This shouldn’t be surprising news, as it’s been rumored for almost the entire length of the off-season, but Jerry Crasnick is reporting this afternoon that the Pirates will bring Sean Rodriguez back on what Rob Biertempfel is saying is a one-year/$2.5 million deal.
There’s no real denying that Rodriguez was a bad player for the Pirates last year; he hit .245/.281/.362 in his 240 plate appearances, and he was actually much worse than that for the whole first half of the season. Still, the Pirates were not the only team interested in him this winter, and I’m not sure it was a terrible idea to bring him back.
The reasoning there lies simply in how he’ll be used. Last year he was primarily used as a first baseman, because Pedro Alvarez’s bat was much worse than the Pirates anticipated. As a backup/borderline platoon first baseman, that rendered his glove less useful and made his lack of bat even more glaring. The bat falls more in line with the way he was used in Tampa Bay before coming to Pittsburgh; as a 2B/3B/SS utility guy with a strong glove at all three positions that gives a team late-inning options or the ability to rest players.
Given the lack of infield depth in the wake of the Neil Walker trade and assuming that the Pirates will do something with their first base situation before the season begins, there’s a good chance that Rodriguez will be used in a role that he can be more useful in than the one he was used in last year. That said, this really only works so long as Rodriguez is kept in the third base/middle infield utility role. If, say, Jung Ho Kang’s injury keeps him out for more than the season’s first couple of months or someone else in the infield gets injured, I’m going to be disappointed if those at-bats go to Rodriguez over Alen Hanson.
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