Now that I’m fully awake this morning and have verified that what I thought happened last night did indeed happen, let’s take a little bit of time to talk about the rumor mill that started churning when Jon Morosi mentioned during the broadcast that the Pirates were interested in acquiring journeyman outfielder Jeff Francouer. We can extend the whole thing a bit further, as Rob Biertempfel tweeted this morning that the Pirates are also interested in the Phillies’ Ben Revere. The Pirates seem definitely interested in acquiring a right-handed outfielder.
The gut reaction here is, of course, that neither Francouer nor Revere are very good. Francouer has long been a sabermetric punchline because of his average-driven profile that so-often results in a pitiful OBP, while Revere is a powerless (I mean that literally: he’s got three home runs in 2372 career PAs, but hey, they have all come in the last two seasons) outfielder that doesn’t get on base enough to make up for his lack of pop. Both guys have some merits: Francouer is slugging .410 this year and has a cannon of an arm and has always graded well as a right-fielder, while Revere is quick, a very good defensive outfielder, and does get on base more than, say, Sean Rodriguez.
We can start with Francouer, since my hunch is that the Pirates are looking at him with the short-term future in mind. Not only do the Pirates have no viable right-handed depth outfielders (say what you want about Francouer’s bat, he’s a better hitter than Gorkys Hernandez), they actually have no outfield depth at all right now. Sean Rodriguez works fine as a super-utility man and he’s made some incredible catches in the outfield (including one in the 12th inning last night), but he doesn’t hit enough to be even the small part of a corner outfield platoon. Corey Hart can’t really play outfield with his knees anymore, and I’m not sure he can hit better than Francouer either. Francouer isn’t exciting, but I do think he would help the Pirates while Harrison’s out.
Revere is interesting, though, because he’s left-handed, which means that he wouldn’t make a great platoon partner for Gregory Polanco so much as he’d be a potential straigth-up every day replacement. It’s true that he doesn’t have a huge platoon split and could in theory play against lefties for Polanco, (Francouer doesn’t either — he’s actually hitting righties better than lefties in 2015, but that’s a sample size issue, most likely), though I think that’s mostly a function of him just not being a great hitter. Both guys are capable of playing right field every day in a pinch, much more so than Rodriguez or Hart (or maybe even Andrew Lambo, who I guess is still a Pirate?). It’s possible that I’m reading too much into this, since the Pirates do need right-handed bench depth specifically and outfield depth in general, but I’m seeing their interest in two players like this as something of a no-confidence vote in Gregory Polanco.
It is relatively easy to see where things are headed right now: Josh Harrison is out for the next sixish weeks, and I think that if Jung Ho Kang gets six consecutive weeks worth of starts, he’s going to be awfully hard to sit down. His hot streak early in the year was built on playing time, and he’s been great again in the week that Harrison’s been out. Sample size, I know, but let’s call it a hunch: Kang is going to play his way into an every day role before Harrison’s back. What that means is that Harrison’s best bet for every day at-bats are in right field, where Polanco is actually hitting worse this year than he did last year. Polanco’s long-term potential is one thing, trying to win a division and finish with the best record in the NL with a .640 OPS corner outfielder is quite another. Like Kang, Polanco has six weeks until Harrison comes back to really prove himself as a big league player. It just looks to me like the Pirates are already hedging their bets.
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