Cup of Joe: Starkey on sports in 350 words or less
The Pirates had the second-most strikeouts in the National League last season. They whiffed 1,422 times.
Add one more. Bob Nutting and Ben Cherington watched a fastball go right down the middle.
The Pirates desperately need a third baseman. Eugenio Suarez plays that position (sort of), but even if he wanted to DH, who cares? You fit him in, because above all the Pirates need power, even with the acquisitions of Brandon Lowe and Ryan O’Hearn.
If that guaranteed the end for Andrew McCutchen, so be it. Suarez hit 49 home runs last season, representing 42% of the Pirates’ total of 117 and one more than O’Hearn and Lowe combined.
Would the right-handed Suarez have hit that many playing half his games at PNC Park? Likely not. But I’d take 28 or 33 — and half the games aren’t at PNC Park.
Would he have played a robust third base? No. But the Pirates need power more than Ke’Bryan Hayes 2.0.
Is he 34 and coming off a rotten second half?
Yes. Did I mention he hit almost half as many home runs as the entire Pirates roster?
To add insult to injury, Suarez went to Cincinnati. The Reds made the playoffs last season under manager Terry Francona, a Pittsburgh native who might have replaced Derek Shelton here.
The Suarez offers reportedly were equal — one year, $15 million. How often is a 49 home-run guy available for that?
The Pirates should know that equal isn’t going to cut it when you’re a league laughingstock. You need to outbid people, maybe significantly.
They should have offered $2-4 million more or an extra year (Suarez and the Reds have a mutual option for 2027). It hardly would have bankrupted a franchise that again will operate on a puny Nutting payroll — a nut roll, you might say.
As ESPN’s Jeff Passan tweeted, “The best bat left on the market goes to Cincinnati.”
Maybe Suarez just wanted to return to a town where he played before. That’s fine. But I would have tempted him.
I would have swung the bat.