This post isn’t going to be overly long, because the data mostly speaks for itself.

One of the primary traits that scouts look for in a catcher is a strong throwing arm, and catchers who can throw out opposing base stealers are often considered to be good defenders regardless of what else they do behind the plate. And, there’s no question that creating outs and intimidating runners into staying put is a useful skill, and a catcher who can shut down the running game can add value to his team.

However, this year’s Pittsburgh Pirates are proving just how small a part of overall run prevention that throwing out runners actually is. Here are the leaderboards for National League teams in opposing SB/CS:

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With a sweep of the Royals this weekend, the Pittsburgh Pirates moved into a tie with Cincinnati for first place in the National League Central. If you read baseball blogs, you probably realize how surprising this is. Sure, last year the Pirates had a winning record as late as August 1 before finishing the season 72-90. But rather than getting into an overall “are they going to regress?” post, I’d like to be more light-hearted (or shallow, depending on your perspective), and look at three curious facets of this particular Pirates team so far.

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Did you know the FanGraphs leaderboards — which already no doubt consume the majority of your time like they do mine — also carry updated minor league data? Yeah, right here:

Under the Leaders tab, yo!

Let us take a moment, you and I, to delve into the numbers of my favorite of the minor leagues, the International League.
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In an age where most picks are revealed on Twitter by Jim Callis or Keith Law, the Astros managed to pull off a legitimate surprise and took shortstop Carlos Correa with the first overall pick in the 2012 draft. Correa offered the Astros premium potential and the likelihood of saving a little bit of money on the selection, which then gave them the opportunity to take Lance McCullers Jr. with their second selection — so the pick had multiple benefits for the team.

But it also created a chain reaction that caused presumed top selection Mark Appel to slide all the way to Pittsburgh at No. 8. And in turn, that is going to make the Pirates decisions today perhaps the most interesting in recent draft history.

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DATA!

Let us delve once again into the numbers. The season is now two months aged and we have more stories unfolding than we have enough digital ink to cover: Will the Red Sox ever find an outfielder? Is Adam Jones the new Matt Kemp? Can the White Sox really make a playoff push in a rebuilding year? And will the 2012 Pirates really go down as one of the worst offenses in modern history?

We will not truly know the answers to these questions for some time, but we can peer into the murky mirror-mirror that is the De-Lucker! and at least get a better feel for the state of everything. Much of the offensive fluctuations in the early part of the season come from strange movements in BABIP. The De-Lucker! attempts to smooth those fluctuations and give us a better guess as to who is doing well and who is not.

And Josh Hamilton, you will see, is in both categories.
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All numbers current through at least Wednesday morning.

The Pittsburgh Pirate offense is the worst in the league. Evidence:

Will this extra terrible offensive season continue? Or will regression cause the Pirates miss their chance to burn the record books in the spectacular flame of Awfulness?
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Calculations!

Every year, some players start hot, others start cold. In the past, when a player had a high BABIP to start the season, we said, “Oh, well he’s lucky. His numbers will come down.” But now we can say with greater certainty, using Fielding Independent wOBA (or FI wOBA), what a player’s wOBA would actually regress to, given their performance in other areas.

Let’s look at the top five BABIPs in the league with FI wOBA regressed to career BABIP rates (or CaB-FIw for Career BABIP FI wOBA).

David Wright: .536 BABIP, .503 wOBA, .424 CaB-FIw

Even if/when Wright’s BABIP comes back to his career .342 BABIP, his peripherals are off the charts. He is on pace for 30 homers, which is nothing miraculous for Wright, but he is also walking and striking out at a 12.5% rate.

Will that kind of patience continue? Eh, probably not to that extreme, but it certainly means Wright is seeing the ball well right now and could be poised for a really good year.

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Read the methodology behind the ratings here. Remember that the grading scale is 20-80, with 50 representing league average.

2012 Organizational Rankings

#30 – Baltimore
#29 – Houston
#28 – Oakland

Pittsburgh’s 2011 Ranking: 28th

2012 Outlook — 37 (25th)

How can a 72-win season possibly represent progress? It helps for the franchise in question to be coming off a coming off a 57-win debacle the season before. And it helps for the franchise in question to be coming off four straight last-place finishes. And it helps for the franchise in question to entering its 19th consecutive season without a playoff appearance.

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Derrek Lee hasn’t retired just yet. According to Ken Rosenthal, Lee is looking to play during the upcoming season, but he’s looking for the “right opportunity.” Lee struggled early on last season, but managed to turn his season around upon being traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates — albeit, in a very small sample. Still, Lee’s resurgence with Pittsburgh hasn’t led to a ton of offers. Given the current state of the position, Lee probably shouldn’t be selective about his opportunities.
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Continuing Major League Baseball’s trend of breaking news in the middle of the night (thanks guys!), Michael Senserino reported about an hour ago that the Pirates had agreed to a six year, $51 million contract with star center fielder Andrew McCutchen. No need to bury the lede here – this is nothing short of a fantastic signing for the Pirates.

Just 25 years old, McCutchen had just over two years of accumulated service time, so this deal buys out his final pre-arbitration season, all three of his arb years, and his first two years of free agency, while also giving the Pirates a team option (for $14.75 million) on what would be his third free agent eligible season. Barring an injury or a total collapse of his skills, that option looks very likely to be exercised, so the working assumption should be that the Pirates have locked up McCutchen’s age 25-31 seasons for $65 million.

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