Pirates Offseason: In Focus

The Neal Huntington era in Pittsburgh has hit a crossroads. Young talent is starting to percolate into the major leagues, and expectations are starting to rise. Most fans are realistic enough not to expect a playoff contender, but they do want signs that this iteration of Bucs management is not feeding them false hope. The recent signings of Octavio Dotel, DJ Carrasco and Brendan Donnelly have been chided by some as the same kind of uninspired free agent spending that has sunk the Pirates repeatedly.

Modern baseball analysis is particularly hard on relief pitching. Statistics like WAR take a macro view of individual baseball players, valuing things like total innings played over singular instances of greatness. In this way, average starting pitchers are typically worth many wins more than even the best relief pitcher. When free agent signings are analyzed through such a prism, the analysis is usually harsh on the team signing relievers. Even when leveraged appropriately (i.e. the best relievers face the best hitters, be it in the 7th, 8th or 9th inning), relievers are not thought of as particularly valuable. Add in the success of teams that have eschewed the 7th inning guy/set-up man/closer – the Rays of the past few seasons come to mind – and the party line from modern baseball analysts should be that the Pirates are up to old tricks.

But there is good reason to like the Pirates’ signings. For one, the total commitment is just over $5.5M, assuming Carrasco makes the team out of spring training. Dotel’s incentives and buyout could push this total up towards $7M, but given the Pirates lack of spending this offseason, as well as the recent mandate by MLB for the Florida Marlins to direct revenue sharing money towards player contracts, that figure shouldn’t be a problem either. In essence, the Pirates took advantage of a fungible market commodity (relief pitching) and made it do the work the Pirates need (several arms to support a young pitching staff with only 3 200+ inning outings to date) at an acceptable price.

Some fans bemoaned the non-tendering and free agent loss of the Pirates’ most promising relief pitcher, Matt Capps. Their argument wonders why a rebuilding team would not keep its best young arms in the pen. This argument misses the inherent fungibility of relief pitching. As several writers have pointed out, in an era where so many good, but not starter quality arms exist, and the value of the best relief pitchers on the market is routinely tamped down by the draft pick compensation mechanism of arbitration, the free market price of relief pitching is lowered (likely approaching its actual value as calculated by WAR and its statistical brethren).

Another problem specific to Capps for the Pirates is that his pre-free agency status does not make him the same bargain most other players are before free agency. Rather than approach arbitration with Capps, whose value would likely be inflated by previous save totals without a sufficient debit for more recent erratic performance, the Pirates simply chose different commodities on the market. If Dotel, Carrasco and Donnelly don’t work out, they can simply try new combinations next year. There is certainly a risk in a breakout performance by Capps, but there is no statistical reason to prefer him to Dotel in 2010. Since they signed for the same price, the advantage goes to Pittsburgh.

Rather than lock up funds with a more flashy free agent signing of a starting pitcher or everyday position player who may block a promising prospect, the Pirates chose to replenish a spent bullpen that can hopefully support the team in close games. Given the team’s consistent underperformance of its Pythagorean predicted record, such action 2010 appears to be a prudent decision, despite its uninspiring appearance.