During the preseason summer camp in July, Derek Shelton committed to Colin Moran being his third baseman, saying “I think you’re going to see Colin there a lot.”
We ended up seeing Moran just about everywhere besides third base. Half of the time, he was the designated hitter. When he was in the field, he started at first base 22 times, but just four times at third base, with three of those starts coming in July.
Shelton confirmed in September that Moran could still slide back to third in the future, though it would have to be in a backup capacity since Ke’Bryan Hayes has that position locked up for the foreseeable future.
It didn’t really matter where Moran played, just that he was in the lineup every day. That’s something he and I talked about during spring training in Bradenton, Fla. in July. He’s the type of player that really benefits from a routine and knowing he is going to be in the lineup each day. He didn’t have that opportunity his first two years with the Pirates, platooning against right-handers almost exclusively. While that gave him more favorable matchups, it messed with his timing and that consistency. As a result, his statistics were fairly mediocre, including finishing with a sub-average 96 OPS+ and -1.1 WAR in 2019.
That changed in 2020. For the first time in his major-league career, the Pirates didn’t shy away from using Moran against left-handers. His results against southpaws weren’t great – a .231 batting average and .651 OPS over 56 at-bats – but they weren’t that much worse than what the average left-handed hitter did against left-handed pitching in 2020: A .223 average and .670 OPS. More importantly, he didn’t have those interruptions in his playing time, which was a key factor for him having the best season of his career.
In addition to the benefits of playing every day, Moran adopted a new toe tap instead of a leg kick during the load part of his swing. In a year where just about every Pirates batter had a hard time getting their timing down, Moran’s improved, making consistent hard contact, finishing in the top 15% league-wide in average exit velocity (91.9 mph), hard hit percentage (47.2%) and the rate that he barreled a baseball (13.4%).
Even in a drastically shortened season, Moran almost matched his career-high in home runs, going deep 10 times. His .797 OPS and 115 OPS+ were both the best he had done in the majors too, offsetting a rising strikeout rate and dropping batting average with more walks and extra-base hits.
Moran cooled off in September after a stint on the concussion injured list in late August, recording a .747 OPS in the second half of the season, which is nearly identical to what he had in his first two years with the Pirates. But unlike other times in his career where he slumped, he still managed to make hard contact, staying closer to the peaks and avoiding the valleys he had been prone to:
FanGraphs
The results weren’t there, but he was still having some quality at-bats. That’s something that we hadn’t ever seen through a 200 plate appearance stretch for him in his career.
Despite being touted as a power hitter when the Pirates acquired him in the 2018 Gerrit Cole trade, Moran didn’t really hit the ball that hard his first two years with the team, averaging identical exit velocities of 88.2 mph each season. He made up for it by having good launch angles, which led to some base hits. If he can somehow combine that previous approach with the new power he’s tapped into, then a 25-30 home runs campaign over a 162-game season is possible.
That’s good news for a Pirates offense that has ranked near the bottom of the league in home runs hit the past few years. But where will he play?
Moran is a man without a position. Ben Cherington says he is not assuming the designated hitter will return to the National League next year unless the league says so. Right now, it’s looking like pitchers are going to hit again.
So there’s Hayes at third and Josh Bell at first. The Pirates are positioned to be sellers, but they aren’t going to deal Bell unless an offer clears a talent threshold. That doesn’t seem too likely after Bell’s down season. Not impossible, but not particularly likely, though that could change depending on how the market develops.
Even with Bell at first, Cherington sounds like he is considering Moran primarily a first baseman now.
“With Ke’Bryan’s emergence and Colin Moran’s offensive emergence, that kind of pushes Colin to the other side of the infield,” Cherington said during a recent Zoom call. “But he’s certainly earning the right to play. He had a really good offensive year, so we want to give Colin a chance to play.”
First base may actually be better suited for Moran’s defensive profile. While his results at third base in 2019 were terrible, they were made worse by his positioning. Going by Baseball Savant’s directional results data, Moran actually has a good track record when making plays to his left. He’s horrible when he goes to his right. In 2019, the Pirates played him further from the third base bag than just about anyone, meaning he had less opportunities to make plays to his left since the shortstop was closer and there was even more ground to cover to his right down the line. The Pirates shift on defense a lot, but when they were in a base alignment, Moran was put in a bad spot for his skill set.
I explored the subject in a Mound Visit before the season started. Moran told me in Bradenton that he read it and approached the Pirates’ analysts about exploring his positioning. That didn’t end up meaning much at third base since he only played a few games this season and will be used sparingly at the hot corner going forward, but his defensive ability may be better suited for first. When he makes a play to his left at third, he robbed a single. When he makes a play to his left at first, he robbed a double. When he can’t make a play to his right at third, it’s a double, but it’s just a single when he’s playing first base.
Now there’s a lot more to playing first base than just fielding ground balls. There’s holding on runners, picking balls in the dirt, using different arm slots and angles for making throws, being able to cover more ground when the infield shifts a right-handed batter … the list goes on. Some of that will come with more reps and a proper offseason of training. Some of it seemed to come pretty naturally, like being able to deliver a good throw around the runner in order to turn a double play against the Reds:
It’s not too farfetched to say Moran is already a better defensive first baseman than Bell. If the Pirates commit to him at the position, he might even turn out to be a decent enough glove. Not great, but passable.
But can they really commit to Moran at first when Bell is still on the team?
Hayes is at third. End of discussion there. Bell needs to start, too (and no, he can’t go into the outfield). Moran can backup both, but where is the rest of his playing time going to come from if there isn’t a DH? He was an emergency second baseman and outfielder in 2018. Maybe he could fill-in there a couple times, but he can’t be the everyday starter. The Pirates are seemingly in a position where either there is a DH, they end up trading Bell and opening up a spot or Moran is stuck in no man’s land.
Keeping Moran in the lineup not only makes the Pirates better, it makes him better, too. If he goes back to be a quasi-regular or bench player, he’ll most likely revert back to being a below-average hitter. This season could have potentially been the first steps in a breakout for him, but without a platform for it to build on, what happens to him?
