When the Pittsburgh Pirates signed Clint Barmes last November, he was the team’s highest-paid player going into the season.  That obviously changed but thinking that Bob Nutting would stroke such a big check for a questionable shortstop was a bit puzzling,  The Pirates paid Barmes $5 million dollars for 2012 and will pay him $5.5 million in 2013.

Here was the company line:

“His makeup fits our club and our city. He’s a blue-collar kid who has had to scratch and claw and fight for everything he’s got.”  Clint Hurdle

The 32-year old shortstop has been the best defender according to some defensive metrics and in a recent interview with David Todd (linked in our Hub section if you missed it,) Neal Huntington sounded impressed with what Barmes has done this year.

We think it’s obvious Barmes hasn’t lived up to what he has been paid.   Heh, it’s not our cash, but maybe there is a way the Bucs could squeeze some more production from him this season?  Because let’s face it, should the Pirates make the postseason, like it or not, Barmes will be the guy playing short.

Having accepted that reality, we set out to dig some interesting facts based solely on his performance this season.

Clint Barmes is a frequent candidate for twitter frustration among Pirates fans.

We found some interesting things that you might enjoy.

1.  Let’s start in the present, Barmes has put up this line since the All-Star break:  .252/.290/.333/.624.  That surprised me a little bit, but we think it’s because in his last ten games he has hit just .212 with nine strikeouts, although he did walk twice on Wednesday.

2.  What is just mind fu## material is the fact he has ten walks and 93 strikeouts.

3.  Looking closer at the strikeouts, he has whiffed 25 % of the time against right handers, and 19 % against left handers.

4.  This might surprise you, it sure did me.  Against left handed pitching Barmes is .286/.348/.393 with a .741 OPS.  Pick yourself up off the floor now, we have more.

5.  With the bases empty, Barmes has 230 at-bats, his average is .183.  Practically an automatic out with 61 of those strikeouts (26.5% K rate)  coming in this situation.  How about a walk to get something going—hahahahahahaha!  He has three walks with nobody on base.

6.  When the Pirates load up the bases, who would you want to step to the plate based on what they have done this season?  Think before you answer.  Sure, #AlwaysSmooth banged a grand slam off the foul pole that one time for his first career granny, but certainly Barmes wouldn’t even be in your top five picks right?

With the bases drunk this season, Clint Barmes is batting .429 a remarkable 6-for-14 with 16 RBI!  In bases loaded situations, Barmes has an OPS over 1.000.  The guy has 41 RBI all season and 16 of them have come in huge situations with the bases full of Bucs??!

7.  In extra innings, Barmes is batting .500 with two doubles.

Looking at the offense, it’s apparent that 2012 is  just not where Barmes wants to be despite some small sample size “ice in his veins” situational numbers. We think it was obvious Barmes tried to impress early in the season, maybe as he tried to back up Clint Hurdle’s “Barmes is a guy who will bloody his nose for you,” quote that was heard about fifty times around town.

So, with a few left handers coming up this weekend,  perhaps Barmes will keep improving upon his numbers against lefties.  It’s all we can hope for really, that and hoping he gets a couple chances to improve upon those gaudy numbers he has delivered with the bases loaded.

We know the jump throw to first base will always be there.

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Clint Barmes offensive stats, when broken down month by month, are just ugly:

April:  .149/.186/.284-16K’s

May:  .189/.205/.257-23K’s

June:  .247/.274/.358-16K’s

July:  .233/.263/.274-10K’s

August:  .271/.295/.376-25K’s

Sept:  .250/.357/.250-3K’s

The Pittsburgh Pirates local guy had himself a big day at PNC Park. Neil Walker went 5-for-5 with a walk.

After the Pittsburgh Pirates calmed the fears of Pirates fans by erasing a 5-0 deficit, Steve Blass said that he saw Neil Walker in the Pirates locker room before the game.

“Walker was pumped up.  He was getting jiggy with it,” Blass said.

It made us laugh out loud, just gotta love Blass.

Walker went out and had a day.  A really big day, going 5-for-5 with a walk from his two spot in the Buccos lineup.

“The last six weeks, two months in particular, he’s probably swinging the bat offensively as good as any middle infielder in the game,” Hurdle said.

#Always Smooth Clint Barmes hit his first career grand slam off Ross Ohelndorf

Clint Barmes had the play of the day with a grand slam off the foul pole, continuing the ‘pole dancing’ theme of Pirates home runs this season.  Somebody should do a photoshop or a shirt or something.

The Pirates did something bizarro in the fourth – Barmes hit the grand slam and made the last out, as the Bucs sent 14 men to the plate.  The team plated nine runs, ending their three-game skid and throwing cold water on the six-game winning streak of the Friars.

A special “Thank you,” to Ross Ohlendorf.

Erik Bedard continued the recent tradition – four straight games now – of giving up a leadoff bomb.  Today’s homer came on the Bedard’s second pitch to Chris Denorfia.    It wouldn’t end there, as it took Bedard 38 pitches to give the Padres a 4-0 lead after a half of an inning.

Bedard went five innings, allowed five hits, and struckout six.  His arm might not longer be attached as he threw 44 curveballs.  Only 15 percent of them were strikes – which is even better, we guess.

It was far from pretty.  Bedard deserved better, but the thing we admire about the left hander is nothing fazes this guy.   One would think it’s going to be a few games until Barmes has two errors again.

Let’s just hope if he does, he comes back with another homer and of course, Walker gets jiggy with it again..

June 19, 2012; Pittsburgh, PA, USA; Pittsburgh Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez (24) singles against the Minnesota Twins during the sixth inning at PNC Park. The Pittsburgh Pirates won 7-2. Mandatory Credit: Charles LeClaire-US PRESSWIRE

If you didn’t hear about how bad the Pirates offense was in the first two months of the season, you must have just been locked in your room without access to a computer, cell phone, or radio. They were awful.

Guess what? June brought a new month and a new Pirates offense. The team has been doing well offensively, and not just well based on Pittsburgh standards. They’re hitting .264/.323/.447, the league average for this 2012 season is .253/.319/.402, so the Pirates are significantly better in all three categories.

Despite the hitting, they’re still striking out a good bit. In April and May they struck out 411 times in 50 games. That’s 8.22 times per game. In June they have struck out 128 times in 16 games, that’s 8.0 times, so just a tiny bit better. That’s not a huge concern when you’re scoring runs despite it though.

Here’s the list of the team’s offensive contributors this month:

McGehee: .356/.434/.622 3 HR 6 XBH
McCutchen: .333/.394/.619 4 HR 9 XBH
Walker: .303/.370/.455 2 HR 6 XBH
Jones: .310/.333/.500 2 HR 4 XBH
BarmeS: .286/.300/.408 HR 4 XBH
Harrison: .278/.409/.556 HR 3 2 XBH
Tabata: .271/.364/.375 0 HR 5 XBH
Alvarez: .244/.333/.578 4 HR 7 XBH
Presley: .232/.246/.482 3 HR 7 XBH
Barajas: .182/.229/.341 2 HR 3 XBH
Hague: .194/.216/.194 0 HR 0 XBH

The team has gotten SOMETHING out of everyone up there besides Hague, who has singled seven times in 36 at bats. Barajas has been awful this month but those two home runs have helped his slugging percentage up to .341 which isn’t as bad as it could be. Pedro’s been tearing the cover off the ball the last three games and looks confident again (who knows how long it’ll last though), and even Tabata and Barmes are showing good signs. It’s been a fun ride and the team has shown how easy it is for them to win when they score some runs.

They’re averaging 5.1 runs per game this month. If this team would have scored exactly five runs every single game this season, their record would be 48-18. That shows you a bit of how good the pitching has been.

It’s not going to be easy to keep that five runs per game mark up, but the longer they can, the longer they’ll be pushing themselves further and further above .500, because it’s really hard for this pitching staff to allow more than four runs in a game.