Pirates Front Office Weighs In On McCutchen Hitting Second
PITTSBURGH (93-7 The FAN) - Monday marks the third game this spring Pirates center fielder Andrew McCutchen will hit second in the lineup.
McCutchen has two at bats in that slot since 2010 and only hit there in only 19 of his 1,037 career major league games.
However the All-Star seems unaffected by the change.
"Baseball is baseball, they are going to pitch to you and you gotta to hit it," McCutchen deadpanned as he's homered twice at the two spot this Spring. "The only difference is instead of three, you are two. Nothing else changes, you don't deviate from what you did before. Just go out there and still have the same approach and just battle at the plate."
This seems increasingly a possibility for the season with McCutchen batting second, manager Clint Hurdle says he likes the run scoring opportunities for McCutchen, adding he will be put in a position to score more runs than anytime before in his career.
Lineup change would allow Starling Marte and Gregory Polanco to run more, something Huntington said they didn't do last year in front of McCutchen.
"There is 162 times a year that Andrew McCutchen comes to the plate with the threat of nobody on and 2 out," Huntington said. "How do we minimize those opportunities, how do we get our best players, or players that get on base the most, the most opportunities to get on base."
Part of this decision goes back to economics, as the Pirates spent time this winter with their analytics staff and baseball people discussing various lineup options.
"The reality is we are always going to have to find small ways to get better, whether it's how we do things or who's doing them," GM Neal Huntington said. "We always have to find a way to maximize and as we've talked about, what is another little way to get better, creative lineup."
"I never anticipate moving things around until circumstances make you look to it," Hurdle said. "I just want to see it play out and when we decide to go with what we are going to go, we are going to give it some length, give it some time."
"It's something we've actually talked about for years, as we look at this group, and finding more offensive production in a perfect world," Huntington said. "Now we're working to see how it plays out in the real world."