Finding the Pirates (Another) First Baseman
The Pirates’ ZiPS projections came out today, and it’s generally a rosy picture. If you give Pitching Genius Ray Searage some hope with Jon Niese, Jeff Locke, and Allen Webster in the back end of the pitching rotation, and have a little hope in the Jordy Mercer’s bat, you could see league-average or better production all around the diamond. Even if you don’t believe those arms can do it, the team has Tyler Glasnow and Jameson Taillon this year in the minors, perhaps ready to contribute further.
In any case, it looks like more of the same from the Bucs, except for one glaring situation: first base. Michael Morse is fun, Michael Morse has power, but Michael Morse is projected to be a replacement-level first baseman.
It appears, from recent comments made by general manager Neal Huntington to Rob Biertempfel, that the Pirates don’t have much money. Using arbitration projections for their current roster, they might have as little as $5 or $6 million to spend on first base, if they retain their $10 million closer Mark Melancon. How do they find a platoon partner for the right-handed Morse for that kind of scratch?
They had a left-handed first baseman that was projected to make $8 million next year, so we have to do better than Pedro Alvarez. The team is at $85 million in salaries right now, even counting the fact that they have Morse for free, basically. They spent $90 million last year.
The free-agent market is not going to be kind. Mike Napoli and Steve Pearce are right-handed. Corey Hart is right-handed and the Pirates just got an up-close look at the state of his career right now. Sean Rodriguez has been rumored as help, but he’s also right-handed.
There’s really only name on the free-agent market that might make sense for the Pirates and might come to town for the sort of money they are offering: Justin Morneau. He’s left-handed, and though concerns about his concussions are legitimate, they also drove down his market price to the point where the Rockies spent $750,000 to not spend $9 million on him this season. So he should cost less than $8 million.
By the projections, adding Morneau could push their production from first base to a full win. Steamer has him worth more than a half a win, at least, and that’s with a marked down turn in defensive and offensive value. That’s fair — he’s 34 — but flat production could make the pairing of Morneau and Morse within shouting distance of league average.
Cheaper, non-regular lefty first basemen include Kelly Johnson and Matt Joyce. Though the 31-year-old Joyce possesses relative youth compared to the other options in this aisle, and could bounce back to be better than any of the names mentioned so far, you’d have to convince him that he can handle first baseman. Ask Ron Washington how easy that is. You could throw David Murphy in this paragraph, but if you’re going to ask an outfielder to play first for the first time, you’d start with Joyce just for the upside at the plate, is my guess.
Huntington also mentioned the trade market. In fact, the genesis of his complaints about player salaries was the fact that increasing salaries is also making trades more difficult, as teams ostensibly ask for more in return for their cheap talent. So let’s assume from those comments that he also doesn’t want to pay top-shelf trade prices for a new first baseman.
The White Sox are willing to eat much of the $13 million they owe Adam LaRoche, but if you’re going with late-30s first baseman coming off bad seasons, you might as well take Morneau, who will only cost cash and no players. LaRoche is also more clearly the worse defender of the two.
But scanning the arbitration-eligible first basemen in the game, you hit a problem quickly: the good ones will cost a lot to get, and the bad ones don’t seem much better than free agents. Try prying Brandon Belt free from the Giants, see if you even have the prospects to do so. The Mets still need Lucas Duda. Logan Morrison has been available for most of his career, it seems, and the Pirates haven’t bit.
If you believe in a Brandon Moss bounce-back, fueled mostly by better health in his hip, he might be the most attractive target. He’s only 32, and he’s projected to make less than Alvarez would make, and produce more. He loves first base, and the Cardinals, especially with another signing, could easily make him redundant, with Stephen Piscotty and Matt Adams on the roster.
The other name on the trade market, Mitch Moreland, is projected for that magic $5.6 million that fits our budget best. The Rangers have a first baseman in Prince Fielder and, in Lewis Brinson and Nomar Mazara, two very exciting young outfielders who are close to the major leagues. This seems like a fit, but you’ll remember those Huntington comments when you check in on the rumors page for Moreland: Pittsburgh is apparently “not motivated” to move a young catcher to the Rangers for the right to pay Moreland. Also, why spend a minor league catching prospect when you also have a minor league first baseman who is close to the bigs in Josh Bell?
Perhaps the Pirates wait for the Cardinals to make their next move and then call about Moss. Perhaps they’re talking to Justin Morneau. If Matt Joyce is cool with first base, then he’s probably on their radar.
But there’s one left-handed player left who is younger than the oldest of these options, better offensively than anyone we’ve mentioned so far, has experience playing the position, and offers the potential of a win and a half of production that would boost the Pirates to average all over the field. His name is John Jaso.
Maybe his days catching are done because of the concussions, but he’s an athletic player that was once called the best baserunner in the Tampa organization and has played in the outfield as recently as last year — he is likely to be better defensively than LaRoche and Morneau, who are also three years older than he is. Jaso has played five innings at first, which means he’s taken throws at first and taken infield practice there. It won’t be foreign to him.
| Player | Age | Projected PA | Projected wRC+ | Projected WAR |
| Justin Morneau | 35 | 453 | 102 | 0.6 |
| Matt Joyce | 31 | 376 | 99 | 0.5 |
| Adam LaRoche | 36 | 568 | 95 | -0.1 |
| Brandon Moss | 32 | 400 | 110 | 0.9 |
| Mitch Moreland | 30 | 536 | 97 | 0.9 |
| John Jaso | 32 | 287 | 111 | 0.5 |
He doesn’t fit your traditional slow-footed designated hitter profile. And though he doesn’t have the power of that same DH, he makes up for it with good plate discipline that has left him 20% better than league average for his career.
And for the Pirates, he’s a lefty first baseman with some upside who is not inspiring rumors and could be available for $5 million, since he made $3.2 million in his last year of arbitration last year. He won’t cost a prospect, and he could help patch up the worst hole on the field. Plus, he’d return dreadlocks to the field in Pittsburgh, which is fun, if not valuable by traditional metrics.
With a phone full of pictures of pitchers' fingers, strange beers, and his two toddler sons, Eno Sarris can be found at the ballpark or a brewery most days. Read him here, writing about the A's or Giants at The Athletic, or about beer at October. Follow him on Twitter @enosarris if you can handle the sandwiches and inanity.
Why is Jaso “likely to be better defensively” than Morneau? Morneau nearly won a gold glove in 2014 (and probably should have). Not that a GG is the be all and end all, but Morneau’s generally known as a well above average first baseman. Meanwhile, Jaso as a first baseman is … well, a bad catcher.
Never really understood the sabre community’s love for Jaso. I think he was the guy involved in that trade long ago when all the online critics fell in love with the Oakland A’s, and that has transferred to Jaso himself. To me, he’s Wilin Rosario with fewer HR’s and more walks.
FWIW, last year Morneau had a -2 DRS and Jaso has 5 total innings at first and none since 2013.
Basing it mostly on age difference and the fact that Jaso was mobile enough to play the outfield last year. I think it’s an interesting prop bet, but maybe I shouldn’t have said ‘likely.’
A year ago, I would have bought your “if he can play X, he can play first” logic. But then I saw Pedro Alvarez (a pretty solid third baseman except for a wild arm) turn into one of the worst 1B ever.
One of the other names that you mention – Brandon Moss – is an interesting example where that’s not the case, if we buy what UZR tells us about his defense.
For his career, he’s +3 UZR/150 in the OF (all RF or LF) and -9 UZR/150 at 1B. I don’t think the samples are large enough for UZR to stabilize, but they aren’t tiny: 3,200 innings in the OF and 2,000 innings at 1B.
There is absolutely no change whatsoever in how the Phillies are run.
Bill Giles put the ownership group together with people who think like him 35 years ago. Guess what? Bill Giles is still there. He took part in the hiring of MacPhail and Klentak both. He was at the press conference announcing the hiring of Klentak.
35 Years.
Jim Thome and Cliff Lee
That’s it.
35 Years.
Carlos Ruiz and Maikel Franco, the only two starting quality players signed out of Latin America. Ruiz was signed out of Panama for eight thousand dollars. Need that in numerical form? $8,000- Eight Stacks.
Maikel Franco was signed for $100,000- That’s one hundred thousand American dollars. One hundred Stacks.
The Red Sox paid $63 million to sign Yoan Moncada. The Phillies paid $108,000- to sign both Carlos Ruiz and Maikel Franco.
Two real free agents and two starting position players from Latin America signed for nothing.
The Phillies Way is unchanged. They will sit in the cellar until they collect enough free talent in the MLB Plantation Slave Auction held every June. These young slave/intern players will be exploited to the max by the Phillies bloodsucking ownership cabal. For seven years they will make these bloodsucking criminals massive profits. If a few become fan favorites and the crowds are still huge as they near free agency then they will be signed to short, team friendly deals. If any have slipped through their screening process and turn out to be normal players seeking long contracts they will be demonized and booted out the door.
The Phillies after telling lies to their fan base from 2012 onward finally admitted they were “rebuilding”. The truth of the matter is they are already planning their next rebuild as they conduct this one.
THAT is The Phillies Way.
Google: Kevin Maitan FREE_AEC
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….Ryan Howard?
He would come cheap, no doubt.
Ryan Howard has been the worst 1B in baseball over the past four years. Even if the Phillies paid every penny of the $35m they still owe him, he’d still not even be close to worth it. He has negative $41.4mil of value.
The Pirates would be better off starting whoever played 1B (or even SS, for that matter) for their AAA team than Ryan Howard.
That would be Josh Bell, and he will likely be up by mid-season and yeah, no on Ryan Howard. If we had a DH, maybe/sure. But no thanks.
VS Right Handed Pitching
.256 average .499 slugging .803 ops
44 Runs, 20 HR, 67 RBI
As strictly a platoon player for a couple million bucks, that’s not bad at all.
What about Justin Smoak? Sure, he just signed with the Jays but it would not take much to pry him away. A middling reliever might be enough.
“It would not take that much to pry him away?” Really? You’ve talked to their FO I take it? Tell me more.
Here’s a thought: maybe, just maybe they re-signed Smoak because they’re in the same position as PIT is in – having a RH’ed bat @ 1B they need to find a LH-bat to platoon with. They have only 2 LH’ed bats in their entire hitting lineup – Revere and Goins. But yeah, fuck facts. They don’t need Smoak at all and they’ll just trade him for a middling reliever…right.
Wow man did siggian do something to you personally? It’s not that nuts of an idea, I think it might take more then just any middling pen arm.
The thing is that none of the Jays big bats are particularly vulnerable to RHP. They mash lefties, but still hit RHP pretty hard. Hard enough that they scored more runs than anyone else and it wasn’t even close.
As far as LHBs that are on the team, in addition to the ones you mention, Saunders is a lefty and so is Pompey.
Colabello hit better against righties last year than Smoak did. The reason the Jays want to keep Smoak around is to protect from regression from Cola, not because of a perceived platoon advantage
I was kind of thinking the same. Maybe it’s Smoak + a prospect for Melancon? Pirates would save about $6M. Not sure if the Jays can afford the other $6M though.
The only problem with that trade is that Smoak sucks and Melancon is great. Other than that, can’t see why the pirates wouldn’t jump on that move!
Jaso! Fun!
For the record, ~90 million was just opening day payroll i think. I feel like i remember seeing them eclipse 100 after additions. Ticket prices went up a little and they remained 15th in attendance. Reasonable to think they can afford a little more.
I do have to say that Morse intrigues me more than he intrigues the projections. I’m wondering how much of his struggles last year were injury-based, as opposed to age decline. Didn’t he have finger and back issues early?
Does Zips think he’s going to spend time in the outfield? I’d imagine that’d hurt his WAR projection, as he’s Alvarezian out there, by UZR. He grades fine-enough at 1b, by UZR.
Why am i trying to talk myself into thinking Morse is a good idea? I dunno!
But as i already said… Jaso! Fun!
Forgot to mention…
Morse doesn’t have much of a platoon split for his career either, so if he’s hitting lefties well, it may or may not be reasonable to think he’d hit righties well too.
But yeah. this all hinges on what caused his struggles last year – age or injury.
Because Morse is a rad dude who is very easy to cheer for regardless of the team he’s on. He seems like a big kid who is getting paid to play baseball, and not taking that for granted. I don’t think “rad” can be quantified, but that’s why you want to it work.
Sure you can quantify Rad. Just take Hunter Pence (lots of rad) minus Delmon Young (negative rad) and divide by the difference between McCutchen pre-haircut and post-haircut.
Morse may only be worth, like, 0.3 WAR, but he comes in at an above-league average 2.4 rads per 600 walk-up songs.
Plus, he’s the only major leaguer to hit a phantom grand slam
Hahahaaa thanks to both of y’all /\ \/
I saw it went over $100M too, but a few, but those numbers are all over the map, and fleeting. I’m not sure if that includes other teams contributions to the payroll too. We had a couple guys that their originating team was still subsidizing their salary.
” If you give Pitching Genius Ray Searage some hope with Jon Niese, Jeff Locke, and Allen Webster in the back end of the pitching rotation”
Why exactly would you give Searage hope with Locke? Locke has been working with Searage for his whole career and has put up the same mediocre numbers the whole time. Niese also does not fit the profile of a Searage reclamation project (guy who throws hard with iffy command) so I really don’t think anyone should expect him to improve all that much. The pirates rotation is Liriano, Cole and a bunch of “mehh”. They absolutely need to find a third starter or the Cubs and Cardinals will finish 10+ games ahead of them.
2014 Latos looks an awful lot like 2011 AJ Burnett 😉
I agree 100%. Latos is the perfect target for the Bucs. Given the prospects coming through the system they probably don’t need a guy on a 3-year deal but Latos on a pillow contract would be a great fit.
As much as the idea has merit, I’m not sure I could come to like Latos in black and gold.
I see where you’re coming from wmossor6, but if he pitches well I will like him, and if he sucks, I won’t. He doesn’t have the best reputation, but it’s not like he’s some violent criminal; I actually think he’s a lot like a young AJ Burnett, and Pittsburgh LOVED Burnett after a year or two.
Gahh. 201*5* Latos
FWIW, Steamer’s 2016 WAR projections have the Cardinals and Pirates very close to each other right now, within a game or two. The Cubs, unfortunately (I’m a Cards fan), do look to be 10 or more games ahead of both.
That said, I generally agree with your point partly just from an innings perspective. I don’t think that just adding up team WAR adequately captures the pressure on a bullpen from putting 3 meh starters in the same rotation, and the innings pressure could look really ugly if Cole or Liriano misses any time.
The Pirates are in an interesting spot, because Steamer projects them to look like a stars and scrubs roster. So there’s some obvious upside if overperformance, promotions, or trades/FA’s can upgrade a few of the weak spots, but there’s also a lot riding on the health and effectiveness of the top few players (McCutchen, Marte, Cole, and Liriano).
My speculative heart would suggest a trade for Melancon involving Travis Shaw plus other significant pieces.
…
Clint Robinson would be weirdly perfect – 115 wRC+ last year, and projected for 101 this year despite having been a 30-year-old rookie. Nats probably much more likely to take on Melancon’s contract in return (if they want to offload it). Given that he costs nothing and is under team control forever, he almost certainly has substantially more surplus value than Melancon, at this point.
Melancon is an elite closer. They aren’t offloading his contract unless they get something great in return. A 31 year old minor league journeyman expected to be a sub 1-win player does not have “almost certainly” more surplus value.
How much does clint Robinson get paid? That’s the only surplus value I care about
I’m not sure that’s dreadlocks so much as just a greasy man-bun.
I don’t think it’s a great fit, but I was wondering what it would take to to get Carlos Santana from Cleveland. His current contract is team friendly, and he is a switch hitter. Could possibly mentor Bell in that regard, as well as transitioning from another position to first base.
Chris Colabello seems like a pretty obvious fit
My source close to the front office indicates a player will indeed be signed to a team. Stay tuned and check out my blog!
I was nodding along happily until that last link.
Pirates’ GM has indicated payroll will be around $105M.
I remember in ’97 when the Pirates played the White Sox, people making a big deal about Albert Belle ($10M) making more than the entire Pirates roster ($9M). I know it says more about the changing economics of baseball than the rising fortunes of the Pirates, but the Pirates having a $100M payroll still blows my mind.
I’m guessing that means the final payroll, not the OD payroll. I bet they save 8 mil or so to use at the deadline if needed. Based on that they probably have about 10 million to spend on 1B, bullpen and another starter. I’m thinking the 3rd starter they sign is gonna be Kyle Kendrick or Jeremy Guthrie. God I hate Bob Nutting.
Former Pirate Steve Pearce, Former Pirate Corey Hart, Former Pirate Justin Morneau, Former Pirate Adam LaRoche, Former Pirate Brandon Moss, Former Pirate Sean Rodriguez
It’s amazing how many players linked in this article have already played for the Bucs.
What’s Randall Simon up to these days?
Assuming the Pirates trade Melancon, they should have more than enough money to sign both Pearce and Jaso. Morse did not even hit opposite-handed pitchers at a league average rate last year, so he might not be worth even the weak half of a platoon.
If Josh Bell ever decides to hit for power, he would solve the Pirates decades-long drought at 1B. Until then, the Bucs could do much worse than a Pearce/Jaso platoon.
It really hasn’t been decades long, LaRoche was a pretty acceptable 1B for Bucs, its just too bad that he was on teams where his 2nd half surges were buried in last place.
The Pirates had pretty good 1B production for most of the 90s, too, with Kevin Young, Jeff King, Orlando Merced, and Sid Bream (sigh) combining for seven 2.5 win seasons. Since the turn of the century, except for brief flashes of acceptableness from LaRoche and Garrett Jones, it’s been awful.
What about James Loney? He’s a left-handed first baseman set to make $8 million next year, though after his atrocious 2015 the Rays might be willing to pony up a little cash to get rid of him. It would be a good example of buying low on a guy with decent buy-back potential. He’s projected for half a win next season, and it probably wouldn’t take much for the Pirates to get him.
Bounce-back, rather.
Why is Josh Bell an afterthought in this article? My first thought when I saw the headline was we were going to hear something about Bell. He’s 23, he’s figured out minor league pitchers, the only thing left to develop is power. It might never develop, but being in the minors doesn’t necessarily help anything there. Play the kid!
The frustrating thing about Bell is his inability to hit HR. He hit 7 total HR in 2015 and 9 in 2014… Not what most teams look for in big, defensively challenged 1Bmen.
Bell is big (6’4″ and over 200 lb), with a great swing and plate discipline. He will hit for average, and he will draw a ton of walks while rarely striking out. He could be decent without hitting HR. But I suspect he will spend most of the year at AAA to see if his power develops.
Josh Bell can’t play first base. He won’t be an option in MLB until he learns how to play first base at an acceptable levels. Right now, he’s reportedly worse than Pedro Alvarez at defense.
I find that hard to believe.
Hyperbole certainly, but NH did indeed say that Bell still needs better defense. He also said he was pleased with how much progress he made, including a late season run of 20+ errorless games.
Most tired comment of the decade. Go back to listening to Mark Madden.
More to the point, Bell has less experience at 1B than Alvarez, and it shows. He needs to learn the position at Indy. The Bucs aren’t going to bring him up to boot balls in Pittsburgh.
Chris. Davis.
The dude wants more than twice the Pirates’ 2015 payroll. Nah.
He asked for more than $150M. At the rate we’re shedding salary this off-season he’s gonna be closer to 3 times our payroll! Profit Margins will be at an all-time high!! This is what you’re supposed to do the year after you win 98 games right?
Shhhhhh eno you’re giving away my dark arts secrets.
much less harebrained than when i suggested pre-2015 that the a’s try to teach jaso 2b…
Garrett Jones might be inexpensive – but maybe he retired. I never hear anything about him as an available free agent. He would be at least serviceable until Bell is ready.
I question your last sentence. Honestly I’d rather see them roll with Morse.
Only mentioned him as the left handed platoon partner that they are looking for to go along with Morse.
Any chance Travis Snider could pick it at 1st? Plus, he’s another ex-Buc.
I rather doubt that the Cardinals would ship Moss to Pittsburgh in the offseason. The Cardinals and Pirates project to be right on top of each other competing for the wild card spots (or for the NL Central if the Cubs unexpectedly stumble to well below their current 2016 projection).
Also, the Cardinals look to be well under their 2016 payroll budget now that they missed on both Price and Heyward. That could change, but Mozeliak has been quoted saying that the Cardinals are now out of the market for a “dynamic” 9 figure FA this offseason. That of course also says that they’re not pursuing Davis or Upton, the signings who most logically would lead to shipping out Moss (or Adams, who unlike Moss can’t play corner OF).
The Cardinals and Pirates have not made a single trade with each other in Neal Huntington’s tenure, and I don’t see that changing any time soon. It doesn’t make much sense to me to keep both Moss and Adams so I would think they’re looking to trade one of them elsewhere. Although maybe they would just use one of them in pinch hitting situations I guess.
They need a guy who may not be able to hit MLB pitching, but can KO a Gatorade jug.
This website had a post out today showing how much Pittsburg has left to spend. Looks like 17-20 million.
http://www.thepointofpittsburgh.com/so-how-much-do-the-pirates-have-left-to-spend/
I think all of you will be surprised by Allen Webster I telling ya if the kid takes Rays advice to heart He’ll make pirates look like geniuses…The kid has killer skills – I watched Him here in AZ he could be beast if gets act together
They should have really gone out and outbid the Twins for the services of Byung-Ho Park. That should have resolved the first base issue at a low cost with high upside a la Jung-Ho.
Neal Huntington apparently (and thankfully) reads FanGraphs.
This was a great move for the Bucs and for Jaso. The Bucs get a solid LH hitter who crushed RHP, without paying too much or trading anybody. Jaso should finally get an everyday role (almost everyday – starting against RHP and pinch hitting on off days).
The only question is whether he can handle 1B. But playing 1B is not that hard…