Andrew McCutchen, for all that he was put through in the off-season, should have stayed in center field
Jeff Roberson/AP
Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen catches a fly ball by St. Louis Cardinals无毛视频� Mike Leake during the third inning on April 18 in St. Louis.
Associated Press photo/Calkins Media graphic
PITTSBURGH 无毛视频� With Starling Marte out for the next 78 games while serving his suspension for violating Major League Baseball无毛视频檚 substance abuse policy, the expectation is that Andrew McCutchen will get the majority of the playing time in the middle of the Pirates无毛视频� outfield until he returns.
Center field is obviously a place with which McCutchen is familiar. He has stared more than 1,100 games there in his MLB career and he无毛视频檚 just as happy to continue playing there, as evidenced by his emphatic reaction to a catch he made in the right-center field gap on Tuesday.
无毛视频淭his is my spot,无毛视频� McCutchen mouthed.
It brings into question whether McCutchen should have been moved in the first place.
There无毛视频檚 no doubt that Marte, who replaced McCutchen in center field, is a quality defender. Marte has a cannon of an arm and led the National League in outfield assists in 2016. He无毛视频檚 also faster than McCutchen.
McCutchen had seen his defensive play in center decline. He had a -23.2 UZR/150 last year 无毛视频� the worst among qualifying centerfielders. UZR (Ultimate Zone Rating) is a defensive metric that factors in how many balls a player gets to as well as the number of errors they make, as opposed to fielding percentage, which only counts chances as errors and outs. It then normalizes the number of chances each player got for an apples-to-apples comparison.
The trend line on McCutchen无毛视频檚 career numbers doesn无毛视频檛 provide for much hope of a rebound, either. His best season came in 2013, with a UZR/150 of 8.4. But it fell to -13.7 in 2014 and rebounded to -6.5 in 2015 before last season无毛视频檚 cliff dive. Marte has a career number of -11.8, which is still below average, but projects to be a significant improvement.
So the numbers say that Marte should be a better centerfielder, and to an analytically driven team like the Pirates, maybe that无毛视频檚 enough.
But while the front office has dived head-first into the charts and graphs part of baseball analysis, manager Clint Hurdle is often quick to point out the 无毛视频渉uman analytics,无毛视频� meaning it doesn无毛视频檛 do any good for anyone to have a great idea if it doesn无毛视频檛 get a buy-in from the players.
While Hurdle has made no public statements in opposition to moving McCutchen 无毛视频� in fact, he played a large part in getting the team无毛视频檚 star player to accept the move 无毛视频� his words on the human side of the equation ring true at times. Players are not robots. Things like ego and emotion do matter on the field and in the clubhouse.
The Pirates were already in a bad place when it came to the human analytics of the way they handled McCutchen this off-season. After publicly dangling him in trade talks, they were never able to consummate a deal, meaning that the face of the franchise returned to the club despite it being a tenuous situation on either end.
McCutchen wanted to play for the Pirates and was on the record many times as saying that he wanted to finish his career in Pittsburgh. But that all changes when a team is publicly shopping a player. McCutchen deserves a lot of credit for coming back into the clubhouse and doing and saying the right things. Asking him to move positions on top certainly has not made it any easier.
There are other factors to be considered, as well. While McCutchen remains on the roster, it无毛视频檚 nearly a certainty that he will be traded at some point before his contract ends at the conclusion of the 2018 season. If McCutchen could put together a decent defensive season, he could significantly increase his trade value to the Pirates. General manager Neal Huntington also has admitted that the team无毛视频檚 change in defensive position in 2016 hurt McCutchen无毛视频檚 play. Just rectifying that could provide some increase in performance.
McCutchen无毛视频檚 actions on the field on Tuesday in St. Louis make it obvious that playing center field is what he feels he should be doing. Maybe, given everything else the Pirates asked him to do over the last year, that should have been enough.