NEW YORK -- Not to be that guy, but there was an American League scout who stood next to me one afternoon this spring in Bradenton, Fla., and asked the following: "Tell me, other than Reynolds and Hayes, who's gonna hit on this team?"
I've told this tale a time or two, yeah?
In addition to the part where I disagreed with the scout? Because I'm dumb? Because I was, like way too many others, distracted by Grapefruit bombs?
Well, lo and behold, here's the up-to-date data on everyone with 60-plus plate appearances on the Pirates' roster, this following the 9-1 loss and three-game sweep at the Mets' hands on this Wednesday afternoon at Citi Field:
1. Bryan Reynolds: .260/.367/.403, two home runs, 13 RBIs
2. Ke'Bryan Hayes: .277/.392/.354, seven RBIs
3. Everyone else: Not a damned thing
In this series alone, they'd amass all of four runs, eight hits, one of the latter for extra-base hits and, uh, 30 strikeouts, of which I'll offer a small, sickly sample:
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) April 17, 2024
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) April 17, 2024
— DK Pittsburgh Sports (@DKPSmedia) April 17, 2024
And this after a surprisingly strong start from a few sources in some offensive facets.
“We have to have better at-bats," Derek Shelton began when I brought this up afterward. "Until this series, we've had pretty consistent at-bats and, in this series, we got pitched to and we need to make an adjustment. Probably a good time for an off-day."
So this is isolated? Just a matter of not being aggressive enough for a series?
"Yeah, we're taking too many balls in the zone for strikes," he'd reply to my follow-up. "And I think when you have some young hitters, and they're getting pitched to a little bit, their nature is to be like, ‘OK, I'm going to get the perfect pitch.’ And we don't have to get the perfect pitch, you know. I think you see we scored runs the last couple of days where Bryan hit two balls that were about 45 miles an hour and we got runs."
If that. Couple dribblers, including the only RBI of this one.
"So we’ve got to get back to what we were doing earlier in the year, just moving the ball forward.”
That sounds good, as did this remark from Reynolds: "We're gonna be fine. We'll hit."
And this from Jack Suwinski, who had the day's most competitive at-bats despite going 0 for 4: "They just threw really well. We'l be back."
All right, then.
But you know, there's also all of this, by way of underlying metrics, that don't appear any more favorable to the Pirates' offensive cause than in any of Andy Haines' two-plus years as hitting coach: They're averaging 10.0 strikeouts per game, most in Major League Baseball. (No, seriously.) Their average exit velocity of 87.5 mph is the lowest in the majors. They've hit the ball on the ground 46.7% of the time, fourth-worst in the majors.
Now, to be fair, they've got the second-best walk rate at 11.7%, but at what cost, given all the requisite passivity?
It's almost as if not a thing's changed about this offense, up to and including continuing to stand by Haines as hitting coach. Sure, some non-Reynolds, non-Hayes players will have an odd spurt, but it's seldom sustained. Almost all young players will get stuck in ruts and either stay there for weeks or won't emerge until they'll consult with someone from the outside. (This past summer, Hayes quietly consulted with Jon Nunnally, a hitting coach with Class AA Altoona, and all that did was get Nunnally fired by Ben Cherington for violating organizational protocol. While Hayes is still rolling, by the way.) And through all this, everybody, everybody, everybody strikes out.
Identify for me, please, a single hitter who's improved under Haines even peripherally because of Haines.
Anyone?
Hello?
In turn, it's been irrelevant that the Pirates' starting pitching has been among the majors' best, that Bailey Falter again was OK in five innings -- all of his damage was done on a dangling curve that old friend Starling Marte turned into a two-run home run -- or that other components have contributed some occasional good. Because this story doesn't change. It's the same one again and again and again, invariably with a subsequent admonishment from Cherington or Shelton that we're all nuts to wonder if Haines might be even a small part of the problem.
And yeah, that's all I'm offering from here, my friends, as well: Same story, different year. The starting pitching's been a blessed surprise, best evidenced by nine quality starts that rank third in the majors, and that'll only be better once Paul Skenes arrives. The bullpen's been bounced around in the early going, but I can't help but believe in David Bednar, Aroldis Chapman, Colin Holderman and others over the span of the coming summer. The defense hasn't been awesome, but it also hasn't been awful.
But the offense? All those swings and misses? All that soft contact? All that passivity? All those bush-league approaches with runners on base?
Hey, we'll see what happens upon the team returning home after spending all but five games away from PNC Park. We'll see if, oh, say, Connor Joe can bounce back from a challenging couple of days here. Or if Andrew McCutchen can perk up after getting No. 300 out of the way. And we'll see, while we're at it, if Haines can have any positive impact on a player's career for the first time in his Pittsburgh tenure.
Or maybe it'll all keep going exactly as at least one smart scout expected.
• I've still got the second game of the personal doubleheader ahead tonight, with the Penguins finishing their 2023-24 NHL season 19 miles down the road against the Islanders at UBS Arena. There'll be another column from there.
• Thanks for reading.
