Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 12 min play time.)

So where earlier we looked at wild pitches, like usual, here we’ll look at wild swings, like usual. Specifically, swings at pitches far away from the center of the strike zone, from between May 17 and May 23. Excluded are checked swings, which is always frustrating, because a lot of the crazy swings I see in the data end up being checked. Also excluded are hit-and-run swings, but so far those have just been excluded in theory, since I have yet to encounter one. It’s all based on PITCHf/x, there are .gifs and things to follow, and I hope you have an appetite for misjudged secondary stuff. We move on to the top-five list, and also, we have two bonus .gifs! Free bonus .gifs! It’s your lucky day!

BONUS

These are not real, true swings. They just look like real, true swings in the data, which is what caught my eye, which is what took me to the video. Though these don’t belong in this particular series, I still feel like you should be made aware of them, if you weren’t already. So, behold: a foul ball, and a ground out.

Up top, we have Clayton Mortensen hitting Josh Willingham‘s bat, in a demonstration of either incredible inaccuracy or incredible accuracy. Down below, we have Mike Leake grounding out against Jon Niese, even though Niese threw a pitch that bounced in the dirt. Leake checked his swing, but the ball bounced off the barrel when the barrel was its most forward, and into fair territory it went. By my own arbitrary rules, I can’t include this half-attempted swing, but your life is better for having learned of it. Trust me, you’re doing great.

5

• Batter: Rick Ankiel
• Pitcher: Edwin Jackson
• Date: May 17
• Location: 33.4 inches from center of zone

Remember what was going on earlier with Rick Ankiel? He started the year with the Astros, and in April he slugged .528. But in April he struck out 32 times in 54 plate appearances, which is more or less what you would do against a talented high-school freshman, and not long after that Ankiel was removed from the roster. Since then, he’s wound up on the Mets, and so far in May he’s slugged .600, but with 11 strikeouts in 44 plate appearances, which is more or less what you would do against a talented seventh-grader. Split Ankiel’s season to date arbitrarily, and he’s more than cut his strikeout rate in half. That’s nothing short of remarkable. But he still strikes out a lot and here he is striking out. Ooh, way to strike out, Rick Ankiel, you almost had him there. Never seen you do this before. That was a really great idea to swing at that pitch. I’m being sarcastic, in case you’re as bad at reading people as you are at reading pitches.

If only that pitch were a little bit higher, and Ankiel might’ve stood a chance of grounding out. Keep reaching for the stars, Rick Ankiel, where by “stars” I mean Anthony Rizzo, at first base for the Cubs, who were the opponent here.

4

• Batter: Kelly Shoppach
• Pitcher: Vinnie Pestano
• Date: May 17
• Location: 33.7 inches from center of zone

Let’s generate a statistical setting, here. Since 2002, 608 batters have batted at least 1,000 times in the major leagues. Kelly Shoppach ranks first, or last, in strikeout rate, at 33.4%. In one third of his career plate appearances, Kelly Shoppach has gone down on strikes. Okay, you probably had an inkling. Now then. I also looked at pitchers going back to 2002, and 871 different pitchers have thrown at least 50 innings against both righties and lefties. Vinnie Pestano has struck out 42.3% of righties, and 16.3% of lefties. That’s a platoon difference of 26.0%, which has been the biggest difference in baseball, ahead of Josh Outman‘s 20.7% difference in the other direction. So, Shoppach strikes out a lot, and Pestano has been far, far better against righties than lefties. Here was Pestano facing Shoppach, a righty. Above is the first pitch of the at bat. Below are the second and third pitches of the same at bat.

One thing they say about Kelly Shoppach is that he doesn’t get cheated. They mean that he’s always got a powerful swing, and he’s always swinging with confidence. One thing they seldom say outright is that Kelly Shoppach strikes out all the time. But, I mean, he does. He strikes out a lot. We can acknowledge it. We don’t have to be nice. We can be nice about his positive attributes, which exist. We don’t have to pretend that his ability to make contact doesn’t suck.

Pitching sure is easy in theory. Man, it’s easy to develop a plan to get hitters out. If you’re a righty facing righties, you throw sliders down and away, with the occasional inside fastball. If you’re a righty facing lefties, you throw changeups down and away, with the occasional inside fastball. You can just do the same thing over and over and in theory you’ll get plenty of hitters out. Pitching sure is easy in theory. Man, it’s hard to repeat good mechanics.

3

• Batter: Justin Ruggiano
• Pitcher: Will Harris
• Date: May 17
• Location: 34.6 inches from center of zone

You know the problem with the Marlins is they all swing this way. Nobody’s noticed because nobody’s watched, but this is what all of their swings look like. This is a terrible swing! This isn’t ever a good swing! Yet this is the swing they taught in camp, and this is the swing they still use in the regular season. It’s no wonder the Marlins can’t score any runs. They all swing the bat like they’re trying to chip the ball out of the rough. This is what you get when you have nine dollars and a leftover half-sandwich to spend on a hitting coach. You hire the guy who washes your windshield at an intersection stoplight. I don’t know why the Marlins all elected to listen to that guy and practice his recommendations but that guy was probably in a coaching uniform and we all know about the Milgram experiment. One should hope this doesn’t continue much longer, but on the other hand, I don’t care.

I had never before heard of Will Harris. I still don’t know anything about him, aside from the obvious. Here’s an incomplete list of other 2013 relievers I don’t know anything about:

-Scott Rice
-Hector Ambriz
-Dane de la Rosa
-A.J. Ramos
-Cody Allen
-Justin Wilson
-Alex Wilson
-Bryan Morris
-Michael Roth
-Jose Cisnero
-Preston Claiborne
-Robert Carson

And, among pitchers, Scott Rice is the league leader in appearances. Every Tuesday during my FanGraphs chats people think I’m some kind of baseball expert. I know so much less than you think. I might even know less than you. (Well, not you.)

2

• Batter: David Wright
• Pitcher: Scott Feldman
• Date: May 18
• Location: 34.7 inches from center of zone

This was an uncaught third strike with two outs, meaning it was a running situation. Immediately, when the ball hit the dirt, David Wright became a baserunner. Now, lots of times, guys won’t put much into this. Sometimes they’ll very casually jog to first. Sometimes they’ll turn to look at the catcher or ask a question of the umpire. Sometimes they’ll be frustrated with themselves and just go right back to the dugout. But Wright did something different. As an active baserunner, Wright spun, stopped, and bent over to start taking off some of his equipment. There was no interest on Wright’s part in trying to advance to first. Quite the contrary; he presented his butt to be tagged by the catcher right behind him. This might be the easiest tag ever applied to a runner who hasn’t yet strayed from the baseline. Either Wright didn’t care, he forgot how many outs there were, or it was part of a trick to see if the catcher would neglect to tag him, thinking if Wright didn’t move, maybe it already counted as a strikeout. If the latter, it very nearly worked!

Pixelization is watercolor for the 21st century. Glance at that screenshot and, whatever, it’s a kind of fuzzy screenshot of a baseball pitch. Now look at David Wright’s face. Look at David Wright’s face! Look at it! Look only at it!

David Wright took the batting glove off his right hand in two moves. He took the batting glove off his left hand going finger to finger. I made this .gif not yet knowing what I would find to say about it. Apparently this is what I found. How disappointing. I wonder if David Wright’s left hand is bigger than his right hand. Or maybe he just has gloves of different sizes. Maybe he accidentally left one in the wash. This is very uninteresting.

1

• Batter: Matt Wieters
• Pitcher: Brett Cecil
• Date: May 23
• Location: 35.4 inches from center of zone

Add this to the list of potential bat-flip occasions. We’ve all seen bat flips on home runs. We’ve all seen bat flips on long fly outs, and balls off the wall. When he was a Mariner, Jack Cust occasionally had a bat flip for a walk. Here we have a Matt Wieters bat flip for an uncaught third strike. But this, presumably, is a bat flip not out of celebration, but rather out of frustration. Wieters flipped his bat angrily out of the way after whiffing at a pitch in the dirt. Now the good bat flip has been tarnished. We can no longer think of bat flips the way we did before, unsullied. The door’s been opened for more and more bat flips to be done out of anger. Which means we could start seeing a lot more bat flips. In this way, is Matt Wieters a pioneer? Probably more than he’s a pioneer in other ways. I don’t know much about what Matt Wieters does with his life.

The advertisement in the background might as well say “Everything gets old and eventually dies, like you.” This was a nice pitch, Brett Cecil. I hope you enjoyed it, because you won’t throw many more of them when you’re dead.

This is where we talk about pitches that wound up really far from the center of the strike zone. The window we’re covering this time is May 17 – May 23. It’s a top-five list, based on PITCHf/x information, and there are going to be a lot of .gifs and screenshots. I feel like every week I end up with more image files than the week before. This series idea seemed so simple at first. Now it consumes my entire Friday. You guys get everything I have. Some pitches just narrowly missing: Rafael Soriano to Gregor Blanco on May 21, and Jeremy Hellickson to Melky Cabrera on May 22. Also, I’ve excluded a Ronald Belisario pitch to Jonathan Lucroy from May 21. Though it was the week’s third-wildest pitch, it appeared to be a fastball intentionally thrown behind Lucroy’s back, after Andre Ethier was buzzed a couple times. I can’t call a pitch wild when it’s intended to send a message. But, maybe it was an accident. A very convenient and coincidental accident. In that case, this would be my mistake. Thankfully no one holds me accountable for anything. I doubt my superiors even read this. If they do, they are charming fellows. If they don’t, they smell. Time to pull you guys back in with the start of the list. This got out of hand.

5

• Pitcher: Jorge De La Rosa
• Batter: Cody Ross
• Date: May 22
• Location: 54.1 inches from center of zone

I’d like to bring something to your attention. Let’s look at the 12 wildest pitches of the last week. Now let’s exclude the pitch from Belisario, because of the stated reason. That leaves us with 11 wild pitches, and of them, six were thrown to current or recent Giants — Ross, Hunter Pence, Gregor Blanco, Melky Cabrera, Angel Pagan, and Brandon Crawford. That’s an awfully big number to be a coincidence. The Giants have also won a couple recent World Series. Is there just something about the Giants that causes opposing pitchers to throw wildly and therefore less effectively? No, it’s a coincidence. There’s literally no other reasonable explanation. If you thought about a different answer, even for an instant, you are a buffoon.

De La Rosa: You know what, Yorvit?
De La Rosa: You’re my friend in the diamond business.
De La Rosa: Because you play in the infield diamond.
De La Rosa: Nice catch. My bad.
Torrealba: Thank you for saying that.
Torrealba: People are always forgetting about catchers as infielders.
Torrealba: It’s always about those guys.
Torrealba: /gestures to infielders
Torrealba: We do a lot of work back here! Important work!
Torrealba: And we’re certainly not in the outfield!
De La Rosa: I hear you. Same with pitchers. We’re the forgotten defenders.
Torrealba: You know, you’re my friend in the diamond business.
De La Rosa: Aww, you. Come here, you.
Ross: Please
Ross: Just go have a mound conference
Ross: This shouting is weird

When you’re a kid, and you make a face, your parents say that you should be careful, because your face might freeze like that forever. That isn’t what happened to Cody Ross. Ross hasn’t been wearing this expression since childhood because it froze. Every second of every day, Ross instead focuses on maintaining this expression, consciously. He only lets up when he’s asleep, and during his waking hours no one sees him without a smirk. Around the expression, Ross has also developed a fitting and appropriate character. Cody Ross is our generation’s most dedicated artist, the most dedicated performer, and nobody knows, because nobody’s seen him be himself. He might not even have a himself, anymore.

4

• Pitcher: Nate Jones
• Batter: Chris Iannetta
• Date: May 18
• Location: 55.2 inches from center of zone

Jones: Oh, so that isn’t the two-strike pitch for you?
Jones: Well how about this one!

Jones: Yeah? You think you’re pretty great?
Jones: Well good luck right here!

Jones: I mean
Jones: What am I supposed to do
Jones: How do you not swing at that?
Jones: That slider was perfect!
Jones: Who takes that pitch!
Jones: Are you even human?!

Jones: Oh
Jones: Well that was easy.

Here is this week’s edition of Find The Baseball. If you find the baseball, you are entitled to a roll of two dice, and then you are permitted that many free search-engine queries. But the search engine has to be yahoo.cz, you must supply your own (six-sided) dice, and there is no one to confirm that you found the baseball. You could try to write your congressman. Do not proceed until you get a response.

3

• Pitcher: Aaron Loup
• Batter: Desmond Jennings
• Date: May 21
• Location: 56.1 inches from center of zone

Technically, by my measurement, this pitch was less wild than Belisario’s. So then this should be in the No. 4 slot instead of the No. 3 slot. But I decided to exclude the Belisario fastball because I determined it was probably intentional, and therefore misclassified as a wild pitch. It’s basically the same reason I exclude intentional balls and pitch-outs. So this pitch moves up. But then, does this pitch belong? Was this pitch intentional, too? I know it doesn’t look like it, but according to the hypothesis, the intent wasn’t to send a message to the batter. It was to send a message to a couple other guys, somewhere else.

Look above the Blue Jays logo on the right side of the still. Guy in a teal(?) shirt is on the phone and looking to his side. Guy next to him is looking at the ground. These guys couldn’t possibly have better seats for a baseball game. They’re literally in the first row, literally right behind home plate. This is an incredible privilege, and these seats are worth a fortune, and the guys aren’t paying attention to the action on the field. They’re there, but they’re not present.

Which Aaron Loup finds disrespectful. And Loup is a principled man, a proud man, so maybe he was trying to get a message across. “Why throw the pitch like this?” you might ask. “Why not on the fly?” Had Loup thrown this on the fly in the guys’ direction, it might’ve aroused suspicion that he was trying something else. It might’ve been interpreted as a threat against the batter, and Loup didn’t want to get a warning, or certainly an ejection. It’s not like he had Jennings on his mind. Jennings might as well have not been there.

And wouldn’t you know it, but Loup got the guys’ attention. “Hey, there’s a baseball game out here,” he conveyed. “You should watch it. You might never be this close again as long as you live. People don’t appreciate the present, enough. It’s always what’s next, what’s next, what’s next. It’s always something else. Either be here, in these moments, or re-seat yourselves, giving up your seats to people who might love them more than anything.” It was a talkative pitch.

YOUR FASTEST WIRELESS INTERNET DOESN’T DO ME ANY GOOD IN OREGON, PLEASE CONSIDER THIS WHEN PLANNING FUTURE ADVERTISEMENTS

How far away can a loose baseball go and still have the catcher retrieve it? Almost this far.

2

• Pitcher: Gio Gonzalez
• Batter: Hunter Pence
• Date: May 22
• Location: 59.0 inches from center of zone

We’ve seen Gonzalez on this list in the past, throwing his curveball. In the past, when Gonzalez has missed badly, he’s visibly expressed frustration with himself. It’s been easy to read into his body language and conclude that he was disappointed. Some people have dropped by to note that Gonzalez is somewhat famously emotional on the mound, which can work to his advantage or detriment, depending. When Gonzalez gets a good result, he might celebrate. When Gonzalez screws up, he might yell at himself or punch his glove or something. This is the second-wildest pitch of the last week. Gonzalez doesn’t do anything. There’s no hint of frustration, which means there’s no hint of a missed target. Suggesting Gonzalez might have meant to throw a curveball this wild. “Who would intentionally throw a two-strike curveball like this to Hunter Pence?” Oh, right, everyone.

That’s not the screenshot that does it. This is the screenshot that does it.

Everything leading up to the pitch was normal. The catcher was in his normal spot, the batter was in his normal spot, and the pitcher was in his normal spot. The catcher called for a pitch and the pitcher threw it. A few seconds later, this was the scene. Imagine only having this screenshot, and not the other screenshot or the .gif. Imagine having to use this to reconstruct the prior sequence of events. What in the hell would you think happened here?

1

• Pitcher: Edwin Jackson
• Batter: Matt Harvey
• Date: May 17
• Location: 61.2 inches from center of zone

A first pitch, too. A first pitch, to a pitcher. There was nobody on base, so there was no reason for the catcher to try to block the ball, but what we see instead is the catcher even moves his body a little out of the way. He swipes at the ball with his glove while moving his upper body out of the line of fire. Either that’s a sign of how bad this pitch was, or that’s a sign of the catcher being a real coward, which would be a bad characteristic for a catcher.

This one nearly bounced on the grass. Now, if you look at the .gif above, you’ll see Jackson immediately look at the mound. It seems like he didn’t have very good footing, contributing to the wildness of the pitch. If you look at the .gif below, you’ll see Jackson patching things up, so that this wouldn’t happen again.

Jackson: Man, that was a bad pitch.
Jackson: I should fix the mound.
Jackson: /fixes mound
Jackson: There.
Jackson: Now I shouldn’t throw any more bad pitches.
Jackson: Especially to the other team’s pitcher!
Jackson: /throws next pitch

Jackson: Much better

Rutledge is an interesting case. It would be unfair to say that he came out of nowhere. He was a third-round pick in 2010, after all, but he almost came out of nowhere. He didn’t immediately make any waves on the prospect circuit, and was never a tip-top prospect either. He didn’t make an impression of any sort in his 11 games at Tri-City after he signed in 2010, and as a result didn’t make the Rockies’ top-10 prospect lists generated by our own Marc Hulet, Keith Law or Baseball America heading into 2011. He would go on to hit very well in ’11, and plaudits would follow, but they were still conservative. Heading into 2012, he landed 11th on Hulet’s list, eighth on Law’s list and 10th on BA’s. He didn’t make the overall top 100 for any of the three, however.

After graduating to Double-A to start 2012, Rutledge continued to hit well, but his already modest walk rate fell off a cliff. He only walked in 3.7 percent of his 379 plate appearances at Tulsa — less than half of his 7.8% walk rate in a full season in 2011. His walk rate declined even further upon his promotion to the Rockies. Troy Tulowitzki was already down and out by the time Rutledge reached Denver, but the subsequent injuries to Jonathan Herrera and Chris Nelson, combined with the Marco Scutaro trade and Rutledge’s own fast start, conspired to keep him with the big league club for the remainder of the season.

Aside from the walk rate, which has actually come up into the respectable range this season, there have been warning signs all along. Despite that uptick in walk rate, Rutledge has actually been seeing the exact same amount of pitches this year as he did last year — 3.58 pitches. That is well below league average, and looking at his pitch summary breakdown on Baseball-Reference, the positives and negatives seem to be washing out. He’s swinging at the first pitch less, but he’s also striking out looking more. That’s not necessarily a huge negative in isolation, but taken with some other factors — a drastically different GB/FB rate being another — and you can see a guy who maybe is a little lost at the plate. Perhaps Rutledge is trying to fit the mold of what a two-hole hitter is “supposed” to be. Manager Walt Weiss has noted his appreciation of Rutledge’s athleticism on a number of occasions, and how he can do positive things on the bases. And that’s true. But perhaps in order to cause that base-stealing havoc, Rutledge is changing his approach and trying to hit more singles. As I mentioned, his overall GB/FB is up from 1.59 last year to 2.00 this season. And after attempting zero bunts last season, he’s already attempted four this season. His infield hits have also gone up — after notching 11 infield hits last year in 291 plate appearances, he’s already up to nine this season in 173.

Then again, maybe Rutledge’s swing is messed up in part because of his leg kick. Following a quad injury late last season, there is concern that he lost the proper timing on his leg kick and has been fighting it ever since. With new manager Walt Weiss and hitting coach Dante Bichette not being aggressive about tinkering with player’s swings, figuring out his timing is something that Rutledge is going to have to figure out on his own, if that is indeed the problem.

And it very well maybe. Below, I have frozen three screen shots that show the top of Rutledge’s leg kick:

The top image is from July 29, at the end of Rutledge’s orgasmic first month of big league ball. In it, you can see that he gets a good bit of air between his front foot and the ground. But in the following two shots that does not appear to be the case. The middle shot is from Sept. 16, when he was mired in a slump that may have been in part due to his injury. And the bottom is from May 3. To impart a little consistency on this look, I used only home run swings, and the top and bottom images are of home runs to right-center at Coors Field. You can see the videos for the three here, here and here. Perhaps with his leg kick not being as vertical in nature explains the sharp drop in his slugging percentage and isolated power numbers.

However, there is also the possibility that Rutledge just isn’t that good. As I noted the other day on Twitter, anyone can hit the ball well for a month, and in comparing his first great month with Clint Barmes’ first great month, we can see a disturbing anecdotal trend:

Barmes, April ’05: .410/.467/.639
Rest of career: .244/.293/.380

Rutledge, Jul ’12: .381/.394/.683
Rest of career: .243/.288/.385

Now, this isn’t a perfect comparison. For one, April, 2005, wasn’t the first month of Barmes’ career. It was very early in his career, and it was the first month in his first season in which he had made an opening day roster, but it wasn’t his first-first month. For another thing, Barmes was a good three years older in 2005 than Rutledge was last season. Rutledge’s “rest of career” doesn’t have anywhere near the bulk that Barmes’ does. And finally, I cherry-picked these two guys pretty hard. Still, it’s a touch disturbing. I mean, I could pick on several players to highlight what a flash in the pan looks like (Mike Petriello will happily nominate Luis Cruz). These things happen. Barmes has endured because of his defensive value, but Rutledge doesn’t really have that weapon in his arsenal. The question is figuring out whether or not Rutledge is the next player to be a flash in the pan, or if he just needs some more seasoning.

It’s hard to know, to be honest. We still don’t totally know what we have in Rutledge. When the Rockies sent down Chris Iannetta early in 2010, we basically knew the floor and ceiling for his performance, and knew that that was his floor. Likewise for Dexter Fowler in 2011 — he had played long enough in the majors for us to know that we were seeing him at his absolute low point — his 81 wRC+ in 2011’s first half was 16 and 13 percent worse than his 2009 and 2010 numbers, respectively. And the way he’s blossomed since that point shows that that respite was the right move. At the time he was sent down, Fowler had hit .255/.349/.391 in 337 career games. In the 255 games since he came back up in July ’11, he’s hit .291/.381/.481. Mission accomplished.

We’ve seen similar highs and lows from Rutledge, but they have come in such a short time that it’s hard to know who the real player is in there. I would lean towards him not being the guy we saw in July and August if pressed, but there is compelling evidence on both sides of the equation. And while DJ Lemahieu plays good defense, he is certainly not going to stand in Rutledge’s way if he puts it back together.

Rutledge probably isn’t as good as he was when he was called up to the majors, and he probably isn’t as bad as he has been since last September. But if you have to pick the more likely outcome for a player who didn’t carry a big pedigree in college or the minors, and whose performance has dropped sharply since he has gone through the league a second time, you’d certainly have to pick the latter. Hopefully his first trip to Colorado Springs will help him sort it all out sooner rather than later.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 53 min play time.)

But we are not to the collapse point yet. At the moment, the Pirates are 29-15 and tied with the Reds for second in the National League Central, 1.5 games back from the Cardinals. They are managing this despite giving Jonathan Sanchez four starts. A.J. Burnett, of all people, has carried the pitching staff (although Jeff Locke has also been good, ERA-wise). On offense, Starling Marte, Russell Martin, and Gaby Sanchez have been off to surprisingly hot starts, which has helped, too. The Pirates are outplaying their run differential at the moment, but those wins are in the bank, and they are currently projected to finish with 87 wins. That might very well end up looking silly at the end of the year, but for now, I’m sure Pirates fans will take it.

What is striking about the Pirates hanging in there so far this season is that they have done it without Andrew McCutchen repeating his MVP-level performance from last year, when he hit .327/.400/.553 (158 wRC+) with 31 home runs. McCutchen has hardly been bad in 2013 — .291/.353/.477 (128 wRC+) with his usual good base running is plenty from a center fielder. It is a bit surprising, as someone mentioned to me, to see the Pirates in the mix for the division without McCutchen carrying the team.

It would be worth looking at the other players mentioned above to see what is going on with them, and perhaps that is for another post. Today I simply want to see what is going on with McCutchen — what has and has not changed, in terms of his rate stats, from last year, and what it might indicate about his performance going forward.

I have been doing a number of posts along similar lines as this one recently, but I do find it interesting. We are just getting to the point in the season where certain peripherals are starting to be indicative with respect to possible changes in a player’s true talent. While the sample is still far too small to say that McCutchen is a different hitter now that he was last season, he has been (as opposed to necessarily will be) a very different hitter in key categories. But, as we will see, that has not been all bad.

As in most players’ career years, McCutchen had an exceptionally high BABIP last year at .375. This season he is down to .301 — certainly not bad, but not high. It is hard to think of a true-talent .375 BABIP hitter in baseball these days — well, maybe Joey Votto. McCutchen is right-handed, which probably works against him in that regard. On the other hand, he is fast, and his batted-ball profile is that of an above-average BABIP sort of hitter: plenty of line drives (especially this season) and not too many infield flies. His career BABIP is .324, and at 26, he is not at an age where one would expect a decline. If .375 is not a realistic number for McCutchen’s true-talent BABIP, something a higher than his current 2013 number is reasonable to expect.

However, one distinct issue with McCutchen in 2013 as opposed to 2012 is his failure to hit balls out of play with the same frequency. His isolated power is down to .186 from last season’s .226. He is actually hitting doubles and triples on hits in play at a greater rate this season. When he does finish a plate appearance with contact, the ball is not leaving the park with the same frequency. Last season his rate was almost seven percent, and in 2011 it was about five percent. This year it is down to about four percent. Whether or not this is due to a change in his swing or something else is something for others to evaluate.

McCutchen has also been more aggressive this year, swinging at pitches more often, which has led to the lowest single-season walk rate of his career to date at just over eight percent (he was in double digits for all of his previous seasons). The news is not all bad on the plate discipline front. For one thing (aside from sample size), I have seen at least some research that indicates veterans who see a single-season dip in their walk rate tend to return to more strongly the previous walk rates than as Marcel-type weighting would indicate. (I used to have this link to this old research of MGL’s, but cannot find it at the moment.)

Of additional interest with respect to McCutchen’s plate approach, despite his lowered walk rate, is his contact rate, which actually was at a career low last year, and this year is back at its highest level since 2010. Unsurprisingly, his strikeout rate is way down from the last two years, and is currently at its single-season low, at about 11 percent. As I have harped on lately and is hopefully well-known from the research others have done, contact and strikeout rates stabilize very quickly relative to other metrics.

So how does it all balance out for McCutchen? It would be nice to have his power from last season back, but while power does not typically fluctuate like, say, BABIP, it is likely that last season was probably (although not certainly, of course — and at 26, he may have some growth remaining in that areas) on the high end of what one should expect from McCutchen when it comes to hitting home runs. His BABIP was also on the high side in 2012 — multiple things usually come together when a player has a monster season, but this year it might be a bit low given his skills, at least so far.

The lower walk rate is a bit troubling, but the lower strikeout rate McCutchen is a potentially very positive development. He may not be hitting as many home runs per ball in play, but not striking out gives him a chance to hit home runs and everything else since he is putting it into play more often. How does it all balance out? It probably does not mean he is likely to be as good as least year. It would be nice to have the power back. But putting the ball into play more often is a very positive development if it holds. Moreover, even if that performance was over his head, the sort of power McCutchen displayed last year at 25 has not completely disappeared, and may rear its head again to some extent.

The Pirates likely do not have 2012 McCutchen still with them. But the 2013 version, like the pre-2012 version which it resembles, has its own considerable charms. McCutchen is not be “carrying” the team (whatever that really means), but he is certainly doing his part, and is likely to be a big part of whatever success the Pirates have this year.

Earlier in the week, Dave Cameron discussed Andre Ethier being “eminently available” after comments and a benching by Manager Don Mattingly. Combine losing with mammoth contracts and the potential for roster shakeup seems inevitable. No individual stands to gain more than Yasiel Puig if this occurs.

But is Puig ready? From a baseball standpoint, yes. From a maturity standpoint, perhaps not.

In spring training, the baseball community saw the best of Puig on a daily basis. When one hits .517/.500/.828, there’s really no room for a cold spell. And while this provided a glimpse of his immense ceiling, baseball is ultimately a game of failure. How Puig responds to the inevitable failures that baseball pushes upon him may determine just how good he eventually becomes.

I was in attendance to watch Puig on May 8th against the Mobile BayBears (Double-A Arizona Diamondbacks), where he went 1 for 5, with his lone hit being a laser to center field, showing the tools that could make him a star. The rest of the game, however, Puig did nothing but draw negative attention to himself, beginning with a strikeout looking in the first inning. With a 1-0 count, top prospect Archie Bradley attacked Puig with fastballs on the inner half. Three 92-95 mph fastballs later and the right fielder took a slow walk back to the dugout with a runner on second and one out. Bradley is a terrific prospect, but the majors are full of pitchers who can do what Bradley did to Puig in that at-bat.

In the third inning, Puig was first pitch swinging with two outs and Joc Pederson on first base. Down four early, it’s a borderline situation to steal considering Pederson’s ability to score from first on an extra base hit and the risk of running into an out. But against a new pitcher, seeing a pitch or two would have afforded Pederson a chance to attempt a steal while Puig worked on timing him. Instead, he rolled over on an 88 mph fastball (a far cry from the 92-95 Bradley was throwing), resulting in a 6-4 force out.

Is this nitpicking? Absolutely. And while one could argue this wasn’t an example of explicitly bad baseball, it is the kind of thing that will get nitpicked once he gets to the big leagues and is asked to help turn around a $200 million disappointment.

Puig’s single was in the sixth with Pederson on second and no out. Down 4-0, there was little reason for him not to “grip it and rip it.”

After a 16-pitch walk by Pederson which included 11 foul balls, Puig faced a new pitcher with two outs and the bases loaded. After fouling off the first pitch, Puig did this after a questionable check swing strike.

Puig put the next pitch in play for another ground ball to shortstop to end the inning. Given the way in which he had just shown up the umpire, the ball could have been thrown behind Puig’s head and the umpire might have called strike three. Some umpires would not have even given Puig the chance to see another pitch and ejected him on the spot. Reacting that way to a called strike is simply poor judgment.

In the ninth, Puig worked a 3-1 count before grounding out to shortstop again. Late in the game and down by one, not running hard through first base was the stamp on a day where Puig’s body language and effort were simply not a match for his physical talents. Outside of his at bats, Puig was consistently the last player in the dugout between innings and could frequently be seen with his head in hands. In right field, he had the longest distance to run to reach the third base dugout, but breaking a slow jog at the third base line to walk the rest of the way does nothing but draw negative attention.

In this particular game, his frustration bubbled over onto the field and presented as immaturity. In fairness, many of us would struggle with similar issues if we had a $42 million dollar contract in hand at 22, and Puig is hardly the only immature kid in professional sports. But, on the big stage of the Major Leagues, this act won’t fly.

Even after the game, I witnessed Puig make a pair of kids wait 15 minutes or more for autographs as he toyed with his smartphone 10 feet away. I say “or more” because I was able to move my car, interview Archie Bradley, and the kids were still waiting as I left the ballpark. Both boys were respectful and patient while Puig went about his business like they did not exist. As a professional baseball player, one has to expect every moment at the ballpark will be scrutinized.

Baseball players do not develop the skills of a Yasiel Puig without a considerable amount of effort and determination. Without a doubt, the Dodgers outfielder wants to improve and puts pressure on himself to produce. However, he can do this without being the center of attention at all times. After all, he’s talented enough to consistently be the center of attention for all the right reasons.