Pittsburgh Pirates: It is time to move on from Andrew McCutchen
Three years ago, the headline for this article would be insane. From his debut with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2009 through the 2014 season, Andrew McCutchen was hitting .299/.385/.498. However, between 2015 and this season, the 30-year-old outfielder is hitting .267/.361/.452. In 37 games played this season, McCutchen is off to his worse start.
The 2016 season was a steep drop from what the Pittsburgh Pirates and fans expected from Andrew McCutchen. His slash line at the end of the year was .256/.336/.430. Exacerbating this downward trend is the fact that McCutchen's bat speed is decreasing each year, wrote Alex Stumpf on FanGraphs.
| Year | Bat Speed (mph) | Exit Velocity (mph) |
|---|---|---|
| 2015 | 62.1 | 90.7 |
| 2016 | 61.2 | 89.6 |
| 2017 | 59.2 | 87.6 |
Unfortunately for McCutchen, teams have figured out that he is a pull-hitter. His career pull rate is 43.1 percent while his opposite-hit rate is 21.9 percent. Here is what his spray chart heatmap looks like from 2015 to 2017.
Team defenses are shifting against him with 28 of his 137 at-bats coming against the shift, according to Stumpf. To his detriment, he is hitting .107 against the shift.
As Stumpf pointed out, McCutchen is not hitting the ball hard enough or far enough. Though he put up double-digit home runs in 2015, it was the first season in which he stole fewer than 10 bases. In fact, he only swiped six. Not only is he slowing down at the plate but he is also trudging along the base paths as well.
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McCutchen's baserunning runs – a rate statistic that measure how effective a player is at producing runs while on base – is nowhere near the level it was at during his first two seasons.
In 2009 and 2010, the Bucs outfielder provided 4.0 and 4.1 BRR, respectively. Since then, however, he has hovered around 1 BRR, even providing negative runs via baserunning in four separate seasons with Pittsburgh.
How is he with the glove? Since his debut in 2009, Andrew McCutchen has been one of the worst among qualified defensive outfielders if ranked by UZR/150. In fact, when the number of innings played in the outfield is widened to at least 1,500 innings, he ranks as the 36th worst outfielder since 2009 according to FanGraphs.
This is potentially the last year on McCutchen's contract. The Pirates can exercise a team option for $14.5 million in 2018, or, they can buy out his contract for $1 million. He may show signs of life here and there over the course of the season and as his career progresses. But the trend over the last three years does not indicate such.
With the club's top prospect, Austin Meadows, expected to make his debut sometime this season and his projection as a "star-caliber" player, it is in the Pirates' best interest to let McCutchen go after this season.
