The Pittsburgh Pirates have been playing with a short bench for the last week, thanks to injuries to their MVP, Andrew McCutchen, and their starting second baseman, Neil Walker. The injuries remove two of their most productive hitters, and as a result, the Pirates have waited to put both players on the disabled list, in hopes that they can come back earlier than 15 days.
The Pirates added one more player to their bench over the weekend by shortening up their bullpen. They activated Pedro Alvarez from the bereavement list, and designated Ernesto Frieri for assignment. The pair of moves leaves them one player short on the bench, and one player short in the bullpen. Yesterday, Pirates’ General Manager Neal Huntington said that they hope they can continue to avoid a roster move with good pitching from the rotation.
“Hopefully our starters continue to give us seven solid innings and that allows us to carry one less reliever than most people in baseball carry,” Huntington said. “There will come a point in time when we’ll need to rebalance it. We’ll have to weigh where Neil Walker is and how far away he is and what’s the best thing for him with what’s the best thing for Andrew McCutchen and how far away we think he is. Add all that up and make what we think is the right decision for the organization.”
The comment by Huntington was made before yesterday’s game, when the Pirates were coming off five straight games where their starters lasted seven innings. That streak was broken when Morton only lasted five innings on Sunday.
The approach to hold Walker and McCutchen back from the disabled list is questionable, and one that the Pirates have taken in the past. The goal is to avoid losing one or both of their top performers longer than they have to. They want to avoid a situation where they send a player to the disabled list, then see him healthy with several games remaining on his DL stint. The downside to this is that it provides a guarantee that you’re going to be playing a man short somewhere, with only a chance that it will pay off in the end. In this case, the Pirates have been playing with a 23-man roster for a week, and it doesn’t look like that is paying off for them.
What makes the situation worse is that Walker tried to come back with a pinch hit appearance on Saturday, then saw a setback and was scratched from the lineup on Sunday. Huntington noted that Walker’s back has felt good at times, but not all the time, as we saw on Sunday.
“At times it’s felt really good,” Huntington said of Walker’s back. “Good enough that he felt he was ready to go [Saturday] night. Woke up today not feeling quite as good. And now we’ve got to take a step back and make sure that we don’t allow this to regress, and don’t put ourselves in a position to have him miss a lot more time when we could be aggressive with this up front and just miss a few more games or a little bit longer.”
The problem here is that the Pirates have now created a situation where Walker could be out longer than necessary. If he would have gone on the disabled list the day after his injury, he would have been eligible to come off the disabled list the 20th. Because of the pinch hit appearance, the Pirates can’t backdate the injury to last week. They’d have to start a trip to the DL on Sunday, which would put Walker out until the 24th. And they’re now in another situation where they are holding Walker back from the DL, hoping to avoid losing him for the better part of 15 days. Had he gone on the disabled list when he was first eligible, they’d only be waiting ten more days.
McCutchen is in the same situation, minus the pinch hitting experience. He has been out since August 4th, meaning that today would be day 8 of a 15-day DL trip. Huntington said that the Pirates have been surprised by McCutchen’s progress with the injury, noting that the progress has been “remarkable.”
“He’s been so positive, he’s been aggressive,” Huntington said. “He’s been uninhibited in his attempt to work through this. The challenge becomes to go from everyday living to some level activity, to a more aggressive level of activity. We still have to get a point of swing a bat a hundred percent, running the bases at a hundred percent, playing fearless in the outfield at 100 percent. To this point in time he’s passed every barrier we’ve thrown at him with flying colors. But to be back at a 100 percent baseball player and the player that Andrew McCutchen can be that’s the next one, the next set of challenges we’ll put him through.”
While McCutchen might be showing improvements, none of this signals that he’s close to a return. And as with Walker, there’s the risk that McCutchen could come back early, then suffer a setback and potentially be out longer. Huntington noted this risk with McCutchen on Sunday.
“This is one a little bit like a hamstring injury, where you play to tolerance but there is the threat of regression and there is the threat of re-injury,” Huntington said. “That’s a part of our thought process as we try to thoughtfully progress it so that we don’t re-aggravate it, or worse. And that’s been part of the challenge. It’s an injury that has been atypical to baseball. It is a torque based injury and he obviously creates a ton of torque when he swings the bat, so we still got a big hurdle to clear but we are optimistic and I’m not sure anybody could work any harder, or be any more positive about the process than Andrew’s been so far.”
Huntington also spoke to the potential benefits of keeping McCutchen and Walker off the disabled list, while also noting the balance of not playing short for too long.
“We’re trying to make sure we don’t put ourselves in harm’s way by playing short for too long but at the same time if we get Andrew McCutchen back at Day 11 instead of Day 16, that’s five games where he has a chance to make an impact and the same thing with Neil Walker. So it’s a real interesting challenge right now. Other than having our pitchers hit a couple times the other night in situations they really wouldn’t have hit in, and we still won the game, Clint really hasn’t been pinched that much. But there’s always the next day that could force our hand.”
I’m not sure if the shortage on the bench or in the bullpen has really cost the Pirates much. They’ve gone 3-3 since McCutchen has gone down, and only one of the losses was really close. You could argue that Saturday’s 2-1 loss might have been better with an extra guy off the bench. However, they had two opportunities with guys off the bench and runners on base. Neither Pedro Alvarez nor Ike Davis came up in those situations. I don’t think the extra bench player would be getting an opportunity over those guys, so you’re probably looking at the same result.
The focus on the short bullpen and bench is an obvious thing to point out here. There are potential risks involved with having a 23-man roster. There are also potential rewards by having McCutchen and/or Walker back early. But I think the focus of a short roster vs getting those players back early misses the bigger issue here. The bigger issue is that this is a situation where the Pirates are hoping to get their guys back early, taking an aggressive approach rather than a conservative approach, and potentially risking a much bigger absence for either player.
McCutchen is important to this team. Getting him back for five additional games would be a big thing (and at this point, that assumes he’s back by Thursday). If the Pirates placed him on the disabled list and missed out on five games where he could have played, then that would be a slight blow to their season. The bigger thing here isn’t the five game stretch at the end of McCutchen’s potential DL trip. It’s the 37 game stretch to end the season after McCutchen would come off the disabled list. Having McCutchen healthy for that stretch is a much bigger benefit than pushing to get him back for five additional games. And it’s the same situation with Walker.
Every game counts when you’re in a playoff race. So I can understand why the Pirates want to try and get McCutchen or Walker back early. But the last month and a half of the season is far more important than a few extra games you could gain by holding McCutchen and Walker off the disabled list. Trying to get those two players back early comes with the risk of aggravating the injuries further, which could put them out slightly longer than originally anticipated, or affect how they play for the remainder of the season when they do return. This is a case where the Pirates need to be conservative and focus on the larger sample of games, rather than being aggressive to try and get one or both of these guys back for a small handful of games.
Tim started Pirates Prospects in 2009 from his home in Virginia, which was 40 minutes from where Pedro Alvarez made his pro debut in Lynchburg. That year, the Lynchburg Hillcats won the Carolina League championship, and Pirates Prospects was born from Tim's reporting along the way. The site has grown over the years to include many more writers, and Tim has gone on to become a credentialed MLB reporter, producing Pirates Prospects each year, and will publish his 11th Prospect Guide this offseason. He has also served as the Pittsburgh Pirates correspondent for Baseball America since 2019. Behind the scenes, Tim is an avid music lover, and most of the money he gets paid to run this site goes to vinyl records.
Walker unfortunately has problems with his back and I do not seeing this getting better. His peak was hit before the appendicitis. They should have committed a mortal sin and traded him then when he was the best 2nd baseman. Neil is a very nice person but the back problem has ended many a career.
If sleeping aggravates walkers back then the solution is simple, just don’t sleep.seriously though this is a darned if you do darned if you don’t situation with walker and mcutchen. Not much any of us can do except speculate and hope the pirates make the best decision based on information none of us are privy to.
I don’t think the big issue is the conservative versus aggressive approach, sitting out for 7-8 days instead of 15 isn’t going to significantly alter the chances of re-injury.
The issue, is being aggressive with both players at the same time, having two setbacks with Walker, and Michael Martinez, a below average AAA hitter, starting 4 of the last 7 games, and three times with Nix in the same lineup. The Pirates have bleed away enough win probability in the past seven games that potential reward of non-movement is out weighted by the costs.
Nix and Martinez in the same lineup just shouldn’t happen, ever. There has to be a better alternative even if that involves giving Rojas a promotion he hasn’t totally earned yet. A RH (SH) bat with some pop who can platoon with Snider. Better than putting Nix out there and Martinez at 2b. Just dump Martinez from 40-man and add Rojas – which they’re likely to do anyway before Rule 5.
Multiple ways to skin that cat – calling up Hague, who is on the 40-man, and optioning Martinez would be my choice. Effectively it’s a 2-position platoon between Snider and Hague, with Harrison shifting from 3B to LF depending on the handedness of the SP.
When is Barmes due back, again?
I’d still prefer Rojas. He’s a switch hitter and a natural OF, thus is a more valuable bench bat. Play him while he’s hot. 40-man not an issue, Rojas has to be added anyway and there’s a lot of garbage there. Only reason to bring up Hague, IMO, is to play a corner IF spot with Gaby in a RH lineup with Harrison in OF. I have to think Rojas is the better defensive OF.
No organization would take a chance a rookie with no MLB experience in a situation like this.
How many examples would I need to provide to convince you otherwise. Because it happens every single year.
We’re talking about a few games while Cutch is out. Snider is killing the team defensively as is having Martinez & Nix in the same lineup.
I’m not sure you comprehend this, but it isn’t me that you need to convince, but the Pirates and other MLB organization’s. I am just a messenger, not the guy who formulates their opinions.
Sorry, guys, as painful as watching Cutch and NW on the bench and Martinez and Nix playing, Rojas is not ready to contribute in MLB. And not convinced at ALL that Hague is better than either of these two guys. Nix has played in the bigs for a few years can can play multiple positions. Outside the obvious (missing Cutch and NW’s big bats), we have one move to make that makes sense. Call Jose Tabata up to play LF (or platoon with Snider).
Tim: What I think your article ignores, or doesn’t state overtly, is that there is NO DIFFERENCE to the day to day activities for Neil or Andrew now (no DL) than they would have with a DL. Players nowadays ‘suit up’ on the bench for games while on the DL, so not sure what this magic DL stint does to keeping them healthier for the stretch run.
For Cutch, with his injury, 5 days either way is not going to make a huge difference to whether he can play at his level and/or reinjures it. If you were, say, arguing for another 2 weeks down, then that may be different. Same with Walker. His back at this point seems to be what it is, he may be faced with 1/2 games up, a few games down, the rest of the way.
The Bucs have two games at home vs. the Tigers, then 2 games in the AL where bench players are less useful… so IMHO the Bucs can keep at status quo until Thursday if they desire. If they need a bullpen boost, they can DFA Gomez (unusable for the most part) and replace with Cumpton.
The problem is not being down 2 – it is being down 5
No Pedro
No production from Davis or Sanchez.
I suspect part of this has been driven by schedule – the next 20 or so games are brutal
“you got to know when to hold them, know when to fold them”
Should have folded.
The Pirates have better medical advise than anyone I know concerning these two players, I have to believe they have a better handle on what they are doing than anyone outside of the organization. Like anything in sports there are no guarantees and as was stated there is the aggressive approach and there is the conservative approach. Personally I think Walker’s back is a far different issue for the Pirates to contend with than McCutchens problem, Walker has had this back issue before. There is also no guarantee that if these players were on the 15 DL that they would be ready anyway when the 15 days were up. In fact, we have to consider how much time it will take for them to get their timing back when they do come back, these injuries could affect this team for as much as a month.