaper price — without the same kind of weaknesses against the fastball.

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Monday afternoon, I wrote about Max Muncy. A few months ago, I didn’t think I’d ever be writing about Max Muncy again, but he’s suddenly emerged as a surprising value for the Dodgers, and at a critical time. Muncy is a 27-year-old with a 142 wRC+. In spring training, he was a non-roster invitee. He has what’s becoming a somewhat familiar profile: fringe big-league hitter who’s apparently reached the next level after making some significant swing changes. You could interpret those as changes made to try to save a career.

Most of the time, that’s how it goes. Muncy was a bubble player. J.D. Martinez was a bubble player. Jose Bautista, Josh Donaldson, Justin Turner, Yonder Alonso, and so forth — many of them, bubble players. It tends not to be the proven guys who make major changes. They’re just not confronted with the same incentives, and besides, in order to become an established major-league veteran, a player is most likely to be close to his optimum approach. It’s a risk to change someone who’s already been good. Quite simply, there can just be more to lose.

Francisco Cervelli and the Pirates aren’t afraid, I guess. Cervelli has been a perfectly fine hitter, especially for a catcher. Coming into this season, nobody questioned that Cervelli would be the starter. It would’ve been easy for him to remain as he was. Still, he’s turned into a project. And the early results are both very dramatic and greatly encouraging.

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Over the last decade, Major League Baseball has taken steps to make the game safer for players on the field, not only instituting a seven-day disabled list for concussions but also crafting a pair of somewhat nuanced rules in order to avoid unnecessary collisions both on the pivot at second base and also at home plate.

On Monday, Anthony Rizzo seemed possibly to violate those rules, barreling to the plate in order to prevent Pirates catcher Elias Diaz from throwing to first to complete a double play. Rizzo ultimately succeeded: his collision with Diaz caused an errant throw, allowing two runners to score and turning a likely Cubs victory into a sure thing as the team went up 5-0 in eighth inning.

Did Rizzo actually do anything wrong, though? To answer that question, we actually have to consider two separate rules. To begin, let’s go with MLB’s slide rule first. The rule addresses the allowable — or, as they call it, bona fide — slide, which requires that a runner:

1. Begins his slide (i.e., makes contact with the ground) before reaching the base;
2. is able and attempts to reach the base with his hand or foot;
3. is able and attempts to remain on the base (except home plate) after completion of the slide; and
4. slides within reach of the base without changing his pathway for the purpose of initiating contact with a fielder.

Here is Rizzo’s slide.

https://gfycat.com/HatefulAgonizingAustralianfreshwatercrocodile

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Because of what’s happened after the fact, I don’t know how good the Pirates currently feel about the Gerrit Cole trade. Cole, of course, has seen his strikeouts skyrocket with the Astros, even after moving to the more difficult league. But it’s not like the Pirates got nothing, and the key to the trade all along, for me, has been Colin Moran. Moran once looked like a bust of a prospect, but in 2017, in the minors, he unlocked his power. He was a swing-changer, and the changes seemingly paid off. Moran took to the air with his batted balls, and, fast-forward — through 143 plate appearances with Pittsburgh, Moran has a 130 wRC+. He’s been making a strong early impression.

Because Moran was a swing-changer, I found myself making an assumption. The way this usually goes is that a guy works to elevates pitches down in the zone. That, in turn, can make him exploitable up. We’ve been talking about the high fastball for years. Yet Moran did something in early April that caught my eye. His first home run with the Pirates was a grand slam, and here’s where the pitch was located:

Up above the belt. I didn’t think that was a pitch he could get to. My assumption was wrong. I also hadn’t seen anything yet.

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Among all the transaction/acquisition vehicles available to teams — trades, waiver claims, free agency, etc. — the most unlikely to benefit a major-league roster in a forthcoming season is the minor-league free-agent signing.

Esteemed FanGraphs managing editor Carson Cistulli found that only 1% of minor-league free agents go on to produce at least 0.5 WAR or greater in the following season. They are scratch-off lottery tickets that are almost always misses. So when one hits, it’s worth examining.

Now, it seems one has!

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One of the bigger stories of the early part of the season has been the ace-level emergence of Gerrit Cole. Freed from the Pirates, Cole has moved on to the Astros and seemingly threatened to throw a no-hitter every start. Cole’s strikeout rate has taken off, and one has been left to wonder why this pitcher didn’t show up consistently in Pittsburgh. On the Pirates’ side, Colin Moran and Michael Feliz have been fine. The club has also overachieved, winning more games than it’s lost. But if anything, the Pirates’ early success makes the loss of Cole more painful. No one likes to see a player improve somewhere else.

Something about going to Houston has allowed Cole to tap into his inner potential. There’s been much conversation about why the Pirates couldn’t pull this talent out. As some consolation, however, the Pirates have sort of done a similar thing to the Rays. Near the end of February, the Pirates picked up Corey Dickerson for a song. The Rays, I’m sure, are content with the early performance by C.J. Cron. But the Dickerson of the present doesn’t look like the Dickerson of yesterday. Cole left Pittsburgh and found a new level. Dickerson arrived in Pittsburgh and found a new level. It doesn’t make up for trading an ace, yet there are reasons why the Pirates are firmly in contention.

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On today’s edition of Effectively Wild, Ben Lindbergh and I had the opportunity to talk with Steven Brault. Brault is interesting, first of all, because he’s a major-league pitcher. In the grand scheme of things, there are not that many major-league pitchers, and surviving at the level requires one to be an expert at his craft. Aside from pitching, Brault is also a musician, and he co-hosts a podcast with teammate Trevor Williams. As an individual, Brault has a lot going on, but the reason we sought him out in the first place is because of his hitting. Brault has batted a total of 32 times in the bigs. He’s recorded seven hits, sure. But he also has yet to strike out.

Presumably, you know enough to know that’s atypical. You already understood that strikeouts are on the rise, and that, on balance, pitcher-hitters are terrible. Brault is finding himself on the same list as names like Dizzy Dean, Heinie Meine, and Sloppy Thurston. It’s not that Brault is a hitter in the way that Madison Bumgarner is a hitter. Bumgarner stands out because of his power. Brault stands out because of his contact. Among active players with zero strikeouts, Brault is first in plate appearances, with 32. Carlos Rivero is standing in a distant second, with eight.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates enter play today at 17-13, just a half-game behind the division-leading Brewers and Cubs, and a similar distance from a Wild Card spot. Surprisingly, their Pythagorean record basically supports their record to date, as does BaseRuns. By whichever measure one uses, the Pirates have been good — which is no small surprise in light of preseason expectations that characterized this as a rebuilding club.

Still, the Pirates’ start, whilst evidently supportable by the play on the field, has nonetheless been the product of some good fortune. There was the Rays’ decision to offload Corey Dickerson, who has authored a 136 wRC+ and is second on the team in WAR. There’s been the sudden breakout of Francisco Cervelli, who has gone from a poor man’s Russell Martin to something more like prime Jonathan Lucroy. The pitching staff has also helped, with Ivan Nova refusing to walk anyone and Nick Kingham emerging for an excellent debut. With the Dodgers and Nationals off to slow starts and a dogfight emerging in the NL East, there’s at least a plausible path to the postseason in Pittsburgh: they have a 12% chance at a playoff spot after being in the single digits in the preseason.

And that’s why Jung Ho Kang is suddenly relevant again.

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At 10-1, the Mets own the National League’s best record, but the bigger surprise relative to preseason expectations may be the Pirates, who after Thursday’s 6-1 victory over the Cubs are 9-3, are tied with the Diamondbacks for the league’s second-best record. After a 75-win 2017 campaign and then an offseason during which they dealt away Gerrit Cole and Andrew McCutchen and pared their payroll to the majors’ fourth-smallest, the Bucs appeared destined to spend 2018 languishing with the other rebuilding teams. They may do so yet, but for the moment, their hot start is worth a closer look.

The 2017 Pirates were not much fun. They had just one month with a record above .500 (a 14-11 July), never got further than a game above .500, and finished 13th in the NL in scoring, with a lineup featuring just four players to produce a 100 wRC+ or better (McCutchen, Josh Bell, David Freese, and Josh Harrison) — and just two with a WAR of at least 2.0 (McCutchen and Harrison). Starling Marte drew an 80-game PED suspension, Jung Ho Kang missed the entire season after failing to secure a work visa in the wake of his third DUI conviction in South Korea, Francisco Cervelli was limited to 81 games by a variety of injuries, and Gregory Polanco regressed significantly (more on him momentarily).

On the other side of the ball, they were seventh in run prevention, but Cole looked more plow horse than thoroughbred, and while Jameson Taillon made an inspiring in-season return from testicular cancer, top pitching prospect Tyler Glasnow was pummeled for a 7.69 ERA and 6.30 FIP. Travis Sawchik has the gory details of the big picture.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates traded two of their best players over the winter, signaling a potential rebuild and teardown of the team that made the playoff three consecutive seasons from 2013 to 2015. Andrew McCutchen, the organization’s most recognizable figure since Barry Bonds left town, was the more notable of the departing pair in terms of significance to the franchise. In terms of value in the the near future, however, Gerrit Cole was almost certainly more important.

Not only is Cole likely to produce more wins than McCutchen in a vacuum this season, but the disparity in talent between him and his replacements is also larger. While McCutchen is worth roughly a half-win more than Corey Dickerson and Corey Dickerson’s platoon partners, Cole is expected to outpace the fifth spot in the Pittsburgh rotation by at least two wins. This is the trouble with trading away a No. 1 starter: he’s replaced not by the pitcher right behind him on the depth chart but rather by whichever name formerly occupied the sixth spot in the rotation. For the Pirates, that’s probably some combination of Steven Brault, Tyler Glasnow, and maybe Trevor Williams.

So, in terms of overall wins, the Cole trade is almost certainly a net-minus for the Pittsburgh rotation. That said, it’s very likely that there will be no deficit for the club at the very front of the starting five. Despite Cole’s departure, an ace still remains in Pittsburgh. In light both of his track record and his first two starts of the current season, Jameson Taillon seems very capable of taking over for the departed Cole.

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