Pittsburgh Pirates Mailbag: Interest In Marte? When Will Hayes See Pittsburgh? And More!

Welcome back to the weekly Pittsburgh Pirates mailbag here at Rum Bunter

Could the Braves be interested in Starling Marte? When will Ke’Bryan Hayes make it to Pittsburgh?  How could the middle infield shake out? And more in this week’s Pittsburgh Pirates mailbag.

As always, thank you to everyone who submitted questions this week. Now, let’s dive in!

This is something that Nick wrote about when Josh Donaldson signed with the Twins. With the Braves failing to re-sign Donaldson they are now in search of an additional impact bat for their lineup. This bat could very well be Marte.

Marte and the Braves certainly makes sense and seems like a match. The Braves could use another outfielder in addition to an impact bat, and Marte fits both of these needs.

Furthermore, the Braves having the combination of a young catching and pitching prospects to get a Marte deal done. Atlanta has two top notch catching prospects in Shea Langeliers and William Contrears, as well as pitching prospects Ian Anderson, Kyle Wright, Bryse Wilson, and Kyle Muller. If the Pirates were offered a package built around one of the two catchers and one of these pitchers, Ben Cherington would certainly have a lot to think about.

As the Pirates continue to shop Marte, it would not be a surprise to see the Braves enter the fray.

Hayes is arguably the Pirates top position player prospect and one of the top 100 prospects in baseball for a reason. That said, he still has things to work on in the minor leagues. Specifically, he needs to grow more as a hitter.

With Double-A Altoona in 2018 Hayes appeared to be turning a corner as a hitter. He slashed .293/.375/.444 with a .151 ISO and a 129 wRC+. However, with Triple-A Indy in 2019 these numbers took a step back. While his .150 ISO remained strong, his walk rate dropped from 16.7% to 9.0%, his slugging percentage dipped from .444 to .415, and his wRC+ from 129 to 92.

Defense will never be a question for Hayes. Honestly, he is already good enough to win a Gold Glove at the MLB level. What the 22-year-old needs to do is develop into a more consistent offensive threat.

Hayes is at a young enough age that there is plenty of time for that offense to develop. So, with the Pirates not in a position to compete in 2020 there is not need to rush. Let him get his at bats at Triple-A and continue to develop. Then when he is ready, which will hopefully be some time in 2020, you call him up to Pittsburgh and hand him the reigns at the hot corner.

This will be interesting to watch in 2020. Throughout the offseason the Pirates have been shopping Adam Fraizer. Odds are, a big reason for this has been to attempt to create a spot for Cole Tucker.

Kevin Newman burst onto the scene in 2019 as one of the Pirates best players, and the former first round pick won the shortstop job in the process. Tucker is another former first round pick that showed flashes in 2019 and finished the season strong, combine this with him being a defensive wizard at shortstop and you can see why the Pirates would like to slide Newman to second base and roll with Tucker at shortstop.

This move, however, is tough to do with Frazier on the roster. He is coming off a 2+ fWAR season and earned a big pay raise in arbitration this off-season. But with his position flexibility he could have value on the trade market. Even if Frazier is not traded it would not be a shocker to see him move back to a utility role with Tucker and Newman in the middle infield.

As for Oneil Cruz, he is likely still a year away. He has zero Triple-A at bats and his long term position remains up in the air. It would be a surprise to see the slugging prospect factor into the equation before 2021.

Well, first off, when the Pirates hired Derek Shelton I am confident that they were open with him about their aspirations and plans for 2020. While it is not what fans want to hear, all signs point toward the Pirates looking to treat 2020 as some sort of a rebuilding year, and there is no chance Shelton was not made aware of this during the interview process.

Like Cherington, Shelton knew he was taking on a multi-year job when he came to Pittsburgh. It is now up to these two, the rest of the coaching staff, the minor league staff, and the scouting department to build the Pirates back up. While the Pirates have some good young pieces that could help speed this process up, it is still at least a two or so year rebuild.

Yes, the Pirates recently hired Oz Ocampo away from the Astros to be part of their scouting department. However, there is no sign that he was involved in that mess down in Houston. It appears that it was largely driven by then bench coach Alex Cora and the players. With the amount of dirt being spilled, if Ocampo was involved it would likely be known by now.

That will do it for this week. If you ever have a question for the mailbag look for out Tweet asking for questions each week. Also, do not be afraid to ever ask a question on Twitter or Facebook.